Making Reality as Exciting as Games
Expand your thinking by checking out this clip from a presentation at the TED Conference earlier this year by a celebrated computer game designer and Cal Berkeley PhD, Jane McGoniga. Her presentation is called: Gaming Can Make a Better World.
She's researched why online game players are so absorbed and driven to excel at the games they play--and more intriguingly, how to re-create such an environment in the real world (that' a switch!).
Key factors are:
- Epic Meaning: the most successful online games present a larger meaning as the ultimate goal. It's not about accumulating the most points, but "saving the world."
- Urgent optimism: create or join an environment that has a healthy degree of competition, and at which you have a reasonable chance to succeed.
- Tighter bonds: gaming environments build trust with people we've competed with or even against--both of which build tight social bonds.
- Blissful productivity: people are happiest when immersed in meaningful work