Jane McGonigal Quotations

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'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 is no problem that doesn't have some underlying need for more optimism, stamina, resilience and collaboration. And games are, I believe, the best platform we have for providing that.

Urgent optimism is the desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle, combined with the belief that we have a reasonable hope of success.

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.

Gamers always believe that an epic win is possible and that it's always worth trying and trying now.

There are people who are very dismissive of games and gamers.

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.

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

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.

Game designers are obsessed with emotion. How do we create the emotions that we want gamers to feel, and how can we really make it this intense, emotional experience?

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.

Evidence shows that having even weak social connections in a stressful situation is really good for your health and your ability to handle that situation.

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.

Although I'm perceived as very optimistic and upbeat, it comes out of being the opposite of that - feeling isolated or lonely, looking for meaning and the kinds of things that ease that suffering in life, and finding them in large-scale social interaction, like theater and games.

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.

I ran through most of college and ran through most of grad school. When I was writing my dissertation for my Ph.D., it was literally the only hour of the day that I wasn't working. It was nine months of torture, but I made sure I got out to run.

The single biggest misconception about games is that they're an escapist waste of time.

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

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

We are moving towards a new form of collective intelligence.

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.

'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.

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.

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'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.

I don't do 'gamification,' and I'm not prepared to stand up and say, 'I think it works.'

I'm always thinking about whatever game I'm working on. My brain works subconsciously on design pretty much every hour I'm awake.

I don't want a gamer to feel like they have to commit their whole life to changing the world.

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.

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.

Whenever I do talks around the country, I map out my run. Gives me something fun to do and to look forward to doing.

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

'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 entertainment, we have a comfort level with crisis.

I remember the first year at the Game Developers Conference I wore these big red giant knee-high boots. Nobody cared. You can wear anything you love, because that's what you do in games. You make yourself who you want to be.

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

My favorite part of running is the thinking time.

Things like depression and obesity are global challenges.

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.

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

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

Games are providing rewards that reality is not.

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.

Games that make you feel good about yourself are good games to be playing.

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.

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

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.

The real world just doesn’t offer up as easily the carefully designed pleasures, the thrilling challenges, and the powerful social bonding afforded by virtual environments. Reality doesn’t motivate us as effectively. Reality isn’t engineered to maximize our potential. Reality wasn’t designed from the bottom up to make us happy.

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

If you are a gamer, it’s time to get over any regret you might feel about spending so much time playing games. You have not been wasting your time. You have been building up a wealth of virtual experience that, as the first half of this book will show you, can teach you about your true self: what your core strengths are, what really motivates you, and what make you happiest.

When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.

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

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.

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

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

I've been running since high school. My boyfriend was on the track team, and I'd run with him.

My mom is a public school teacher and works with third grade students.

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

Growing up, I was prone to anxiety.

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

Game design isn’t just a technological craft. It’s a twenty-first-century way of thinking and leading.

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 we're in game worlds, we 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 at it takes, to get up after failure and try again.

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.

My goal for the next decade is to try to make it as easy to save the world in real life as it is to save the world in online games.

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

If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion … you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you're facing.

It may have once been true that computer games encouraged us to interact more with machines than with each other. But if you still think of gamers as loners, then you’re not playing games.

Compared with games, reality is disconnected.

You can't play the same game every day for years. New games are key.

What's really amazing about games is how they change our emotional response to challenges

Games are unnecessary obstacles we volunteer to tackle.

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

Reality is broken. Game designers can fix it.

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.

When we play games, our brains respond differently to stress and obstacles. We're better able to control our attention and ignore distractions.

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

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.