What if games could help solve, rather than exacerbate, real-world problems? Jane McGonigal, author of the new book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, thinks they can. She explains how games fulfill needs that reality doesn’t, and how to make real life more like a game.
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/18/133870801/could-gaming-be-good-for-you
Tagged with npr talk of the nation gaming gamers game theory jane mcgonigal
Why doesn’t the real world work more like a game? In the best-designed games, our human experience is perfectly optimized: we have important work to do, we’re surrounded by potential allies, we get constant useful feedback, and we feel an insatiable curiosity about the world around us. That’s no accident — game developers have spent three decades figuring out how to make us happier, drive more collaboration, and satisfy our hunger for meaning and success. Isn’t it about time we started applying these insights to everything we do online? In this talk, game designer Jane McGonigal explains how to adopt game developer methods and mechanics to transform any networked community, service, experience or environment - in order to re-invent the real world as we know it.