Gaming has more to it than fun. Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd, an ADAG gaming portal, in a corporate social responsibility (CSR) endeavour, has joined hands with a Mumbai-based NGO, Population First, and has created a game called 'Laadli', a move against sex identification and female foeticide. The game, launched on May 10, 2008, is in a question-answer format. The player needs to answer the questions based on statistics related to female foeticide, male to female ratio, sex selection etc. 'Laadli' was sent as an entry at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for National Awards for Creative Excellence for promoting the social cause and will be conferred with the same on June 30, 2008, in Mumbai. |
Gaming is being used as a 'media platform' to convey different messages to the youth like music was being used earlier. The company believes that gaming being an important fun activity for young people provides an accessible point of contact with the youth, making games an ideal platform to educate and engage them on social issues.
Social awareness messages are generally considered preachy. The fun, humour and thrill involved in gaming take the preachy element out of the moral preaching job.
This is the second novel effort by Zapak in the series of social cause-related games, the first being 'Play it Safe' (launched on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2007) based on the concept of safe sex.
Numbers stand for the purpose of the company. 'Laadli' has attracted 5,23,746 and 'Play it Safe' 10,33,993 unique gamers, since their inception.
Rohit Sharma, COO, Zapak, says, "Youth is primarily the target audience for Zapak and educating them while they play games is a unique way of imparting knowledge.
Zapak is a socially conscious company and wants to associate with pro-social causes to give back to the society. NGOs identify and reach out to the audience we have on the site and we would love to associate with them."
The company plans to continue creating games in the edutainment genre and is looking at creating a whole subsection dedicated to games conceptualised on social causes.
