This time we will be talking with the editor of a new journal devoted to games for health, Bill Ferguson. Premiering in February of 2012, Games for Health: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications, will offer original peer-reviewed research articles, as well as industry insights and developments. Additionally, interviews and commentary on the games for health initiative will be included in its pages. While there are by now several organizations, conferences and journals focused upon game development and game effects, this is the first journal with a specific mission to examine how games can be used for health related purposes. This is something that has come up before on this show in several interviews through the Games for Health Conference, but a journal gives an area an authenticity and respectability that simply meeting and exchanging ideas does not allow. Don’t get me wrong meetings are important and in this case they were part of the development process, but once a major professional journal publisher decides to go forward with a journal this targets a new era in such research and application.

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