Gaming and playing games, whether digital or analog, has been part of our professional lives for a long time.
Paul Cossmer (on the left) is a trained educator (Master of Education) and has been working as a freelance educator specialized in Games since 2019. In projects such as “Demokratie Leben”, “Stärker mit Games 1&2”, “Games machen Schule”, ‘Spielemobile’ and “Projekttage Games”, he has gained a wealth of experience in helping young people use games in a self-directed and reflective manner. The focus here was on reflective processing of the young people’s living environment.
Jakob Saß (On the right) is a historian and public historian. He deals with the processing and presentation of historical events. In his dissertation, he focused on the German Armed Forces and right-wing extremism after 1945. In projects such as “Mit Games Erinnern” and “Projekttage Games”, he teaches young people about the role games play in the culture of remembrance.
Both of our founders saw a potential of games and how they can be used. Independently of each other, they wanted to start a company on the same topic: using games to impart knowledge. Found by chance, their joint journey began.
As a non-profit organization, we want to take a clear stance. We want to be transparent about what we stand for and what represents us as a company. We have noticed that many companies simply state, “We are committed to fighting racism,” but do not have a proper action plan. We want to change that in our company.
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Games are a new model for education.
All learners should be able to learn with games.
Those who work with technology must also use it responsibly so that future generations can also benefit from the planet.
If you want to bridge the gap between gaming and education, you have to be part of these relevant communities.
We want to reflect on our actions regularly.
Our public relations work is designed to create a community that wants to learn through games.
Working with innovative teaching methods means providing sound didactic and technical justification. Based on a game analysis according to the model developed by Clara Fernández-Vara in 2019, we analyze games for use in the classroom.
We are aware of the current situation regarding equipment in schools. We therefore want to ensure schools with limited or poor equipment can also use our concepts. To this end, we offer advice to schools to enable the use of games in schools.
Teaching is a collaborative experience between teachers and students. We want our teaching concepts to remain practical so that students can relate to them in their everyday lives. We also want to create guides, challenges, and game analyses to help teachers familiarize themselves with the game they want to use.
Games are mostly intended for entertainment. By combining them with learning, we want to ensure that the fun of playing rubs off on learning and increases motivation.
Exclusive use of serious games leads to “compulsive gaming,” as Marc Motyka calls it. Young people have no connection to these serious games in their everyday lives. We want to work with games that are also interesting to young people and that they play outside of school.
As employees in our company, we have been socialized and raised in a system in which systematic oppression is internalized. In our corporate structure, we therefore want to reflect on our own privileges through regular feedback loops.
Certain perspectives cannot be seen by reading about those affected or through empathy of those not affected. For perspectives of marginalized groups, we want to cooperate with associations and companies led by marginalized people.
When it comes to forms of discrimination, we as a company do not want to consider a single form in isolation, but rather examine them as a whole. In doing so, we want to think intersectionally in our work.
We are committed to gender equality. This begins with language. Therefore, we will use the passive form of nouns whenever possible. If there is no passive form, we will use a colon, e.g., in the case of Schüler:innen (students).
To combat classism, we want to make our services available to everyone. To this end, we want to charge little to no admission for our services.
With our planet's finite resources, we want to make use of what has already caused CO2 emissions. When purchasing technology, we will prioritize second-hand devices and thus protect the environment. We want to make this possible either through manufacturers, third-party providers, or donations.
In workshops, materials are often left behind or unused by students. We want to reuse materials which have been used, whether in recurring workshops or for research purposes.
Students often feel that they are doing worthless or meaningless work. We want to reward their work alongside their learning achievements. We do this through anonymous publications in research and on our website.
Education is for everyone. Of course, as a company, we also have to be able to cover the associated costs in order to sustain ourselves. However, we want to make our offerings available to everyone. For every workshop concept we create for a game, there is a free version available for download. Schools and teachers who are able to support us can purchase a premium version.
Dealing with each other as equals requires regular communication. We want to promote education and gaming together with our clients. We want to pull together.
Whether it's AAA studios, medium-sized publishers, or one-person development teams, we want to treat everyone equally in our communications. We want to enrich education with high-quality games.
Our concepts are tested by our partner schools and published as test material under Creative Commons license. This allows every teacher and developer to see what we want to achieve.
Indie studios are usually short on cash. We want to make it possible for small studios to cooperate with us too. To this end, we offer special conditions for indies so that their games can also promote education.
We don't want to keep what others earn at Game Change Lab a secret. That's why we are transparent about our salary structures internally. Every employee can see how much everyone else earns, including management. This allows each person to make an informed decision when it comes to salary negotiations. We base our salaries on the TV-L collective agreement.
We are divided into different departments within the company so that there is a clear distribution of tasks. We also know that it is not always possible to talk to everyone. It is important to us to promote an open corporate culture so that anyone can ask anyone else for help, regardless of which team they are in. Can an intern ask one of the managing directors for help and explanations? At Game Change Lab, this is possible.
As a company, we want to create a working environment that values the mental health, family life, everyday routines, and self-fulfillment of our employees. 10% of paid working hours can be spent on personal projects or used to reward employees and their families for their care work.
As a company, we believe that you should not work if you are in physical pain. For people who suffer from period pain, additional sick days are available without a doctor's note.
In order to reflect on work we do in the company and processes involved, we want to undergo regular supervision so that we can develop the best possible process for us.
Dealing with each other as equals requires regular communication. We want to promote education and gaming together with our clients. We want to pull together.
Breaking down complex games is important in order to show students aspects of a game that can be used for learning.
Most of our work involves playing and reflecting on our game. We want to engage in conversation with people about the game through parasocial relationships and community work. To this end, we want to talk to people who are not in school through parasocial relationships in order to gain different perspectives. It helps us to engage in conversation with people. The principle is: we learn from stories in games.
In addition to games, we want to promote discussion about positive value of games. Through discussions, lectures, conferences, and panels, we want to work together with business and science.
