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 designed several notable alternate reality games, including I Love Bees (2004), World Without Oil (2007), and 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's 2010 Power List.
Early years and education
McGonigal was brought up in New Jersey.[1] Her parents are teachers who emphasized intellectual attainment. Her identical twin sister, Kelly McGonigal, is a psychologist.[2]
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.[6]
McGonigal has been called "the current public face of gamification."[8] 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."[9]
In 2008, she became the Director of Game Research and Development at Institute for the Future,[12] and in 2012, the Chief Creative Officer at SuperBetter Labs.[13]
Games
McGonigal has been developing commercial games since 2006, some of which are listed in the following chart:
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.[9]
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[20] and Wired[21] and mixed reviews from The Independent.[22] 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."[23] The New York Times Book Review[24] 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.
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.[27]
McGonigal, Jane (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Press. ISBN978-1-59420-285-8.
McGonigal, Jane (2015). SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient. Penguin Press. ISBN978-1-59420-636-8.
McGonigal, Jane (2022). Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today. Spiegel & Grau. ISBN978-1-954118-09-6.
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