Jane McGonigal

Infobox Writer
name = Jane McGonigal

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caption = Jane McGonigal at Foo Camp in 2008
birthdate = birth date and age|1977|10|21
birthplace = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = game designer, games researcher
influences =
influenced =
website = http://www.avantgame.com/

Jane McGonigal (born 1977) is a noted game designer and games researcher, specializing in pervasive gaming and alternate reality games. She worked with alternate reality game design company 42 Entertainment from 2004 to 2006, on projects including "I Love Bees" (2004) as Community Lead/Puzzle Designer, and "Last Call Poker" (2005) as Live Events Lead. Additionally, she has collaborated on commissioned games for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

In recent years, McGonigal has grown especially interested in the way that massively multiplayer online gaming generates collective intelligence, and interested in the way that the collective intelligences thus generated can be utilized as a means of improving the world, either by improving the quality of human life or by working towards the solution of social ills. She has expressed a desire that gaming should be moving "towards Nobel Prizes." [Strickland, Eliza. " [http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2007/07/10/alternative_reality_games/index1.html Play Peak Oil Before You Live It] ", Salon.com., July 10, 2007.] These ideas informed her collaboration in "World Without Oil" (2007), a simulation designed to brainstorm (and potentially avert) the challenges of a post-peak oil future.

Most recently, she has served as the director for "The Lost Ring", an alternate reality game sponsored by McDonald's and designed as a tie-in to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

She received her PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in August 2006, and has taught game design and game theory at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a Research Affiliate to the Institute for the Future.

Acclaim

"I Love Bees" received a 2005 Innovation Award from the International Game Developers Association and a 2005 Games-related Webby.

In 2006, Dr. McGonigal was named one of the world's top innovators under the age of 35 by MIT's "Technology Review". ["Technology Review", [http://www.technologyreview.com/TR35/Profile.aspx?Cand=T&TRID=453 "2007 Young Innovators Under 35"] ]

In 2008, Dr. McGonigal was named one of the Top 20 Most Important Women in videogaming, ["Gamasutra", [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3589/women_in_games_the_gamasutra_20.php?page=12 "Gamasutra Top 20"] ] and "World Without Oil" received the South by Southwest Interactive Award for Activism.

External links

Writings

* [http://www.avantgame.blogspot.com/ Avant Game] (McGonigal's blog)
* [http://avantgame.com/dissertation.htm This Might Be a Game: Ubiquitous Play and Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century]
* [http://www.seanstewart.org/beast/mcgonigal/notagame/paper.pdf This Is Not a Game]
* [http://avantgame.com/MCGONIGAL%20A%20Real%20Little%20Game%20DiGRA%202003.pdf A Real Little Game]

Games

* [http://www.findthelostring.com The Lost Ring] (2008)
* [http://www.worldwithoutoil.org World Without Oil] (with Ken Eklund) (2007)
* [http://www.cruelgame.com Cruel 2 B Kind] (with Ian Bogost) (2006)
* [http://www.ilovebees.com I Love Bees] (with 42 Entertainment) (2004)
* [http://www.demonstrate.berkeley.edu Demonstrate] (2004)
* [http://placestorming.vectorsjournal.org PlaceStorming] (2005)
* [http://www.tele-actor.net/tele-twister/ TeleTwister] (2004)

Interviews

* [http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3498.html IT Conversations Interview on Alternate Reality Gaming] (2007)

References