GameCity5
"World's Best Health Club" to be created in Nottingham with the NHS and EA Sports Active 2.0.
GameCity is joining forces with the NHS to create the World’s Best Health Club.
The video games festival will take over Nottingham’s Old Market Square from 26-30 October (10am-6pm) – offering free health advice and the chance to try out the new Sports Active 2.0 game, which offers a full workout regime.
GameCity5 will unite EA Games with NHS Nottingham City and the Decade of Better Health programme to help people find fun new ways to get active and lose weight.
The World’s Best Health Club will be staffed by trained health professionals who encourage people to make pledges as part of the Decade of Better Health programme based around five key areas:
Losing weight Getting active Stopping smoking Drinking less alcohol Feeling happier It is asking people to make small changes to their lives over the long-term – especially with fun activities like video games.Andrew Hall, NHS Nottingham City’s Head of Partnerships and Health Improvement, said: “We’re incredibly excited to be working with GameCity and EA on this event. Our Decade of Better Health campaign is all about finding new ways of encouraging people to improve their health. The computer games sector is incredibly important to Nottingham and GameCity offers an opportunity to bring together public health awareness and cutting-edge technology for young people and families alike.”
EA will be presenting its upcoming title Sports Active 2.0, which offers total body conditioning, with a heart rate monitor and tracking hub charting personal progression through more than 70 activities.
GameCity Director Iain Simons said: “We spend a lot of time exploring how video games are a rich part of many people’s cultural lives. This year we’re also exploring how they can be a part of people’s everyday wellbeing.”
The EA and NHS partnership is the central theme of this year’s GameCity festival, with one half of the Market Square dedicated throughout the entire week to housing the World’s Best Health Club.
For the full details of the festival line-up, go to www.gamecity.org. To book your attendance at this event, go to my.gamecity.org
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GameCity is what a videogame festival should be.
The Centre for Contemporary Play is a research centre based at Nottingham Trent University which pioneers innovative thinking through new partnerships. Since 2008 it has worked with a variety of leading organisations from the commercial and public sector to deliver major research and inclusion projects. These include the ITAG conference, the GameCity videogame festival and the National Videogame Archive - a unique collaboration with the National Media Museum.
Driven by leading thinking at NTU, the Centre for Contemporary Play continues to create radical and innovative projects in the academic and public engagement space.
Gamecity’s aim is to bring together developers and the public to explore and celebrate videogames and videogames culture, with a particular focus on students. We attract the best speakers in the world, offer up-and-coming artists and developers a platform for their games and create totally unique events.
Some of GameCity’s greatest hits include a world-record breaking zombie gathering, Keita Takahashi designing a children’s playground and Masaya Matsuura, Lorne Lanning, Alexey Pajitnov and Media Molecule having headlined.
We’ve worked alongside some of the most prominent names in gaming, including; Warner Bros, TTGames, Crytek, Activision, Namco Bandai, SCEE, Xbox, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Freestyle Games, David Braben, Media Molecule, Splash Damage, Harmonix, Rare, Denki, Monumental Games, Midway, Zoe Mode, ThatGameCompany, Nana-on-Sha and lots more.
Going way beyond just playing games, GameCity offers other new ways for people to interact with videogame culture. Art exhibitions, director commentaries, playground building, live recreations of videogames, gigs, gong-shows, three World Records, arcade trails, club nights – nothing is off limits for this most radical of videogame festivals.
Don’t just take our word for it, see what others have said after working with us,
GameCity looks poised to become our industry’s ?rst Sundance. A truly unique approach for hosting a game festival that seems long overdue.
Lorne Lanning, Oddworld Inhabitants
GameCity is unique. Any games festival that can reunite industry legends, lead to a Japanese game developer designing a playground, and evoke religious sentiments in a shopping centre is doing something very right for sure.
Edge Magazine
The year’s most inventively programmed new arts festival
The Times