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Two months ago, my kids and I
huddled around a cell phone

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watching the live stream
of the Game Awards,

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one of the video game
industry's biggest nights.

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They announced the nominees
for the Game for Impact,

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an award that's given
to a thought-provoking video game

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with a profound prosocial
message or meaning.

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They opened the envelope

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and they read the title of our video game.

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An award ...

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for impact.

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It was almost funny, actually,

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because I always thought
that winning an award like that

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would have this huge impact on my life,

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but I found that the opposite is true.

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The big nights,

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the accomplishments --

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they fade.

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But the hardest nights of my life
have stuck with me,

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impacting who I am

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and what I do.

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In 2010, my third son, Joel, was diagnosed
with a rare and aggressive brain tumor.

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And before that year was finished,

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doctors sat my husband and I down

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and let us know
that his tumor had returned

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despite the most aggressive chemotherapy
and radiation that they could offer him.

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On that terrible night,

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after learning that Joel
had perhaps four months to live,

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I cuddled up with
my two older sons in bed --

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they were five and three at the time --

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and I never really knew
how much they understood,

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so I started telling them a bedtime story.

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I told them about this
very brave knight named Joel

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and his adventure fighting
a terrible dragon called cancer.

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Every night, I told them
more of the story,

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but I never let the story end.

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I was just building up a context
that they could understand

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and hoping that our prayers
would be answered

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and I would never
have to tell them that that knight,

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who had fought so bravely,

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was done fighting

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and could rest now, forever.

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Fortunately, I never did have to
finish that bedtime story.

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My children outgrew it.

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Joel responded better than anyone expected
to palliative treatment,

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and so instead of months,

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we spent years learning how to love
our dying child with all of our hearts.

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Learning to recognize
that shameful feeling

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of holding back just a little love

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to try to spare ourselves
just a little pain

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somewhere further down the road.

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We pushed past that self-preservation

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because Joel was worth loving
even if that love could crush us.

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And that lesson of intense
vulnerability has changed me ...

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more than any award ever could.

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We started living like Joel could live,

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and we began developing a video game
called "That Dragon, Cancer."

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It was the story of Joel.

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It was the story of hope
in the shadow of death.

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It was the story of faith

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and doubt,

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and the realization that a wrestle
with doubt is a part of faith --

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maybe the biggest part of it.

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It was a story that began as a miracle

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and ended as a memorial.

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(Music)

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(Giggle)

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(Clapping)

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(Music)

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(Video) Dad: Bouncing around,
do you like that?

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(Giggle)

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I love your giggle.

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(Music)

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(Giggle)

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[A Journey of Hope In the Shadow of Death]

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[That Dragon, Cancer]

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(Music)

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When you play "That Dragon, Cancer,"

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you're transformed
into a witness of Joel's life,

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exploring an emotional landscape,

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clicking to discover more of what
we as a family felt and experienced.

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It feels a little bit
like analyzing interactive poetry

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because every game mechanic is a metaphor,

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and so the more the player asks themselves

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what we as designers
were trying to express and why,

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the richer the experience becomes.

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We took that vulnerability
that Joel taught us,

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and we encoded the game with it.

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Players expect their video games
to offer them branching narrative

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so that every decision
that they make feels important

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and can change the outcome of the game.

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We subverted that principle
of game design,

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collapsing the choices in on the player

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so that they discover for themselves

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that there is nothing that they can do
that will change the outcome for Joel.

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And they feel that discovery
as deeply and desperately as we felt it

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on nights when we held Joel
in our arms praying for hours,

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stubbornly holding out hope for a grace
that we could not create for ourselves.

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We'd all prefer to win,

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but when you discover that you can't win,

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what do you value instead?

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I never planned to write video games,

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but these moments
that really change our lives,

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they often come as the result
of our hardship -- and not our glory.

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When we thought that Joel could live,

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I left the game designing to my husband.

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I chimed in here and there

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with a scene or two and some suggestions.

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But after the night that Joel died,

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the passion,

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the possibility of sharing Joel's life
through our video game --

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it was something that I couldn't resist.

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I started writing more,

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I sat in on our team's design meetings,

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I added more ideas
and I helped direct scenes.

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And I discovered that creating
a video game is telling a story,

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but with an entirely new vocabulary.

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All the same elements of imagination
and symbolism are there,

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but they're just partnered
with player agency

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and system responsiveness.

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It's challenging work.

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I have to think
in a totally new way to do it,

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but I love it.

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And I wouldn't have known
that without Joel.

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Maybe you're a little surprised

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by our choice to share our story
of terminal cancer through a video game.

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Perhaps you're even thinking
like so many people before you:

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cancer is not a game.

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Well, tell that
to any pediatric cancer parent

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that's ever taken an exam glove
and blown it up into a balloon,

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or transformed a syringe
into a rocket ship,

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or let their child ride their IV pole
through the hospital halls

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like it was a race car.

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Because when you have children,

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everything is a game.

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And when your young child
experiences something traumatic,

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you work even harder to make sure
that their life feels like a game

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because children naturally
explore their worlds through play.

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While cancer can steal
many things from a family,

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it shouldn't steal play.

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If you're listening to me
and you're trying to imagine this family

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that revolves entirely
around a dying child,

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and you can't imagine joy
as part of that picture,

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then we were right
to share our story with you,

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because that season of our life was hard.

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Unspeakably hard at times,

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but it was also pure hope,

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deep love

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and joy like I have never
experienced since.

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Our video game was our attempt
to share that world

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with people who hadn't
experienced it before,

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because we never could imagine
that world until it became ours.

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We made a video game that's hard to play.

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It will never be a blockbuster.

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People have to prepare themselves
to invest emotionally

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in a story that they know
will break their hearts.

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But when our hearts break,

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they heal a little differently.

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My broken heart has been healing
with a new and a deeper compassion --

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a desire to sit with people in their pain,

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to hear their stories
and try to help tell them

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so that they know that they're seen.

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On the night when "That Dragon, Cancer"
won the Game for Impact Award,

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we cheered,

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we smiled and we talked about Joel

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and the impact he had on our life --

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on all of those hard and hopeful nights
that we shared with him

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when he changed our hearts

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and taught us so much more
about life and love and faith and purpose.

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That award will never mean as much to me
as even a single photograph of my son,

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but it does represent all of the people
who his life has impacted,

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people I'll never meet.

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They write me emails sometimes.

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They tell me that they miss Joel,
even though they never met him.

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They describe the tears
that they've shed for my son,

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and it makes my burden of grief
just a little bit lighter

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knowing that it's shared
with a 10-year-old

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watching a YouTube playthrough,

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or a doctor playing on his airplane
with a smartphone,

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or a professor introducing Joel
to her first-year philosophy students.

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We made a video game that's hard to play.

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But that feels just right to me,

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because the hardest moments of our lives

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change us more than any goal
we could ever accomplish.

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Tragedy has shifted my heart

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more than any dream
I could ever see come true.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)