Our featured publications include:

Locally Played: Real-World Games for Stronger Places and Communities. In this 2020 book from MIT Press, Benjamin Stokes describes the rise of games that can connect strangers across zip codes, support the “buy local” economy, and build cohesion in the fight for equity. With a mix of high- and low-tech games, Stokes shows, cities can tap into the power of play for the good of the group, including healthier neighborhoods and stronger communities. By pairing design principles with a range of empirical methods, Stokes investigates the impact of several games, including Macon Money, where an alternative currency encouraged people to cross lines of socioeconomic segregation in Macon, Georgia; Reality Ends Here, where teams in Los Angeles competed to tell multimedia stories around local mythology; and Pokémon GO, appropriated by several cities to serve local needs through local libraries and open street festivals. See also: video of book talk (YouTube via Games for Change Festival).

2018 report: “Cities Remix a Playful Platform: Experiments to Embed Pokemon GO.” Funded by Niantic and the Knight Foundation, this is the first major report to show how city government, festivals and libraries can align AR (augmented reality) fans and platforms with their local goals. Based on research in five cities, the report shows how cities must be proactive to align games with their own campaigns and events — from walking tours at neighborhood libraries to Open Street Festivals.

2016 report: “Impact” with Games — rethinking “impact” with games, and how the right language is crucial to overcome fragmentation. In partnership with Games for Change, with funding from the Packard Foundation.

Additional selected publications

• Stokes, B., Bar, F., Baumann, K., Caldwell, B., & Schrock, A. (2021). Urban furniture in digital placemaking: Adapting a storytelling payphone across Los Angeles. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 27(3), 711-726. Read the proofs on ResearchGate. See also: the Leimert Phone Company team, and the contents for the full special issue on digital placemaking.
• Stokes, B., Arroyo, H., Loewen, M., Stevenson, T., Karr, C. J. (2020). A Playful City in the Cards: Sharing Power in Game Design by Extending the Card Metaphor. CHI PLAY ’20: Extended Abstracts of the 2020 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 375–378. Presented virtually at CHI PLAY, Ottawa, Canada.
• Stokes, B. (2019). Localism with (Serious) Games: Horizontal Channels and Models. DiGRA ’19 – Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference. Presented at Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix, Kyoto, Japan.
• Stokes, B., Williams, O., Arroyo, H., & Loewen, M. (2019). Neighborhood Circulation of Civic Stories: A Trans-Local Platform. Proceedings of CLS ’19. Presented at the Connected Learning Summit, Irvine, CA.
• Stokes, B., Baumann, K., & Bar, F. (2018). Placemaking across Platforms: Playing to Circulate Stories in the Smart City. In Y. Chisik (Ed.), Proceedings of INTETAIN 2017, the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (Vol. 215, pp. 1–5). Funchal, Portugal: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73062-2_13. [see uncorrected proofs]
• Stokes, B., & Williams, D. (2018). Gamers Who Protest: Small-Group Play and Social Resources for Civic Action. Games and Culture, 13(4), 327–348. http://doi.org/10.1177/1555412015615770 [abstract or PDF of the uncorrected proofs]
• Brough, M., Lapsansky, C., Gonzalez, C., Stokes, B., & Bar, F. (2017). Mobile Voices: Design as a method to explore the possibilities and limitations of community participation. Mobile Media & Communication, OnlineFirst. DOI: 10.1177/2050157917737812; see also authors’ submission.
• Stokes, B., Baumann, K., & Bar, F. (2016). Short paper/workshop: Hybrid games for stronger neighborhoods: connecting residents and urban objects to deepen the sense of place. In Proceedings of the 14th Participatory Design Conference (Vol. 2). Aarhus, Denmark: ACM Press.
• Baumann, K., Stokes, B., Bar, F., & Caldwell, B. (2016). Designing in “constellations”: sustaining participatory design for neighborhoods. PDC ’16 Proceedings of the 14th Participatory Design Conference. DOI: 10.1145/2948076.2948083
• Stokes, B., Villanueva, G., Bar, F., & Ball-Rokeach, S. (2015). Mobile Design as Neighborhood Acupuncture: Activating the Storytelling Networks of South L.A. Journal of Urban Technology, 22(3: Special issue on Urban Acupuncture), 55–77. http://doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2015.1040292  [full article]
• Stokes, B., Walden, N., O’Shea, G., Nasso, F., Mariutto, G., & Burak, A. (2015). Impact with Games: A Fragmented Field. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press with Games for Change. Project website: gameimpact.net, and PDF (2.5mb)
• Stokes, B., Bar, F., Baumann, K., & Caldwell, B. (2014). Neighborhood Planning of Technology: Physical Meets Digital City from the Bottom-Up with Aging Payphones. Journal of Community Informatics. [abstract or full article]
• Stokes, B., Watson, J., Fullerton, T., & Wiscombe, S. (2013). A Reality Game to Cross Disciplines: Fostering Networks and Collaboration. In Defragging Game Studies: Proceedings of DiGRA 2013 International Conference. Atlanta, GA.  [preprint]
• Broad, G., Ball-Rokeach, S. J., Ognyanova, K., Picasso, T., Stokes, B., & Villanueva, G. (2013). Understanding Communication Ecologies to Bridge Communication Research and Community Action. Journal of Applied Communication Research. doi:10.1080/00909882.2013.844848 [free access]
• Ruiz, S., Stokes, B., & Watson, J. (2012). Mobile and Locative Games in the “Civic Tripod:” Activism, Art and Learning. International Journal of Learning and Media, 3(3). doi:10.1162/IJLM_a_00078  [interactive version or PDF] 
• Stokes, B. (2012). Restructuring Civic Engagement: Meaningful Choice and Game Design Thinking. In A. Delwiche & J. J. Henderson (Eds.), The Participatory Cultures Handbook. New York, NY: Routledge.  [preprint]
• Stokes, B., & Watson, J. (2012). Games for Direct Action: Local Scale and Social Impact. White House National Conversation on Games: Arizona State University Center for Games and Impact.  [link]
• Stokes, B. (2010). Peter Packet Challenge: Featuring a Videogame, Corporate Partnership Trade-offs, and Pre-Teen Activists. In From Participatory Culture to Public Participation. Los Angeles, CA: USC Civic Engagement Research Group.  [case study report]
• Dhebar, B. B., & Stokes, B. (2008). A nonprofit manager’s guide to online volunteering. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 18(4), 497–506. [preprint]
• Stokes, B., Seggerman, S., & Rejeski, D. (2006). For a better world: Digital games and the social change sector.  Whitepaper funded by the MacArthur Foundation.  [report]
• Stokes, B. (2005). Videogames have changed: time to consider “Serious Games”? Development Education Journal, 11(3), 12. [preprint]