jane-mcgonigal
Latest
The Soapbox: On your deathbed, you will not regret gaming
In last week's edition of The Soapbox, Mike Foster reminded us that the grim specter of death comes to us all and asserted that when your time comes, "you will not wish you had spent more time gaming." Mike took the stance that gaming provides temporary joys that can't replace real-life experiences and that it's our inherent responsibility as human beings with finite lifespans to seek out those experiences. He argued that "gaming is a hobby and not a replacement for a life well-lived" and that it's not our gaming achievements but our real life ones that we'll proudly tell our grandchildren. I think we can all agree that it's important to have offline hobbies and interests that help you keep active, but I take exception to the notion that we might regret time spent gaming on our deathbeds. Published data on the top five regrets of the dying actually seems to directly refute this idea, and my life experiences have shown the exact opposite of some of the points Mike makes. MMOs have given me some experiences that I'll probably treasure for a lifetime, and gaming as a hobby has provided me with much more than just temporary joys and escapism; it's helped me discover talents I didn't know I possessed, given me the push I needed to get a good education, led me to employment, and put me in contact with lifelong friends. On my deathbed, I'll probably wish I'd spent more time gaming rather than less. In this opinion piece, I look at evidence that suggests we won't regret gaming on our deathbeds and make the case that gaming can be just as worthwhile as offline pursuits.
MMO Family: Are video games stressing kids out?
Video games get blamed for all sorts of societal problems, particularly for young children. Violence, obesity, and laziness are just the tip of the iceberg. And a recent article from Amanda Enayati adds one more potential problem: stress. Growing up is complicated enough, but are video games making it even harder to be a happy, relaxed kid? Enayati, CNN Health's stress columnist and the technology and stress correspondent for PBS MediaShift, says it's complicated but points to a few studies that argue the pros and cons. Let's take a look at the debate over whether video games might be too stressful for children.
GDC Online 2012: Raph Koster's keynote on a Theory of Fun, 10 years later
Ten years ago at GDC, Raph Koster gave a talk called A Theory of Fun. The presentation turned into a book, and after a series of printings and reprintings, that book has arguably become the best-selling game design book of all time. At GDC Online this week, Koster revisited his Theory of Fun to look at what still applies and what's changed. Read on for highlights from this GDC keynote address.
15 Minutes of Fame: I didn't know he plays WoW!
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. Readers constantly bombard us with tips and requests for features on famous people who play WoW. So here's the deal ... Frankly, guys? Sometimes the hottest celebrities, the ones who seem the most exciting, the really bigger than life types -- they're really not all that exciting to talk to about WoW. They turn out to be pretty much like the rest of us -- they go to work (albeit, more glamorous work than ours), they come home, and they flop down in front of the computer to grind and pug and raid just like the rest of us. They equip their WoW pants the same as anyone else. And then sometimes, famous people just don't want the spotlight shone on their gaming habit. Even today, when everyone plays some sort of game on Facebook or their phones or a console or somewhere, some people consider gaming their dirty little secret. Others are afraid that their privacy will be compromised. Despite not needing to divulge a single identifying detail about their characters, they still don't want to risk anyone being able to figure out the identities of the Azerothian alter egos. Yet over the years, 15 Minutes of Fame has talked with some pretty enthusiastic WoW players who also happen to be somewhat (or very) famous. You'll find some of them in last week's roundup of WoW-playing authors. And we've talked to plenty more -- and so to stoke your curiosity, we've rounded up a list of some of the more high-profile WoW players we've featured. Didn't realize Mr. or Ms. Famous So-and-So plays your game? Click past the break and get the inside scoop.
Jane McGonigal talks about the goodness of games on The Colbert Report
Want to get a sneak peek of some of the subject matter that'll likely be the focal point of Jane McGonigal's PAX East keynote speech? Well, the most thorough way to do so would likely be to read McGonigal's newest book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World -- however, the fastest way would be to check out her interview on last night's episode of The Colbert Report. She's got some pretty stellar ideas about how video games and the people who play them make the world a better place -- though Colbert can't help but take some jabs about both. Get all the "driving over hookers" and "Cheetos dust" jokes you can handle after the jump.
15 Minutes of Fame: McGonigal on why you're as awesome in real life as in WoW
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. Last week, we gave you the lengthy part 1 of our interview with game designer and fellow WoW player Jane McGonigal. This week, by way of a re-introduction, we give you her most recent biographical note: Jane McGonigal is the director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, and The New York Times, and on MTV, CNN, and NPR. In 2009, BusinessWeek called her one of the 10 most important innovators to watch, and Fast Company named her one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. In 2010, Oprah Magazine chose her as one of the 20 most inspiring women in the world. She has given keynote addresses at TED, South by Southwest Interactive, and the Game Developers Conference and was a featured speaker at The New Yorker Conference. She has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in performance studies and games research. Okay, then – the lady knows her stuff. Pull up a chair and let's wrap up a visit with McGonigal by talking more about her own WoW experience and her take on how other WoW players should view their gaming hobby.
