To kick off this week’s discussion on the use of video games in nontraditional gaming markets, meet HopeLab. Recently named as one of Fast Company Magazine’s top 10 social enterprises, Hopelab is a nonprofit that uses "innovative approaches to improve the health and quality of life of young people living with chronic illnesses." Co-founded by Pam Omidyar, they concentration on five main diseases: Cancer, Obesity, Sickle cell disease, Autism, and Major depressive disorder.

To help young people fight cancer, they created a video game called Re-mission. The star of the game is Roxxi, a nanobot, who travels inside the human body to challenge cancer head on. Players guide Roxxi through a series of battles to seek out and destroy malignant cells. In addition to the game itself, there is an on-line community for young people to share information and provide support for one another as they fight their common enemy: cancer.

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