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"Play games that make you feel good," says CheckPoint community manager

Pritika Sachdev shared advice for what employers in the industry could be doing to combat the issue

"Play games that make you feel good," says CheckPoint community manager

User should play games that they like and games that make them feel good to help tackle mental health.

This was the message delivered by CheckPoint community manager Pritika Sachdev during her talk at Games Connect Asia Pacific 2019, where she gave advice on how to combat the issue, as well as pulling from her own experience. 

Sachdev urged management in the games industry to take further precautions to help staff from suffering with “burnout” and “crunch”.

The ALGEE life-saving method was offered as a practical solution.

An example of a positive work environment was taken from the Nintendo Japan stats revealed earlier this year, which showed that employees worked for an average of seven hours and 45 minutes a day.

“Hard to step away”

“The burden of earning money is very real for a lot of us and it’s hard to step away,” said Sachdev

CheckPoint is a non-profit organisation that provides mental health resources for video game players and the games community. Their aim is to raise awareness on the topic and reduce the stigma associated with the issue.

A number of examples were given for what procedures workplaces can put in place to better deal with mental health:

  • Have a curfew
  • Encourage Autonomy
  • Manage resources (with crunch in mind)
  • Ensure consistency across the team
  • Check-in
  • Validate
  • Encourage creative personal pursuits
  • Have an open-door policy
  • Have a mental health procedure - ALGEE

Anyone interested in learning more information can find resources via Checkpoint's website.

You can keep up-to-date with all of our coverage of Melbourne International Games Week 2019 right here.


Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.