Last night I went to the City Arts talk, The Power of Gaming with Jane McGonigal. You may or may not already be familiar with her. She did the TED talk about how gaming can make a better world. This later spawned, Gameful, which is the online headquarters for people who want to make a better world. Gameful came from the idea that people consider gamers playful. However, gamers are serious when they are playing games. They are strategic and focused so playful as a word to describe gamers doesn’t work. Thus Gameful was born. Last night’s talk was a follow up of her ongoing work to better the world through gaming. My notes are below,
———————– Notes ————————-
Gamers are totally focused on the task at hand; willing to tackle anything with optimism. They’re willing to fail and learn from our mistakes. Gamers fail 80% of the time. It’s good to be in a place where failure is safe but still linked to reality. It can create change. They are willing to hang there till they are successful. Last Sept we reached 1 billion playing a game a day. We are already at 7 billion hours that’s 1 hour a day for over half the planet.
Gameful explores the idea that gamers aren’t really playful but strategic.
Top 10 Emotions Gamers Feel
Creativity
Surprise
Excitement
Content
Awe
Wonder
Curiousity
Pride
Love
Joy
No one has ever done a 3 level grand thumb wrestling game. Yet we paused the talk to do a level 3 thumb wrestling game. We are the first in history to do so. Oxytoxin is created within the room with hand holding. The effect lasts for an hour.
How does this translate into digital?
- Most time now its being played with people we know in real life. Moat game play use to be single player. So that helps build relationships. So if you play a game I play we share a mutual experience together.
- World Without Oil… Simulation experience to see into the future to figure out how we can survive or avoid an experience like that. Could you survive? Provoke an experience. Challenging experience. Can you surviving? Then make a community. Figure out how you’re going to cope if you can’t get food in a grocery store. Once you get thousands you get collective experience. Here’s how people who couldn’t. Communte to work or pastors get thier people to church etc. There’s a blog of where that OS. Players were earily close to reality when gas prices got high.
- Foldit game: Game solves the need for a biological solution to aids/medicine. ”Bio proteins are like a Rubix cubes with 100 sides like tetris.” Gamers have already deciphered the crystal structure of a protein that causes Aids in monkeys and were published in a journel of medicine. Perhaps as Jane points out they will win a Nobel Prize.
- Now Galaxy Zoo lets you discover items in the universe.
- April is a game challenge on social entrepreneurship in Brazil w/collaboration around the world.
- Tetris forced to play until you lose. There’s no solution. Golf has a spectrum of getting better. If you keep playing you get better
The Next Generation:
- Engaged or enraged us is this up and coming generation. They aren’t getting engagement in clases now. They are playing games as Mich as they are in the classroom 10k hours)
- In NYC, they are now allowing kids to take and retake tests till they get a score they like. Studies show we learn better that way. Similarly, we tend to collaborate more in games by taking the roles were better at.
Create an Epic Win:
- Don’t trying to make everything a game (in conversation about gamification). Think about what it feels like to play a game and what that means.
- What would it feel like to have an epic win at the library? If you play the game at the library you can make a real book and publish the book and leave it in the library. Mystery game based on searching for things in the library. You begin to realize that those who made history were willing to stand up. So then they had to make a declaration and get 56 signatures. 1100 stories written by the players. Library science meets night at the museum.
- What super power would this give gamers. Focus on these outcomes for gamification. Make games that give people more hope and optimism about what they want to so.
Effects of Games on Humans:
- Jane the concussion healer… Super better as now named Symptoms were bad characters etc.
- Playing games treat depression better then drugs. In fact games are shown to treat personal issues more then anything.
- Gamers are a really critical crowd. Call of duty created a community online. If you are playing against people you don’t know tends to create the worst in people better to kill people you know. They are being really nice to each I’m the elite collective mission. If they can be of service to each other and part of something bigger then thy can be nice to each other. You like and respect people more after you play a game with them. It is better to kill your friends though then it is to kill people you don’t know.
- Studies show that if we choose stress then we are more likely to grow.
- Women prefer collaboration over leaderboards unlike men. But leaderboards can make men less happy. Personal self besting is a bigger motivator and sharing with others.
