Jane McGonigal Quotes

Games are providing rewards that reality is not.

Positive health means becoming whole-heartedly engaged with our own health care. It means not outsourcing our health to the health care system. It means getting rid of the fear and paralysis we too often feel, and instead cultivating a sense of agency.

It seems like what happens when we play games is that we go into a psychological state called eustress, or positive stress. It's basically the same as negative stress in the sense that we get our adrenaline up, you know, our breathing rate quickens, our pulse quickens.

My favorite part of running is the thinking time.

'SuperBetter' is fundamentally about a mind shift. It's about claiming your power to be in charge of how you spend your time and energy, and focusing it on the things that matter the most to you. Focusing on things that will bring real happiness, real well-being.

When we're in game worlds, I believe that many of us become the best version of ourselves: the most likely to help at a moment's notice. The most likely to stick with a problem as long as it takes. To get up after failure and try again.

For most people, an hour a day playing our favorite games will power up our ability to engage whole-heartedly with difficult challenges, strengthen our relationships with the people we care about most - while still letting us notice when it's time to stop playing in virtual worlds and bring our gamer strengths back to real life.

I want to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Research shows that when we're under stress or facing a major obstacle, we tend to focus on our weaknesses and what we're afraid of.

For the starving and suffering Lydians, games were a way to raise real quality of life. This was their primary function: to provide real positive emotions, real positive experiences, and real social connections during a difficult time. This is still the primary function of games for us today. They serve to make our real lives better. And they serve this purpose beautifully, better than any other tool we have. No one is immune to boredom or anxiety, loneliness or depression. Games solve these problems, quickly, cheaply, and dramatically. Life is hard, and games make it better.

Game developers know that people have more fun when they're in large groups. They feel more fired up when the challenges are more epic.

When we know our strengths, we're more likely to use them.

Nesse's research focuses on the evolutionary origins of depression. Why does depression exist at all? If it's stayed in our gene pool for so long, he argues, there must be some evolutionary benefit. Nesse believes that depression may be an adaptive mechanism meant to prevent us from falling victim to blind optimism - and squandering resources on the wrong goals.11 It's to our evolutionary advantage not to waste time and energy on goals we can't realistically achieve. And so when we have no clear way to make productive progress, our neurological systems default to a state of low energy ...

There is so much more knowledge than most people realize about how to maximize the benefits of play and minimize the potential harms.

The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy.

No object, no event, no outcome or life circumstance can deliver real happiness to us. We have to make our own happiness - by working hard at activities that provide their own reward.15

The idea of the 'lone gamer' is really not true anymore. Up to 65 percent of gaming now is social, played either online or in the same room with people we know in real life.

Things like depression and obesity are global challenges.

Surveys of thousands of gamers have shown that they're more likely to play real music if they play a music videogame. So it's an interesting relationship where the games aren't replacing something we do in real life, they're serving as a springboard to a goal we might have in real life, like learning to play an instrument.

What if we started to live our real lives like gamers, lead our real businesses and communities like game designers, and think about solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists?

Over time, the games we play can change how we think and what we're capable of. And it's easy to maximize the benefits so the changes are positive.

In entertainment, we have a comfort level with crisis.

Any time I consider a new project, I ask myself, is this pushing the state of gaming toward Nobel Prizes? If it's not, then it's not doing anything important enough to spend my time.

I'm not a fan of simulations. Where, 'Oh, we'll go play a simulation of world peace and figure out how to make peace' and then somehow magically that will get translated into the real world. No, that's not the kind of games that I make.

It's a bit counter-intuitive to think about the future in terms of the past. But ... I've learned an important trick: to develop foresight, you need to practice hindsight. Technologies, cultures, and climates may change, but our basic human needs and desires - to survive, to care for our families, and to lead happy, purposeful lives - remain the same.' p 5

You need to develop mental habits that allow you to activate the same brain patterns we activate during gameplay.

Scientists have demonstrated that dramatic, positive changes can occur in our lives as a direct result of facing an extreme challenge - whether it's coping with a serious illness, daring to quit smoking, or dealing with depression. Researchers call this 'post-traumatic growth.'

