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MINISTRY of Tourism and Creative Economy supports the promotion of prevention of COVID-19 transmission through creative games created by local game developers in the country.
Tourism Ministry in collaboration with the Indonesian Game Association (AGI) launched a new program titled Local Games Creative Indonesia or GELORA 2020 to facilitate local game developers in Indonesia in realizing the idea of game development related to the socialization of prevention and handling the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to Deputy Minister of Digital Economy and Tourism Minsitry Creative Products, Josua Simanjuntak explained, during the past week his party has collaborated with AGI and Junior Doctors Network Indonesia to conduct a selection consisting of two stages. This selection is in addition to validating the participants’ game ideas to ensure that the game contains a valid health message and to assist in the prevention and handling of the COVID-19 outbreak program.
“GELORA aims to encourage the creation of the nation’s children in creating innovative games. We focus on campaigning various government policies related to handling COVID-19 in an entertaining way, but full of educational elements,” he said.
He added, so people did not realize, that as long as they were absorbed in playing the game, they were also indirectly exposed to health information and this socialization. Productive and Safe Community Protocols that are in accordance with the President’s direction can also be socialized using games.
“The game idea chosen from curation will be facilitated by Kemenparekraf to be transformed into a ready-to-use game. Not only that, Junior Doctors Network Indonesia will also provide assistance during the development process to provide suggestions on what health content and socialization can be included in the game,” Josua noted.
Meanwhile, representatives from Junior Doctor Network Dr. Bela Dirk explained that when facing this pandemic, massive education is indeed needed in a way that is more fun and less troublesome and is easily digested in various communities, for example education from audio and visual, one of which is through games.
“The hope is that the Indonesian people can be educated and play an active role in preventing COVID-19. We are happy to be able to participate in the GELORA 2020 event because this educational idea was something we did not expect at first and it turned out to be one of the aspects that can help us socialize various things to the current pandemic,” Bela Dirk said.
The selected games are also considered to have carried messages echoed by the government, including “Keep Distance”, “Wear a Mask”, “Proudly Made in Indonesia”, and “New Normal”. From the selection results, finally selected seven studios that will get support from Kemenparekraf to realize the idea of the game namely Educa Studio, GINVO Studio, Anoman Studio, SLAB Games, Arsanesia, Wisageni Studio, and CIAYO Games.
Likewise, the General Chairperson of AGI Cipto Adiguno explained, the Technology Foundation for Indonesia, which is also ready to help bring the GELORA 2020 socialization messages in their released mobile games. Entitled Dawn of Civilization: Game for Charity, this game is a free educational game created by Solve Education! Indonesia can be played without using internet quota. This game invites children to learn about the dangers of COVID-19, how to protect themselves and the environment, and ward off hoaks.
“At a time when the whole world was affected by a pandemic, both health and economically, the gaming industry is one of the relatively fortunate because of its proximity to digital formats.” However, this industry was not immune from the domino effect of the economic downturn, especially for the game making services business for other industries,” he concluded. [traveltext.id/photo special]
