Jane McGonigal – How Games Make Life Better

Jane McGonigal, PhD is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games — or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems. She is the Author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World and is the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped nearly a million players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury. Our conversation is about how to design useful games, how games effect us and our kids, and what the future might hold. Please enjoy. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes 1:22 - (First Question) – Her take on the history of gaming and studying the players themselves 3:44 – Where her passion for gaming really started 4:55 – Her take on flow states 7:47 – Kids and gaming 10:32 – Advice for parents when it comes to the role of games             11:06 – SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient--Powered by the Science of Games 13:53 – Types of games that develop the right skills for kids 16:20 – Four things all games share in common             16:23 – Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World    20:50 – Her take on Carse’s theory about infinite gaming             21:04 – Finite and Infinite Games 26:28 – How to understand gaming culture if you’ve never played a game before 28:28 – Amazon and gaming 31:18 – How fun makes anything more enjoyable 34:55 – How game designers calibrate feedback loops 39:14 – The good and bad of gamifying life 45:01 – What is the superbetter app 52:43 - Why powerups and bad guys are so important in games 57:03 – Secret identity 59:04 – Playing with boundaries 1:00:36 – Most worried about in the gaming world, and most exited about 1:07:32 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Jane   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag