Jane McGonigal : Games Can Change the World

Most recently, McGonigal is the New York Times best-selling author of “Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.” She serves as a founder and creative director for Social Chocolate, where she is making games powered by the science of positive emotion and social connection.

McGonigal believes that “games can change the world” for the better.

“The best hope we have for surviving the next century on this planet?” McGonigal asks on her website. (www.bobgrahamcenter.ufl.edu) “We need to achieve 21 billion hours of online gaming a week by the year 2020. That’ll be just an hour a day, every day, for half of the people on Earth.”

“My No. 1 goal in life is to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. I’ve forecast that this will happen by the year 2023,” she adds. “Of course, it’s not enough to just forecast the future — I’m also actively working to make it a reality.”

Her latest game, SuperBetter, is designed to increase resilience in the face of any illness or injury or health and wellness goal. The game, which is in clinical trials at Ohio State University’s Medical Research Center, has been used to overcome concussions, chemotherapy, reduce stress, lose weight and quit smoking.