15 Minutes of Fame: Jane McGonigal on why gamers will change the world
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. The average young person today in a country with a strong gamer culture will have spent 10,000 hours playing online games, by the age of 21. For children in the United States 10,080 hours is the exact amount of time you will spend in school from fifth grade to high school graduation if you have perfect attendance. -- Jane McGonigal Games designer Jane McGonigal wants games to change the world -- and she has good reason to think it's not only possible but in fact quite probable. McGonigal's games harness the power of productivity -- yeah, that same stuff you're pouring all over your push for endgame gear, the energy that's spilling over the sides of your personal quest to score more than 100 companion pets -- to bring gamers together to foster global social change. Whoa, lofty words ... But listen to McGonigal's 20-minute TED Talk, above, and you'll find yourself nodding along. Harnessing the immensely motivated and collaborative population of gamers makes a lot of sense. McGonigal has a new book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Makes Us Better and How They Can Change the World, that colors in the entire picture (highly recommended reading -- thought-provoking without being heavy in the least). WoW Insider colors along with McGonigal this month with an exclusive, two-part interview. This week, we talk about how and why gaming will change the world. (We do recommend that you watch McGonigal's TED Talk above first for maximum context.) Next week, we'll narrow the focus to World of Warcraft and pick McGonigal's brain for practical advice for making playing WoW the positive, life-enhancing activity it has the potential to be.
How gaming can make a better world
About ten days ago, an interesting video of a speech was aired on TED talk. For those of you who don't know what TED is, it is quite literally a meeting place of some of the world's greatest thinkers: economists, philosophers, doctors, environmentalists and so on. These are people who dedicate their lives to making the world a better place. So imagine my surprise when I was notified of a talk from someone who said that gaming fit into that ideal? Enter Jane McGonigal, game designer. She says that the video game-playing youth of today -- that's us, by the way -- have within us the power to save the world. I know, I know, sounds crazy, right? Well, put down that energy drink and listen in. Jane's mission is to "try to make it as easy to save the world in real life, as it is to save the world in online games." The basis of her theory lies in a few things: motivation, an investment of time and the need to be rewarded. Remember that time your guild downed Ragnoros? Or triumphantly came through to the end of ToC? Yogg-saron? How did you feel then? That's right, you felt satisfied.
How online gaming can change the world
Jane McGonigal (a 10-year game designer of projects such as the I Love Bees ARG for Halo 2) has a self-professed "crazy idea" -- that gamers have the potential to change the world for the better by doing what they're already doing. At her speech, people chuckle when she first says this, but twenty minutes later they're giving her a standing ovation. She begins by stating the obvious: we are a gaming culture that flees the "broken" world to a virtual one that offers a better and more rewarding collaborative environment. "When we're in game worlds I believe that many of us become the best versions of ourselves," she said. "The most likely to help at a moment's notice, most likely to stick with a problem as long as it takes, to get up after failure and try again."
Futurist Jamais Cascio discusses Superstruct
Superstruct is the world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game. What does this mean? As a player of this alternate reality game, you envision your life as it would be in 2019 and collaborate with other players to come up with innovative solutions to global 'superthreats'. These superthreats may bring us to a tipping point that determines whether the human race either solves its looming problems and continues existence, or society collapses under the weight of its troubles. The excellent sci-fi centric io9 has an interview with futurist Jamais Cascio, a member of the Superstruct game design team. Cascio discusses his work on "21st Century Ideas" (essentially a toolkit of solutions to the game's superthreats), the influence of Children of Men on the game and its setting, and some of the innovative creations he's seen from players in the relatively short time since the game launched. It's definitely worth a read if you're interested in a game grounded in futurist speculation. If this piques your interest in Superstruct, don't wait to find out more -- the game will only run for another 5 weeks. Be sure to check out Massively's primer on Superstruct to help you get started, as well as Jane McGonigal's Avant Game blog for more info about the game.
Superthreats: Quarantine, Ravenous, and Power Struggle
Quarantine Superthreat"In 2019, Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or ReDS, is here, and it's not going anywhere." Outbreaks of ReDS have become commonplace, initially in tropical and sub-tropical regions, then spreading to other cities such as Stockholm where over 15,000 citizens are living with ReDS and its chronic, severe symptoms. Relief organizations struggle to handle the situation as it is presently, yet ReDS is spreading to other regions of the world while remaining incurable. Superstruct Challenge: What can we do in our own communities to provide ReDS relief and support?
