At Microsoft's Expo Night at the 2008 Games for Change festival last week, there were games about global warming, poverty and drunk driving.

Then there was the game about malaria.

More specifically, "Specter" is a game that aims to spread awareness about malaria and show how persistent the disease really is. It was created by four Parsons design and technology students as part of PETlab, a joint project of Games for Change and the New York City university that has its participants develop prototype games and play experiences addressing social issues.

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While industry veterans have been criticizing the state of storytelling in games, Naughty Dog lead game designer Richard Lemarchand thinks the situation is quite the opposite.

"I think we're in the middle of this incredible renaissance in video games," he said at the 2008 Games for Change festival earlier this week in New York. "We've had this huge explosion of creativity in the last few years."

Speaking on a panel with other industry bigwigs about how social-change games can be profitable for the mainstream games business, Lemarchand, who worked on "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune," said he evens thinks games can be as influential as great literature.

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At the 2008 Games For Change festival, Chris Satchell, Microsoft’s general manager of XNA, spoke about how the development platform can be used by garage developers to create socially conscious games.

He also told me that the 12 million Xbox Live users are ready for games about social issues. But will XNA be ready for gamers?

Satchell gave me an update on Community Games, the new Xbox Live feature which allows users to easily download XNA-created games. I asked him why it won't run into the same interface issues that XBLA currently has. He offered this solution:

"One thing we're going to have is we're also going to expose all of [the games] on the website as well. So if you want, you're going to be able to go and do a detailed search from a web browser and say, 'Oh, I want that game' and click, and have it downloaded on your console. ... you'll be at the office and go, 'Here are the games I'm going to play tonight' and go back home and just have them ready for you."

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"If someone had told me when I retired from the Supreme Court that I would be speaking at a conference about digital gaming, I'd be thinking, 'You've had one drink too many,'" said the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor, former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I have not had much exposure to this world as you might imagine," the 78 year-old told a packed auditorium as the final keynote speaker at the 2008 Games for Change festival Wednesday afternoon. "I don't play video games, sorry," she revealed later during the question-and-answer session.

While O'Connor will probably never play "Halo," she explained that she came into the digital world after noticing how increasingly difficult it is to receive impartial judgments from serving judges who face mounting political pressure and partisan attacks. She feels that the only way to combat this is with video games about civics education. Yes, that's right: video games.

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XNA isn't just for up-and-coming game developers hoping to make the next "Halo."

Microsoft wants its free development toolkit to be used by people to create socially conscious games.

I spoke with XNA General Manager Chris Satchell at Microsoft's Expo Night at the 2008 Games for Change festival. The event, held earlier this week at Parsons School of Design in New York, showcased the work of students who used XNA to create games about global warming, malaria prevention and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, among other social causes.

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Microsoft wants to help you change the world. And the company wants you to do it with XNA.

"Imagine a world where we have no ability to influence the people that are going to lead and shape thought for tomorrow," said Chris Satchell, Microsoft's general manager of XNA.

"We have social causes we care about, but we don't have the media to connect with the people who can do something about them," he said. "We're not there, but its a world that's possible to see unless activities like we're doing here today really gain some momentum."

Yesterday afternoon, Satchell spoke at the 2008 Games for Change festival about how Microsoft's development platform XNA, a free toolset for independent developers, can help people create serious, socially responsible games. He said that young people are moving away from traditional forms of media and heading towards gaming, and they're also passionate about social themes.

"People will base their lives around gaming experiences, but equally gaming experiences will permeate their lives... everything's a game," Satchell said. He argued that the biggest game in the world isn't "World of Warcraft" or "Grand Theft Auto" -- it's "American Idol." Read more...