Jane McGonigal

Jane McGonigal (born October 21, 1977) is an American author, game designer, and researcher. McGonigal is known for her game Jane the Concussion Slayer and her role as Director of Game Research and Development at Institute for the Future.

McGonigal received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006, where she was the first in the department to study computer and video games. She has worked on several notable alternate reality games, including I Love Bees (2004) and World Without Oil (2007), as well as designing SuperBetter (2012). After suffering a severe concussion in 2009, she created Jane the Concussion Slayer as a therapeutic game, which evolved into SuperBetter, a platform designed to help people build resilience and achieve personal goals.

She is the author of three books: Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (2011), which argues that games contribute to human happiness and can address social problems; SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver, and More Resilient (2015); and Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything (2022). McGonigal has been called "the current public face of gamification," though she has expressed reservations about the term. She has been recognized by MIT's Technology Review as one of the world's top innovators under 35 and named to O: The Oprah Magazine 2010 Power List.

Early years and education McGonigal was brought up in New Jersey. Her parents are teachers who emphasized intellectual attainment. Her identical twin sister, Kelly McGonigal, is a psychologist.

McGonigal received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Fordham University in 1999, and her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. She was the first in the department to study computer and video games.

Personal life In 2009, she suffered a debilitating concussion that helped her develop a game, Jane the Concussion Slayer, for treating her concussion and other similar conditions; the game was later renamed SuperBetter.

Philosophy

McGonigal writes and speaks about alternate reality games and massively multiplayer online gaming. She also writes about the way that collective intelligence can be generated and used as a means for improving the quality of human life or working towards the solution of social ills. She has stated that gaming should be moving "towards Nobel Prizes."

McGonigal has been called "the current public face of gamification." Despite this, McGonigal has objected to the word, stating, "I don't do 'gamification,' and I'm not prepared to stand up and say I think it works. I don't think anybody should make games to try to motivate somebody to do something they don't want to do. If the game is not about a goal you're intrinsically motivated by, it won't work." She has taught game design and game studies at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley.

In 2008, she became the Director of Game Research and Development at Institute for the Future, and in 2012, the Chief Creative Officer at SuperBetter Labs.

Games McGonigal has been developing commercial games since 2006, some of which are listed in the following chart:

Year Title Organization Credit 2012 SuperBetter SuperBetter Labs Chief Creative Officer 2011 Find the Future: The Game New York Public Library Director 2010 Evoke World Bank Institute Creator 2009 Cryptozoo American Heart Association Director 2008 Top Secret Dance-Off Creator (under pseudonym Punky McMonsef) 2008 Superstruct Institute for the Future Director 2008 The Lost Ring McDonald's and The Lost Sport Director 2007 World Without Oil ITVS Interactive Participation architect w/ Ken Eklund 2006 Cruel 2 B Kind Concept and design w/ Ian Bogost 2005 Last Call Poker 42 Entertainment Live Events Lead 2005 PlaceStorming 2004 I Love Bees 42 Entertainment Community Lead/PuppetMaster 2004 Demonstrate 2004 TeleTwister

SuperBetter In July 2009, Jane suffered a concussion after hitting her head in her office. The symptoms were severe and lasted for several weeks. They made her feel suicidal. She requested her friends to give her tasks to do each day.

Wanting to recover from her condition, she created a game to treat it. The game was initially called Jane the Concussion-Slayer (after Buffy the Vampire Slayer), then renamed SuperBetter. McGonigal raised $1 million to fund an expanded version of the game.

Books On January 20, 2011, McGonigal's first book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, discusses gaming, massively multiplayer online gaming and alternate reality games. Using current research from the positive psychology movement, McGonigal argues that games contribute to human happiness and motivation, a sense of meaning, and community development.

The book was met with a favorable reception from The Los Angeles Times and Wired and mixed reviews from The Independent. The book received criticism from some quarters, notably the Wall Street Journal, which felt that her thesis—which claimed to use games to "fix" everyday life by giving it a sense of achievement and making it seem more fulfilling and optimistic—made "overblown" claims from minor examples, and did not address conflicting individual goals and desires, or the influence of "evil." The New York Times Book Review also criticized some points in her book, citing the lack of evidence demonstrating that in-game behavior and values could translate into solutions to real-world problems such as poverty, disease, and hunger.

On September 15, 2015, McGonigal's second book, SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver, and More Resilient, was published by Penguin Press. It was #7 on the New York Times Best Seller: Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous List its debut week.

McGonigal's third book, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today, was released on March 22, 2022.

Recognition Date Award Description 2010 O: The Oprah Magazine "2010 O Power List" Named in O: The Oprah Magazine as one of 20 important women of 2010 on the "2010 O Power List" 2008 Women in Games: Gamasutra 20 Named in the first Gamasutra 20, honoring 20 notable women working in video games. 2008 South by Southwest Interactive Award for Activism Awarded for World Without Oil 2006 MIT Technology Review TR100 Named one of the world's top innovators under the age of 35 by MIT's Technology Review. 2005 2005 Innovation Award from the International Game Developers Association and a 2005 Games-related Webby Award. For I Love Bees, the Halo 2 promotion.

Publications

McGonigal, Jane (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Press. . McGonigal, Jane (2015). SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient. Penguin Press. . McGonigal, Jane (2022). Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today. Spiegel & Grau. .