Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > March > 11 > Entry
Jane McGonigal: Life Needs to be More like Games
Jane McGonigal has been researching happiness.
As a futurist, part of her job entails predicting what is going to happen. So she’s been doing a lot of reading and research into the study of happiness. What makes people happy?
“This isn’t about warm fuzzy feelings,” McGonigal said. “This is understanding the human brain and body. And the kind of optimal conditions that let us live a high quality of life.”
And what is the answer … ta-dah: Games.
It turns out what makes us happy is: having satisfying work to do, the experience of being good at something, time spent with people we like, and the chance of being apart of something bigger.
She equates all of this to games. She said games are built to satisfy people who aren’t equipped to deal with life. They get feedback and rewards. Imagine that!
McGonigal says she thinks life should be more like games. What if there was a game that rewarded you and encouraged you to do chores? What about exercise?
Basically, she’s talking about the concept of alternative reality and serious games.
These are games that are developed with a purpose other than entertainment.
“For a lot of gamers their experience of life is that it is not sufficiently deigned for them to be good at, in the way that games are,” McGonigal said.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.