Jane Mcgonigal is an American game designer who serves as the Director of Game Research & Development at Institute for the Future and the Chief Creative Officer at SuperBetter Labs. She has spoken at multiple TED conferences, and highlights the importance of gaming in relation to not only happiness, but how they are making us and the world as a whole a better place. She says game developers are on a humanitarian mission to help and improve the quality of life for all who play.
In her latest TED presentation last year, she introduced a revolutionary, yet simple "game" that can allow a player to increase their life span by working 4 key attributes...
Forbes: Jane McGonigal’s first book, Reality Is Broken (2011), was an international bestseller. In it she celebrated the positive aspects of gaming. The book, along with Jane’s other work, has been enormously influential. The particular ways in which she framed mainstream psychological and neurological research so as to apply it to video games has subsequently become the game-industry standard. What’s more, even folks who know very little about gaming are familiar with her work. Whenever I tell people about my own work, they immediately tell me about watching one of Jane’s very popular TED talks.
Her highly anticipated new book, SUPERBETTER: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient–Powered by the Science of Games, was just released. It is a book that’s “not about playing games—at least, not exactly.” She explains in the introduction, “It’s about learning how to be gameful in the face of extreme stress and personal challenge.”
Formerly Woman Crush Wednesday, Spotlight! carries the torch of giving the industry's best and brightest their 1000 words of fame! Jarrett writes:
"McGonigal’s focus on alternate reality and location based interactive experiences stems from her pronounced interest in the human experience, and specifically our biological fondness of games in any form. In her book Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better, and How They Can Change the World, she highlights the very easy to understand concept, at once declaring and proving a thesis that any gamer can relate to. “A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at something we’re good at (or getting better at) and enjoy.” She adds, ”In other words, game play is the direct emotional opposite of depression.” Maybe she’s never played Dark Souls. Or maybe she’s better at Dark Souls than me."
Few people have made more effort to speak positively about video games in public than game designer, author, and researcher Jane McGonigal. She's the opposite of all those people who trash games in the media and, in this week's Quick Q&A, she's got four answers for us and one big question for all of you.
