Games Get AIDS…Sort Of. Un Juego De Internet Para Informar A La Juventud.
Hoy MTVu y la Fundacion Keiser anunciarion un nuevo proyecto digital que tiene como objetivo informar a la juventud sobre el riesgo del SIDA. Este mini-juego te pone a adivinar si cierto individuo esta o no infectado con el virus del VIH. Artistas de la talla de Wyclef y Fall Out Boy lanzaran una campaña de propaganda para que el mundo se entere sobre esta nuevo juego en linea.
Si tienes mucha curiosidad de lo que se trate prueba el juego en www.posornot.com
Well MTVu and Keiser Explain their misson below:
mtvU & Kaiser Family Foundation Launch POSorNOT.com To Challenge Stigma, Fight Spread Of HIV/AIDS
Wyclef Jean, Fall Out Boy, Will.i.am, Alyssa Milano, Say Anything, Perez Hilton, Angels & Airwaves, Atmosphere and Many More Helping Fuel Game’s Viral Spread
Developed in Partnership With POZ Magazine, “Pos or Not” Confronts Stereotypes Through Personal Stories of Americans Living With and Without HIV/AIDS
New York, NY – April 30, 2008 – mtvU, MTV’s Peabody and Emmy Award-winning college network, and the Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with POZ Magazine, today unveiled “Pos or Not” (www.PosorNot.com): an online game that challenges stereotypes and breaks down the barriers that may prevent people from talking openly about HIV/AIDS, getting tested, and using protection.
People from across the U.S. – half of whom are living with HIV and half who are not – share parts of their lives for “Pos or Not” by divulging their HIV status to help dispel myths and misconceptions about HIV and AIDS. Players confront their own HIV stereotypes as they guess whether a profiled participant is positive or negative based only on a photo and a few personal details, such as what they do on the weekends or their favorite kind of music.
Among the participants who are positive, we’re provided a window on the circumstances in which they learn their HIV status – including after the birth of a child, calls from ex-lovers, and long-postponed HIV tests. HIV negative participants share how the disease has touched their lives, claiming boyfriends, girlfriends, mothers and best friends. Every individual stresses that HIV affects everyone and that the only way to truly know your own or some else’s HIV status is by getting tested.
While “Pos or Not” confronts stereotypes and popular misconceptions about HIV/AIDS, it also provides users with information about HIV prevention, as well as local HIV and STD testing resources from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). In addition, players are invited to join the game to help underscore that there’s no way to tell a person’s HIV status from how they look or what they do.Several of the most requested acts on college campuses and major pop culture figures are also lending their efforts to help stoke the online viral spread of “Pos or Not,” including Wyclef Jean, Fall Out Boy, Will.i.am, Alyssa Milano, Say Anything, Perez Hilton, Angels & Airwaves, Atmosphere, The Spill Canvas, 30 Seconds to Mars, Aesop Rock, Motion City Soundtrack, All Time Low and Rise Against. Beginning today, these and many others are sending the game to their fans, families and friends, via a feature that allows users to share “Pos or Not” with everybody in their e-mail address books with only a couple clicks.
“‘Pos or Not’ is an urgent analogue to HotorNot.com, designed to capture college students’ attention and harness the viral nature of the Web in the ongoing fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS,’” said Stephen Friedman, GM, mtvU. “‘Pos or Not’ was created to shatter myths, challenge assumptions and promote responsible sexual behavior – and we salute every participant, as well as the team of college students who conceived the game, for breathing life into it.”
“‘Pos or Not’ confronts the stigma and stereotypes that fuel the continued spread of this disease some 25 years since the first diagnosis,” said Tina Hoff, vice president and director of Entertainment Media Partnerships at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “‘Pos or Not’ has the powerful effect of allowing young people across the country to learn more about those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and in doing so hopefully form a more personal understanding of the disease.”
“The HIV-positive community has the unique ability to debunk myths and dissolve dangerous stereotypes around HIV/AIDS,” said Regan Hofmann, editor-in-chief of POZ magazine. “Having a face-to-face encounter with a person living with the virus can also positively affect the choices people make regarding behaviors that can lead to their contracting HIV. I think that ‘Pos or Not’ is a wonderful way to allow the HIV community to serve as an awareness and prevention tool for those who are – but who do not believe themselves to be – at risk.”
“Pos or Not” was inspired by the winners of the “Change the Course of HIV Challenge,” a nationwide competition that asked college students to propose a viral, Web-based game that would creatively engage people to help combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. The winning concept was submitted by a team from the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy and included designers Brendan McLeod and Matthew Laurence, programmers Chris Camilleri and Gabriel Montagne, and artist Chip Lundell.
College students helped conceive “Pos or Not” and are pioneering the future of digital activism every day, so mtvU, the Kaiser Family Foundation and POZ Magazine are calling on users to imagine ways the game can be even more viral and impactful. Anyone with a vision for how “Pos or Not” can be effectively executed on other platforms (mobile, social networks, etc.), remixed, or in any way serve as an even more powerful call to action on the HIV/AIDS epidemic are encouraged to send ideas to MyIdeas@PosorNot.com. mtvU and the Kaiser Family Foundation are committing to incorporate the best concepts into future versions of the game – or a completely re-imagined iteration – so it continues to evolve and reach more people.
“Pos or Not” follows on the success of “Darfur is Dying” (www.DarfurisDying.com), mtvU’s student-developed videogame – now played more than 3 million times by over 1.5 million people – designed to spread awareness of and spur action to end the genocide in Darfur. “Darfur is Dying” is a narrative-based simulation where the user, from the perspective of a displaced Darfurian, negotiates forces that threaten the survival of his or her refugee camp. The game is a key element of mtvU’s nearly four-year, student-led, Emmy Award-winning Sudan campaign.
Representatives from mtvU and the Kaiser Family Foundation will be presenting “Pos or Not” at the fourth annual Games for Health Conference, taking place May 8 – 9 in Baltimore, Maryland. To learn more about the conference, please visit http://www.gamesforhealth.org.