We have to accept as a society that games are not escapist. They really do change us.

The Gamifaction Movement is trying to help companies engage their audience and community by using game mechanics and wrapping them around shopping or achievements, so you get achievements for coming to a store or purchasing things, like rewarding activities.

I worry a lot about people using games just for marketing, to get people to buy more stuff, which I think would be the worst possible use.

I didn't accomplish what I set out to do, but I realized I had set out to do the wrong things

Today, I look forward and I see a future in which games once again are explicitly designed to improve quality of life, to prevent suffering, and to create real, widespread happiness.

When my life is stressful, my favorite game is called 'Pop It,' where you pop balloons and prizes fall out. It's a five-minute game that focuses my mind and gives me extra attention when I'm stressed.

Player investment design lead' is a role that every single collaborative project or crowd initiative should fill in the future. When the game is intrinsically rewarding to play, you don't have to pay people to participate - with real currency, virtual currency, or any other kind of scarce reward. Participation is its own reward, when the player is properly invested in his or her progress, in exploring the world fully, and in the community's success.

'Superbetter' looks more like a social media platform or a social network than a typical video game. You know, there aren't any 3-d spaces to explore. You don't have this avatar that you're building up. It's more about thinking like a gamer.

In the future, I think it's pretty plausible that collective intelligence tools and skills will be important in order to be a part of global dialog, global business, and global creativity. People who know how to negotiate collective intelligence networks are going to be in a good position to contribute to global society.

A dramatic decrease in oil availability is not at all far-fetched.

Every game designer should make one explicitly world-changing game. Lawyers do pro bono work, why can't we?

If you make it a game, gamers will play it no matter what your motivation is in making it.

Growing up, I was prone to anxiety.

Reality is broken. Game designers can fix it.

Games are work. There are economies popping up in games now because people value them.

We can boost our immune systems by strengthening our social networks and decreasing stress.

Every game we play activates our brain, and it's the same brain we have in real life as we have in the game.

Even if you never increase your physical or social resilience, seeking out more positive emotions every day alone can add a full decade to your life.

Avatars are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become.

A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at something we're good at (or getting better at) and enjoy. In other words, gameplay is the direct emotional opposite of depression.

I want gaming to be something that everybody does, because they understand that games can be a real solution to problems and a real source of happiness. I want games to be something everybody learns how to design and develop, because they understand that games are a real platform for change and getting things done. And I want families, schools, companies, industries, cities, countries, and the whole world to come together to play them, because we're finally making games that tackle real dilemmas and improve real lives.

A traumatic event doesn't doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.

When parents or gamers ask me, 'What's the best game to play?' I say that playing face-to-face is more beneficial than playing online.

Games don't distract us from our real lives. They fill our real lives: with positive emotions, positive activity, positive experiences, and positive strengths. Games aren't leading us to the downfall of human civilization. They're leading us to its reinvention.

Jean M. Twenge, a professor of psychology and the author of 'Generation Me' has persuasively argued that the youngest generations today - particularly anyone born after 1980 - are, in her words, "more miserable than ever before." Why? Because of our increased cultural emphasis on "self-esteem" and "self-fulfillment." But real fulfillment, as countless psychologists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders have shown, comes from fulfilling commitments to others.

Clinically speaking, depression is a pessimistic sense of your own capabilities, and despondent lack of energy.

We've been playing games since humanity had civilization - there is something primal about our desire and our ability to play games. It's so deep-seated that it can bypass latter-day cultural norms and biases.

There's no reason why the 'Lost' alternate reality game had to be officially made by the 'Lost' production crew.

many gamers have already figured out how to use the immersive power of play to distract themselves from their hunger: a hunger for more satisfying work, for a stronger sense of community, and for a more engaging and meaningful life.

When we play a game, we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we're more likely to reach out to others for help.

The opposite of play isn't work. It's depression.

Gamers always believe that an epic win is possible and that it's always worth trying, and trying now. Gamers don't sit around.