Having recently posted a presentation from the somewhat frightening Jane McGonigal (games designer and director at the Institue for the Future), I have been on the lookout for more from her that perhaps backs up her claims regarding the user experience of reality.
I am very pleased to be able to write that her voice-over on the presentation (well, at least on a very similar presentation that she gave at TED recently - see below), is much more positive and pretty convincing - the basic message is as follows; millions and millions of people are spending serious amounts of time building "virtuoso" skills (her word not mine) in these online games and they can be harnessed to achieve breakthroughs in the "real world" (ie. the non-digital part of the world). She goes on to give some nice examples of games adjusting behaviours in the real world.
At the very least, the presentation was uplifting (and made me think back to the notion of passionate engagement that I posted on recently).
I am intuitively enthusiastic about her belief in the online generation, the value of "MMORPGs" in developing real skills and am absolutely convinced in her assertion on human need for meaningful exertion (ie. for a valuable cause, for an "epic" in her words), rather than "just" work.
On her website she sums it up nicely: "What the world needs now is an epic win." - So finally my younger brothers have all the justification that they need to get back online and start gaming.
Thanks Dr McGonigal!
Here is the post from TED:
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