IMPACT Games & Mental Health Conference

Welcome to the IMPACT Games & Mental Health Conference happening at The Strong National Museum of Play on Thursday, June 5th, and Friday, June 6th, 2025! Join us for a day filled with insightful discussions, interactive workshops, and networking opportunities focused on the intersection of gaming and mental health. Learn from industry experts, psychologists, and game designers, and engineers about the positive effects of gaming on mental well-being. Don't miss out on this unique event that aims to impact the field!

There has been a proliferation of games for mental health outcomes – from tabletop games designed to teach coping skills to phone based, mHealth games designed to track exercise and substance use. While the pool of games has exponentially grown, the literature base for the impact of these games on mental health outcomes and behaviors has not.

The purpose of the IMPACT Games and Health Conference is to highlight games in two areas:

1. games that demonstrate specific, measurable health outcomes
2. findings in how and when games create measurable impact.

It is our intention that this conference will bring people together to showcase how games can create health change and impact. In doing so, we hope that engineers, psychologists, and other professionals who attend this conference can identify and further the development of games that create psychological impact; these professionals can also extend the reach and testing for games that have already demonstrated an impact.

We are so excited to host this conference and extend the conversation – and reach – of games and mental health. The first Evidence-Based Games Conference will be held in the Strong Museum of Play, on two days in Summer, 2025: Thursday and Friday.

Note: CEs and CEUs will be offered for those who attend this conference. All presenters are invited to include their papers and results in a journal on games and health on this conference’s proceedings.

Host or Publisher Rochester Institute of Technology, St. John Fisher, and The Museum of Play