Jane McGonigal Quotes

Gamers always believe that an epic win is possible and that it's always worth trying and trying now.

When we play a game, we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we're more likely to reach out to others for help.

Reality is broken and we need to make it work more like a game.

When we play games, our brains respond differently to stress and obstacles. We're better able to control our attention and ignore distractions.

There is no problem that doesn't have some underlying need for more optimism, stamina, resilience and collaboration. And games are, I believe, the best platform we have for providing that.

I didn't accomplish what I set out to do, but I realized I had set out to do the wrong things

What's really amazing about games is how they change our emotional response to challenges

If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion … you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you're facing.

Compared with games, reality is disconnected.

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.

Games are unnecessary obstacles we volunteer to tackle.

Game design isn’t just a technological craft. It’s a twenty-first-century way of thinking and leading.

Every game we play activates our brain, and it's the same brain we have in real life as we have in the game.

I see a future in which games once again are explicitly designed to improve quality of life, to prevent suffering, and to create real, widespread happiness.

The idea of the 'lone gamer' is really not true anymore. Up to 65 percent of gaming now is social, played either online or in the same room with people we know in real life.

My favorite part of running is the thinking time.

It may have once been true that computer games encouraged us to interact more with machines than with each other. But if you still think of gamers as loners, then you’re not playing games.

A dramatic decrease in oil availability is not at all far-fetched.

Game developers know that people have more fun when they're in large groups. They feel more fired up when the challenges are more epic.

When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.

The single biggest misconception about games is that they're an escapist waste of time.

Games that make you feel good about yourself are good games to be playing.

My mom is a public school teacher and works with third grade students.

Urgent optimism is the desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle, combined with the belief that we have a reasonable hope of success.

Growing up, I was prone to anxiety.

Every game designer should make one explicitly world-changing game. Lawyers do pro bono work, why can't we?

Things like depression and obesity are global challenges.

There is so much more knowledge than most people realize about how to maximize the benefits of play and minimize the potential harms.

I want to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Prize.

When we know our strengths, we're more likely to use them.

I worry a lot about people using games just for marketing, to get people to buy more stuff, which I think would be the worst possible use.

There are people who are very dismissive of games and gamers.

Games are providing rewards that reality is not.

We have to accept as a society that games are not escapist. They really do change us.

Games are work. There are economies popping up in games now because people value them.

We can boost our immune systems by strengthening our social networks and decreasing stress.

Avatars are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become.

You can't play the same game every day for years. New games are key.

Research shows that when we're under stress or facing a major obstacle, we tend to focus on our weaknesses and what we're afraid of.

I've been running since high school. My boyfriend was on the track team, and I'd run with him.

If you make it a game, gamers will play it no matter what your motivation is in making it.

Clinically speaking, depression is a pessimistic sense of your own capabilities, and despondent lack of energy.

I don't want to be a saint; I just want to help people.

You need to develop mental habits that allow you to activate the same brain patterns we activate during gameplay.

Over time, the games we play can change how we think and what we're capable of. And it's easy to maximize the benefits so the changes are positive.

A traumatic event doesn't doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.

Any time I consider a new project, I ask myself, is this pushing the state of gaming toward Nobel Prizes? If it's not, then it's not doing anything important enough to spend my time.

Games are such a powerful intervention in health and wellness.

The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy.

I'm always thinking about whatever game I'm working on. My brain works subconsciously on design pretty much every hour I'm awake.