Few will argue the entertainment and interactive appeal of video games for a global legion of game players. Ben Sawyer of the Games for Health Project is simply planning to take video games in a new direction of greater purpose that retains all that's best in present day video games. He's not out to reinvent the wheel -- he is looking to design one of the hubs with a focus on health topics.

"This has absolutely nothing to do with the games industry needing to stand up and be apologetic about anything," insists Digital Mill president and game developer and co-director of the Games for Health Project Sawyer. "We are not doing this because game developers have a little PR problem that needs fixing. My goal is to get the industry to do this because it makes sense and it's a smart, cool thing to do, period."

What Sawyer has in mind runs along the line of HopeLab's Re-Mission, a challenging, 3D video game with 20 levels that takes the player on a journey through the bodies of young patients with different kinds of cancer. Players control a nanobot named Roxxi who destroys cancer cells, battles bacterial infections, and manages realistic, life- threatening side effects associated with the disease.

Sawyer blogs the Games for Health Project. As stated on the blog, the goal of the project is to "help foster and support a community of researchers, developers, and users of applications in game technologies and with game development talent to create new ways in playing a greater role in helping to organize and accelerate the adoption of computer games for a variety of challenges facing the world today."

In September, the Games for Health Project will hold its annual conference in Baltimore Maryland. For more details, visit the Games for Health Project blog. Fascinating stuff in innovative applications.