"Gaming is such a powerful medium," chief XNA architect Chris Satchell told me earlier this week. "It really speaks to the generations that are growing up now, and it's a shame not to be able to use it to deliver a social message."

That's why, last summer, Microsoft partnered with Games for Change to host the Imagine Cup and challenge students worldwide to tackle social issues and encourage change through games.

This year's contest, based on the environment and powered by Microsoft's XNA Game Studio technology, received over 160 entries from 10,000 college-age students across 60 countries.

"[The environment is] a really important social issue, both sides agreed this is a social issue and it needs addressing," Satchell continued. "You just start riffing on it and, wow, there's so many cool games you could build around teaching people how to utilize the environment."

But what's really interesting is that, because these were all developed within XNA Game Studio, these games can be distributed on Windows and through the Xbox 360 community games service later this year. They actually have a shot at pushing social change.

For more about Games for Change, this year's six Imagine Cup finalists and XNA-powered social good, I'll turn it over to Satchell himself.

Chris Satchell: Games for Change is a non-profit organization that really tries to champion the advancement of social issues through gaming.

It's really trying to advance those social issues and social awareness through gaming.

So, how do we set social agenda and how do we create games that change people's perception of social agendas, like the environment, which was our topic for the Games for Change challenge we did with Xbox and the Games for Change Imagine Cup.

Shack: How do these games actually encourage social change?

Chris Satchell: One of the ones I really like is--and this is one of the top six finalists that we're showing today--it's a game called Future Flow, and the team from Belguim is called Drunk Puppy. Wonderful name.

Imagine a game that's sort of a hex-based puzzle game where each of the tiles is a sort of city resource, whether it's housing or a water treatment plant or solar collectors or a refinery.

What you're trying to do is connect all these pieces up together to have a functioning city, the city starts off not functioning. As you start using resources and connecting these pieces, your pollution goes up. You have to make some very smart choices.

So I just start off and I'm like, "Okay, I need research! Right, university connected to a power plant! I need people and connect them to farms." You know, as fast as I could, in my mind I'm preparing for that tank rush in an RTS game.

But you stop and you're like, "Oh, my pollution's through the roof. Now I've got to start being more sensible." And you start these really hard decisions, like, "I can use these resources for upgrades but if I use the standard power plant my pollution goes up. I'm gonna have to clear the space to make a solar panel plant."

What you really take away is just this need for balance, of trying to improve technology and people, trying to add new things to the city to make lives better, but also trying to not ruin the environment in the process and keep the emissions down. It's a really delicate balance you have to strike.

Shack: What about some of the other games?

Chris Satchell: Another one that I love, it's called City Rain by Mother Gaia Studios from Brazil.

Imagine Sim City crossed with Tetris. You're kinda playing on a 2D city grid and you've got to do normal things, like have police and have shopping, parks, and provide people with a nice environment. But you've also got to do eco-challenges, like "I need to go and research new ways to recycle materials to bring down my emissions." I do that by having universities and factories near a landfill. Dump a landfill in the wrong area and it'll pollute the rivers.

You're trying to manage this, but the fun thing is these city blocks are dropping like Tetris, and they're in different configurations. Sometimes they're individual, sometimes they're in blocks. You've got to move it around and build the right thing for the city, trying to balance what the populace is asking but what you need to do for the environment.

Shack: Since these games are powered by XNA, is there any chance they could be released on Xbox 360 or PC?

Chris Satchell: A lot of the students, they wanted to pick it up for free and use it on Windows, have built it on Windows. As you know, it's really easy to port to Xbox 360 using our technology.

When we do that distribution system [on Xbox 360] later this year, I think you will see these games coming out and reaching that huge audience on Xbox Live.

We haven't announced the peer review pipeline for Windows at the moment. Of course, there's nothing actually stopping them distributing them on Windows, so I think you'll probably see them on both platforms.

Turn the page for more on the Imagine Cup finalists, the future of Games for Change, and other XNA-powered social applications.