Hurray! Now, I’m not in World of Warcraft Gaming but I took a look at EVE online. Yes, I like online games. From online poker to that silly vampire game, I play games. I am also a big TED.com fan. So imagine my surprise when I went prowling for new TED Video’s and found that TEDTalks 2010 has a video on Gamers Saving the world.
Jane McGonigal uses alot of information and statistics from the WoW environment/community/network/players. And this Gaming talk is not about World of Warcraft (WoW) alone. In general, WoW is just most well known the world over with millions upon millions of players.
What does the talk cover? I’m going to embed it below, not very long, but I will try to sumarise. Jane talks about a mass exodus of the world population from real life to virtual online living/gaming. People are spending as much time as a part time job in the gaming world. That is a lot of time.
But it is more than just gaming. She uses four key skills as the ‘Catch-all’ of what gamers are becoming masters at.
Blissful Productivity, Social Fabric, Urgent Optimism, Epic Meaning.
These sound like jibberish if you didn’t watch/listen to her TedTalk but I will try to summarize them as best I can.
Blissful Productivity means that the gamers find satisfaction in what they are doing online and they ENJOY working hard toward a goal. Social Fabric – good at communication, working with teammates/others and generally builds a fabric of trust with complete strangers if the only common denominator may be playing games. Urgent Optimism – Gamers are willing to ACT NOW toward a goal if they know that they have the skills and means to achieve the desired outcome (An EPIC WIN in gaming terminology).
And Epic Meaning – where gamers want to be apart of a BIGGER PICTURE and mean more to the world. Gamers are thinking more than just ‘One’, they are used to looking at large-scale and even ‘galactic’ cause/effect and outcomes.
Jane goes on to talk about Gamers as an untapped resource, the future of gamers from 500 million to 1.5 billion in the next ten years and her research/development and work in building games that connect the disconnect of virtual and online gaming to real life.
She has developed games concerning Oil shortages that have effected real-life lifestyles of the gamers, Super Struct
And her future Gamer project is EVOKE about solving problems, mostly with third-world countries. The amazing part of EVOKE is that it is being pushed with the promise of prestige by the World Bank, a real life award and the implementation of ideas and training in the means to give real world results. It covers social innovation and resourcefulness. You really have to see it to believe it.
It is exciting to see Gamers getting more credit, games being considered something more than a hobby and the ultimate skills they impliment. I know that whenever I feel guilty for my online gaming, or I feel guilty for browsing during my ASU Classes, I browse on over to FREERICE.COM to test my brain and feed the world ten grains of rice at a time. Every little bit helps.
What did you think of Jane’s Ted Talk? How do you see games effecting the world and the ‘epidemic’ of game addict looked at in a positive-impact light?
Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World
Ted.Com
Video Length: 20:04 Minutes
