Thriving in Games Group (prev. Fair Play Alliance)

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street? 🚏 Almost a year ago I met with Michael Preston and discussed the possibility of hosting an event 🚦 Last night, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop shared their collaboration with UNICEF and Thriving in Games Group (prev. Fair Play Alliance) 👾 Joining Thriving in Games Group (prev. Fair Play Alliance) lead to some incredible opportunities, community development, and collaboration in gaming Main takeaway - a lot of people care about digital thriving and there is more than enough opportunity to help players thrive More to come on this event, for now, thanks to Michael Preston, Sarah Jacobstein, Josh Chapdelaine for organizing. Special thanks to our content experts Patricia Noel, LMSW, Noelle Posadas Shang, Joi Podgorny, and Shuli Gilutz, Ph.D. Also, if you are of a certain age, reading that first line definitely put a song in your head 😀 #DigitalThriving #prosocial #SesameStreet

⚕️ How can game designers embrace (and avoid) toxic positivity in games for emotional well-being? Hannah C. Gunderman, Ph.D. explores... 👾 How can generic affirmations and labeling emotions as positive or negative harm mental health? 👾 How can success be measured by the ways players feel validated in their struggles? 👾 How can emotion-neutral language and realistic affirmations help players recognize health struggles aren’t individual failings? Read “Toxic Positivity (and How to Avoid It) in Games for Emotional Well-Being” in the Digital Thriving Playbook now: https://lnkd.in/exVuxKHm

🕹️ What if the most powerful moments in games aren't about what you show players, but about the gaps you leave for them to fill with their own meaning? 🪞 Claris Cyarron and Lucas Johnson detail how conversations in games can provoke player introspection and critical thought, holding space for reflection and transformative experiences. 📘 Read more from “Creating Safer Spaces for Provocative Conversations” and discover more than 100 resources in the Digital Thriving Playbook: https://lnkd.in/ep68qG9f

What if every game session left players feeling more capable, more connected, and more themselves? That’s the promise of digital thriving: an outcome where online spaces are intentionally designed to foster well-being, accomplishment, belonging, and meaningful relationships. The Digital Thriving Playbook makes this practical for teams shipping real products. 🗑️ Aim beyond “less toxicity.” Moderation alone isn’t the finish line. Design for social systems that actively produce positive value—so the experience is more than “it doesn’t suck.” 🎮Player dynamics is a craft. Great UX is hard; great social UX is harder. The playbook curates research, patterns, and examples so teams don’t keep re-learning the same lessons the hard way. 📈It’s good for business. Communities that help people thrive see better retention, organic acquisition, and broader audiences—especially with Gen Z & Alpha valuing socially conscious brands. Why this matters: games are the richest testbed we have for digital society. If we get social design right here, we level up the wider web. 👉 Learn more in the Digital Thriving Playbook, link below #DigitalThriving #GameDesign #Community

"People are hardwired for thriving. We all want it, and we go back to the people and the places that make us feel good about ourselves and our lives and those interactions. This is important because it brings us to the simplest business case that I could ever give you. They thrive. We thrive." - Weszt Hart, The Digital Thriving Summit In his groundbreaking talk, Hart discusses the Rafting Model — a game-changing framework that challenges developers, community managers, and digital creators to rethink player behavior from a whole-river perspective. Hart explains why starting upstream — with intentional systems for trust, safety, inclusion, and teamwork — isn’t just good ethics... it’s smart business. Link to the full talk in the comments.

Grateful to bring researchers, tech leaders, and nonprofit advocates around one table to reimagine better online play. 3 takeaways 👾Design, not just policy: Build safety and prosocial cues into core mechanics—not just community guidelines. 🙌 Shared outcomes win: Align studios, researchers, and nonprofits on retention and wellbeing. 🎮Ship small, learn fast: Pilot with cohorts, measure impact, then scale what works. We’ve got a way to go on harm prevention, but nights like this make the path feel real. What gaming frameworks have you seen move the needle? Thriving in Games Group (prev. Fair Play Alliance) #GameDev #TrustAndSafety #DigitalThriving

“The alarming rise in burnout among those dedicated to building thriving player communities is a wake-up call. We must acknowledge the tangible cost and indispensable value of these contributions while championing the well-being of those doing the work.” - Kimberly Voll, PhD (CEO, Brace Yourself Games & Co-Founder, Thriving in Games Group (prev. Fair Play Alliance). In "The Unsung Heroes of Gaming: The High Cost of Player Well-Being," Voll sounds the alarm with three urgent questions the gaming industry must address now: 👾 How can the industry acknowledge that marginalized professionals in gaming carry a disproportionate amount of trust & safety work while facing increased harassment and systemic inequities?  👾 How have healthier online gaming communities obscured the hidden cost of the burnout of professionals employed to design these spaces? 👾 How does daily exposure to disturbing content, hate speech, and harassment effect community managers and moderators? 📘 Read more now and discover more than 115 resources from the Digital Thriving Playbook:  https://lnkd.in/eh-iJ6Fv

What if gaming could be designed to help everyone thrive—not just profit? Digital thriving is the intentional creation of online spaces that foster well-being of users, communities, and the developers who build them. In gaming this means aligning the needs of all stakeholders—players, communities, and developers—to create truly awesome experiences for everyone. This is a major goal at Thriving in Games Group (prev. Fair Play Alliance) This concept came alive for me this weekend this past weekend when I had the chance to attend an event hosted by Sync in NY on the front end of the United Nations General Assembly. Supported by the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), there's some new research on Gen Alpha and Digital Wellbeing that is worth a read. I'm grateful to the many people who work in this space and the opportunities to spend time with them on projects like this one. The future looks pretty bright based upon the amazing professionals who are working on these challenging issues. When it comes to promoting and embedding elements of digital thriving in games, it takes all of us Research in the link below - what's your hope for digital thriving and the future of games? #DigitalThriving #UNGA #DigitalWellBeing

How do game designers create environments that generate prosocial behaviors more than they realize? 👾 Weszt Hart, Digital Thriving Playbook author and co-project lead & Head of Player Dynamics at Riot Games, details 25 examples of prosocial behaviors in games ranging from Elden Ring to Left 4 Dead 2. In this resource, you'll discover... 🕹️ 25 examples of prosocial behaviors in games 🕹️ How players helping themselves can oftentimes help other players 🕹️ How prosocial design has been integral to gaming for decades – and ways you can consider designing these behaviors into your games. 📘 Read more and discover more than 115 resources in the Digital Thriving Playbook: https://lnkd.in/guteZfNa