Jane McGonigal Quotes - Page 2

My favorite part of running is the thinking time.

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.

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.

Games are such a powerful intervention in health and wellness.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I don't want to be a saint; I just want to help people.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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