Superstruct: The world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game
Forget what you typically expect from your average client-based MMO. In fact, the title you're going to read about here differs markedly from the type of game we normally cover at Massively, but that makes it no less interesting. Superstruct is truly something different -- a futuristic alternate reality game that launches today (October 6) and lasts only 6 weeks, developed by a team at The Institute for the Future (IFTF) -- a not-for-profit think tank based in Palo Alto, California. For lack of a better, and less inflammatory, description, Superstruct is a thinking person's MMO, and is in many respects a social experiment; the game is an attempt to harness the collective intelligence and problem-solving abilities of its playerbase to make forecasts about the world's future and its escalating problems. In fact, Superstruct bills itself as the world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game, with the tagline: Play the game. Invent the future. Despite being set in 2019 and looking forward to world issues that will become crises 20 years beyond that, Superstruct's genre is more futurist than sci-fi. Superstruct doesn't feature the traditional game elements we've come to expect from a massively multiplayer title. Instead, it fosters new ways for players to work together, testing out their ideas and strategies in a creative, collaborative brainstorming experiment that spans different mediums. Plausible future scenarios will be posited to the player base, challenging them to really think and produce compelling responses to the events in the game.
Superthreats: Outlaw Planet and Generation Exile
Outlaw Planet Superthreat"In 2019, the mobile internet and sensor networks we rely on to hold our societies together are being hacked, griefed, and gamed."The effects of technology turned against us impacts the democratic process, social networks, and every institution connected to the internet. Sophisticated criminal groups employ 'transparency bombs' in online banking attacks (and "World of Starcraft" players no less). The target financial institutions are major players in the virtual currency market, but the issues resulting from this undermined security affect private citizens as well as the banks.Superstruct Challenge: How can we come together to secure our assets, both real and virtual?
How to play Superstruct
While dealing with these sweeping global issues would seem to be impossibly complex, Superstruct's gameplay -- fortunately-- is not. The game is comprised of a kind of storytelling on the part of its players, based off of the scenarios and updates presented by The Institute for the Future. Some of these scenarios, like the superthreat videos seen earlier, are there to establish the game's backdrop, but more info is on the way. Superstruct players will spin off their own ideas based on both the IFTF-provided scenario updates and (especially) player-generated content. In this respect, the gameplay is quite freeform. Playing the game breaks down to a few easy steps: Join the Superstruct community by registering at the official site. Create your 'future self' through your personal survival profile. Discover the superthreats (via the breaking news videos). Adopt a superthreat. Tell a superthreat story, through whatever medium you choose, via the Tell-a-Story form. Search for allies. Start superstructing on the wikis (sharing your ideas for redesigning the future.) Check out the video below and let one of the game's creators, Jane McGonigal, show you how the game is played, and be sure to note her tips on how to succeed in Superstruct.
Gamasutra's 20 Women in Games list
For those who complain that there aren't enough women in gaming, you need look no further than this -- the Gamasutra 20: Women in Games list. This is a compilation of the movers and shakers in the industry who just happen to be female. It's a broad spectrum list, but there are a few MMO-specifics in there -- notably Jane McGonigal, most famous for her work on the ilovebees ARG; 38 Studios' Vice President of Business Development Jennifer MacLean; Laralyn McWilliams, SOE's Lead Designer; and Disney Interactive Studios' Senior Designer Patricia Pizer.Each entry includes the subject's career overview, major accomplishments, innovations, and what her peers say about her. It's a fascinating read, and you may discover that there's more gender diversity in gaming than you previously suspected.
GDC08: Six things to take from Game Developers Rant: Happiness
3. "Games are the ultimate happiness engine"Jane McGonigal was up next. She's not mad at game designers; her rant is about reality. And it's broken. "We are the people who are supposed to fix it," she said."When I'm in games I have all the info and feedback I need, I have superhero skills ... it's just better than real life." McGonigal explains she has been spending the last year doing research on happiness, deeming it not a warm puppy. Instead, McGonigal lays out a four-point happiness list: Satisfying work to do The experience of being good at something Time spent with people we like The chance to be a part of something bigger "What the hell does any of this better but games? Nothing," she said. "Games are the ultimate happiness engine, and you [the game industry] are in the happiness business." McGonigal noted that it took them until 1930 that soap can be used to kill germs. For depression and isolation, perhaps games can be the same fix. She quotes someone we didn't catch: "Why should we care about games? Because our life is crap." McGonigal lists five things that game designers could fix today: Running Being on a plane Playing fetch Commuting Annoying people She then hypothesized about how the Nike + iPod shoes can keep track of how far you've run and how that technology could somehow be used alongside a social MMO, noting that gamers would be happy and healthy. Explaining her belief the game designers are the smartest people in the world (with Will Wright on her side, we can't blame her), she asks "Can we fix it? Hell yes. Will we fix it? I have no fucking idea." Next: Duct Tape, redux
