I took a seven o’clock train into New York City from Connecticut. It was filled with the usual group of business men and women with their copies of the Wall Street Journal. I spent time thinking about how Games for Change isn’t really that new of an idea. We have always played games to learn and through learning somehow make the world a better place.

My kids grew up playing JumpStart Preschool and Treasure MathStorm. I always told them they could play any game on the computer that they could write. I introduced them to MOOs and they started writing their small MOO programs there. At school, they learned Logo and built little games there. Some of the best learning, perhaps, comes from the writing itself.

I walked across thirteenth street and am sitting on the floor as people check in. There is a common misconception that bloggers are all under thirty. Whenever I go to some blogging congerence I am quickly disabused of that notion. However, today, it seems like just about everyone here, so far, is under thirty.

As we wait for registration to start, I over hear one attendee say to another, “I had my copy of fifty things kids can do to save the planet and my parents laughed at me saying, ‘We’re not flushing the toilet once a day’.”

The registration has started, and I wonder what the conference will really turn out to be like. Is there a sense of idealism here that is lacking in so much of the political dialog? It seems like it. We shall see.

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