MetroStar Systems is pleased to announce that our X-Life Games project has surpassed 1,000 registered gamers from over 85 different countries around the world!
X-Life Games launched in March 2009 as a pilot project for the U.S. Department of State. It is a free mobile phone game designed and developed by MetroStar Systems' New Media Technology team and X-Life Games LLC. The game features role-playing, trivia challenges, and adventures around the world. Our mission is to encourage understanding between different cultures and to provide an English language learning tool. I know that sounds pretty deep for a mobile phone game, but we think it is a positive and fun way to engage with the youth around the world; plus it is FREE for anyone who wants to play.
Micah L. Sifry and Andrew Rasiej (both from the Personal Democracy Forum) wrote an article for Politico.com entitled "P2P2G: The rise of e-diplomacy" that features a blurb about X-Life Games as one example of the State Department's diplomacy initiatives associated with Secretary of State Clinton's "21st Century Statecraft" theme:
Total views of State Department content on YouTube are up more than 400 percent since Obama’s Inauguration. ExchangesConnect, a cultural exchange social networking site (built on the free Ning.com platform) that focuses on foreign exchange students, recently registered its 10,000th member. And State has even launched an English-language learning game called X-Life, for cell phone users, designed to give users a sense of American life and culture.
In other news, the Wall Street Journal's Technology section recently published a special "All Things Digital" section. William M. Bulkeley offered a quiz entitled "How Well Do You Know...The Wireless World" and X-Life Games was highlighted in Question #10:
10) The U.S. State Department spent $415,000 to develop a mobile game called X-Life to improve perceptions of the U.S. in what country or region?
A. Venezuela B. The Middle East C. Russia D. France
ANSWER: B. MetroStar Systems Inc., a Reston, Va., company, created X-Life as a State Department pilot project to see whether e-diplomacy might spread cross-cultural understanding. The game has two role-playing choices: In one, the user’s avatar is a student studying abroad in the U.S.; in the other, the avatar is a musician in a rock band. (Grammy-winning band Ozomatli contributed a song for the game.)
Do you know the wireless world well? You can read the complete quiz here: Wall Street Journal Quiz
For complete info, news, and free game downloads, please visit http://www.xlifegames.com
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