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Jane McGonigal says gamers can solve all the worlds problems

  • she is a game developer, game designer
  • her goal 'to make it as easy to save the world in real life as it is to save it in games' and to persuade more people, including the audience, to spend more time playing goals
  • to solve the worlds problems we must spend 20 billion hours of games per week
  • epic win is an outcome you never thought you would be capable of, we want to see epic win face on problem solvers
  • her phd why we are better in games than in real life
  • motivated to do something that matters, by collaborating, stickwithitness
  • gamers never feel like they can't do it, what makes them so sure
  • there are lots of characters willing to trust you at your current level
  • there's always something specific to be done
  • tons of collaborators all around
  • there's an inspiring story of why gamers are there in the game
  • lots of feedback in terms of achievements
  • it's so nice to be on the verge of an epic win all the time that they don't want to be in the real world
  • time invested in playing WOW - 5.93 million years
  • gaming makes us evolve to be a more hardy species
  • 10,000 hours by age 21 - same amount of time as high school
  • Outliers - 10,000 hours of success - if you can study that much on any one subject, you will be a virtuoso
  • so, you have virtuoso gamers
  • what are gamers getting good at? Urgent optimism - extreme self-motivation, they do it now. Social fabric - we like people better after we play with them, trust them, same goals, cooperation. Blissful productivity - we are happier working hard than doing nothing. Epic meaning - awe inspiring missions, planetary scale stories, second biggest wikipedia is the WOW wikipedia. These superpowers add up to super-powered hopeful individuals. They think they are capable of changing the virtual world, not the real world. There's a mass exodus to irtual worlds - Castronova. They have a better life in virtual life than real life. 
  • How to make the real world relevant? People were fighting in Lydia because there was a famine, says Horodotos. Decision, on alternate days they would fight and play. For 18 years. Gamers are escaping real-world suffering. In Lydia they were so inspired they decided to play one last epic game, one half of people would leave Lydia on an epic journey, leaving just enough people who could survive on the resources.
  • How to solve real world problems? Don't predict the future, make the future. Imagine epic wins, and provide the means. First. World without Oil game. You can figure out how you would live your real life in it (2007). It's a transformative experience. Thinking the world is dying doesn't help. you blog about it. Post game people are living that way. Second. Supercomputer calculated there are 23 years left. Dreamteam is everyone in the game - invent the future of the safety net. People came up with fabulous answers, imaginative solutions. Third. If you make the game you will be certified by the World Bank as a social innovator. Sub Saharan Africa. What social enterprises can save the world.
  • Join me making and playing games like this. Let the world-changing games begin.

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