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Jane McGonigal, futurist and award wining alternative reality gamest was put on the podium at the most recent New Yorker Magazine Conference. Introduced to the audience by columnist Daniel Zalewski, Jane proceeded to take the attendees on a brief tour of the history of gaming. Beginning with a description of games, found in the writings of Herodotus, Jane showed the attendees how games, throughout history have served as a diversion from suffering and conflicts in society. Often, the greater the suffering in day to day living, the more, it appears that people seek refuge in gaming, and playful diversions from the seriousness of life.

Jane astounded the audience with a graph showing how modern interest in online games has grown exponentially. She pointed that the modern passion for gaming has actually found its way into the real world. If busy people don’t always have the time to take off and play, then in any case, play has made time for them. Jane cited such inventions as: Google Earth that allows others to track our whereabouts, automotive technology, mobile phones, an Internet chore reminder site called chore wars, and a mobile phone task reminder couched in the language of missions.

Recognizing the importance of games in modern life, Jane determined to mobilize this great resource, and create new games that will allow people to develop breakthroughs and have experiences in games, that will have applications to solving real world problems, and even influencing the future. Her fist game with a social application was “World Without Oil.” Jane developed a central website for the game, and participants were recruited from around the globe. They were told to imagine they are in the year 2018, and the world is suffering a severe oil shortage. Participants were asked to send in blog comments, videos, and stories of how they were dealing with the crisis. The central web site, tabulated levels of chaos, suffering, and oil shortage in various countries. McGonigal implied that one of the ultimate goals of the game was to replace diffuse worry about this future problem with a proactive approach engendered, at least, in all the players.

McGonigal explained to the audience why people are so attracted to games, even as adults. She enumerated a number of gratifications that adults get by participating in games. These include: a chance to feel good about the life in the game, a chance to create alliances, to accumulate power, the opportunity to feel like a hero, to associate with people we like and to be part of something bigger than ourselves. At the same time, that games possess all these attractive qualities, the right type of games also has the ability to give back positive qualities to the participants. Jane explained to the audience at the conference that one of her goals is to tap into power of participation. Multiple participants in multiple centers allow the creation of a type of collective intelligence, which can accomplish much more than individuals sitting alone and contemplating solutions to the problems.

McGonigal made no bones about the fact that her own special love is for alternative reality games. She believes, with a passion, that by enrolling people into her alternative reality games, which via the Internet, reach out to a world wide audience, she will be helping them to pursue a course, which in time will allow them to bring their own day to day reality, more inline with the experience they enjoy in her alternative reality. Maybe this is an adult way of taping into the playfulness of childhood, and why not?

Listening to McGonigal’s talk, and looking through some of her alternative reality game sites, it becomes apparent that the development of her unique alternative reality games, wouldn’t have been possible without the help of modern media. Jane uses video presentations to further most of her games. Participants who enact the games in the real world, on the streets, in restaurants, in houses, anywhere, are, at the same time, frequently challenged to document their participation with video. One of her ongoing games, “Top Secret Dance Off,” allows participants to progress to exclusive secret associations, levels of powers, and even cash prizes, so long as they document their fulfillment of earlier “”dance challenges,” with videos of their performance.

Thanks to Winmax Video of California for sponsoring this piece. Winmax is a video production and marketing company that specializes in the production of business videos, including trade show video and restaurant video .

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