Jane McGonigal Quotes

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Reality is broken and we need to make it work more like a game.

Games are unnecessary obstacles we volunteer to tackle.

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

Cory Doctorow is a fast and furious storyteller who gets all the details of alternate reality gaming right, while offering a startling, new vision of how these games might play out in the high-stakes context of a terrorist attack. Little Brother is a brilliant novel with a bold argument: hackers and gamers might just be our country's best hope for the future.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.'

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Growing up, I was prone to anxiety.

My favorite part of running is the thinking time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 at it takes, to get up after failure and try again.

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

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

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.

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

Compared with games, reality is disconnected.