To fix the real world, play games online

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/im....games.cnn.jpg

To fix the real world, play games online
February 12, 2010

" People today are addictively entertained by video games.

Jane McGonigal says that's a good thing.

McGonigal, a game designer with the Institute for the Future, and a speaker at this year's TED Conference here in Long Beach, California, says people today spend a collective 3 billion hours per week playing online games. She wants us to play more. To solve all of the world's problems, she says, we must spend seven times that much time with games - a whopping 21 billion hours per week among us all.

And, no, she's not joking. By playing online games like World of Warcraft, gamers build up "superpowers" that will help them solve real world problems, McGonigal says.

"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," she said in a presentation here.

Think about that for a minute. Can searching for troll spells and conquering digital alien worlds really help us combat climate change, end poverty and reduce global conflict? Yes, McGonigal says, because in online games people tend to behave better than in the real world. In the digital space, people tend to collaborate to help each other solve problems. They don’t give up as easily. And they almost always feel they have a chance of winning. Their skills are well matched to the challenges set out before them.

Such situations have developed gamers as "super-empowered, hopeful individuals," she said. She sees it as a new branch of human evolution.

"Gamers are willing to work hard all the time if they're given the right work," she said.

But how does this translate to change in the real world? Well, McGonigal builds social online games that straddle the virtual and real worlds. One of her projects, called World Without Oil, put gamers in a scenario where they had to come up with inventive ways to exist on a planet that had run out of fossil fuels. Players had to make changes to their real lives and then post about them online to advance in the game. Most of the 1,700 people who participated in that game have kept up with the changes they've made to their lives since the game was launched in 2007, she said.

Her next project, called "Evoke: a crash course in changing the world," which debuted here at TED on Thursday and will kick off on March 3, is produced by the World Bank Institute. It pairs up mentors in the developed world with players in Africa. The goal: inspire a generation of young, African entrepreneurs to chase their dreams - by making them think they're playing a game that's fun and collaborative, and where the chance of success is realistic.

"We can make any future we imagine and we can play any games we want," she said. "So I say let the world-changing games begin." "

:source: Source: To fix the real world, play games online:view: Homepage: SciTechBlog

only 10,000 hours logged? what a no0b. i've got over 5k hours logged into WoW itself.

Ummm, is it me or does that woman just ignore that part that by spending more time playing games, there is less time spent IN THE REAL WORLD! So why fix it if everyone is sitting in their rooms?

what is wow ?
LOL
i hate online games i love to go alone in the dark

This has got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a while.

I remember about 3 summers ago when I first got the Xbox 360 and became addicted...Not only did it not fix the world, but it killed my social life for a good a good 3 months lol. I literally became a couch potato.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by category6

what is wow ?

---

World of Warcraft.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Albo Da Kid

This has got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a while.

I remember about 3 summers ago when I first got the Xbox 360 and became addicted...Not only did it not fix the world, but it killed my social life for a good a good 3 months lol. I literally became a couch potato.

---

Ya, I had got a new computer and counterstrike:source and that pretty much led me to wasting a large part of my high school years and summers. I probably played 10000 hours during high school :ermm: and that was just a huge waste of time, I was pretty addicted.

Heh, I remember when I was pretty much addicted to CS as well. I'd play all day long. It then gradually stopped being so fun. Nowadays I don't game that much.