Tuesday Keynote: Jane McGonigal
Notes from the SXSW Tuesday Keynote: Jane McGonigal presentation
Instead of making more powerful AI, Jane McGonigal focusses on making reality more like gaming.
But let's start with happiness. There is an increasing large body of research into the science of happiness. This new focus will shift the focus of businesses to design for happiness.
Predictions
- Quality of life becomes a primary metric for evaluating interactive experiences
- Positive psychology is be an increasingly explicit tool in design
- Communities form around different visions of real worth living
- Value will be defined as a measurable increase in real happiness, or well being
Happiness has changed
It isn't a warm fuzzy thing any more. It is instead a complicated set of qualities. It is about having meaningful things to do that make you feel successful. It is about being a part of something bigger.
Multiplayer games, in this view, are the ultimate happiness engine.
In games we can be good at things that we can't be good at in real life. In World of Warcraft there are legions of people there who want to collaborate with you. The system gives constant feedback about your improvement. Game worlds are designed to make you feel good at something. The real world isn't set up this way.
- Games have better instructions
- Games give constant feedback
- Games have better community
A global mass exodus
It started in North America but its spreading. There is a global mass exodus to virtual worlds from the real world. This isn't bad, per se, but it is happening.
- See economist Edward Castronova
We can create the same values that exist in the virtual world in the real world. People who shift to virtual worlds are making rational choices. The calculus would shift if the real world were designed with the same values in mind. The real world can be made more adventurous. People can be made to feel that they are as good at real life as they are at games.
But there's some bad news. Games are great but they are too narrow. Its as if we invented the written word and decided only to write books. Words outside of books are transformative. Games could have the same impact.
- See Chore Wars
- See Zyked
- See Seriosity
To imagine the future, always look back at least twice as far as you are looking forward.
Looking backward to see an analogy for the situation is to look back at soap in 1931. The headline reads "Soap Kills Germs." Soap had been around for thousands of years but it took a long time for it to become ubiquitous. Similarly, "Games Kill Boredom." Games kill alienation, they kill anxiety, they kill lack of confidence, and they can kill depression by giving purpose and community.
Alternate reality game designers are trying to embed these happiness engines into everyday life.
The concept "alternate reality" comes from science fiction. Alternate, not alternative. This terms comes from the community and it is called Alternate because it is an alternate way of experiencing this reality, not an alternative to this reality.
World without oil
It was a global simulation of an oil shock. Players lived their real lives as if this were their reality. They were given fictional parameters for their geography and documented experiences in this context.
The alternate reality lasted for thirty days.
A soldier in Iraq wrote a live journal about what it would be like to fight war without oil. People made videos of themselves actually changing their trucks to biodiesel. People did man-on-the-street interviews with non-players to get people thinking about what it would be like if the world ran out of oil.
Research
When you match the strengths of alternate reality games with the science of happiness you see some very interesting overlaps.
- Mobbability: good at coordinating groups quickly
- Cooperation radar: able to know who would be good collaborators for particular missions
- Ping quotient: ability to reach out to others in a network and likelihood to respond
- Influencing: how easily you can persuade people of something in specific contexts, a fluid sense of getting people to band together and work with you
- Multi-capitalism: an understanding of the different value systems that people trade in; social capital, environmental capital, etc. As large groups band together, understanding this is very important.
- Protovation: rapid fearless innovation, the feeling that failure is fun because it means that you're learning. Quick frequent failure is the point because you're constantly trying new things.
- Open authorship: comfort with giving content away and knowing that it will be changed. A design skill for creating things that won't be broken with changes.
- Signal/noise management: an ability to handle a high volume of noise and know which bit of information is relevant right at this moment.
- Longbroading: the ability to think in bigger systems; longer time systems or big communities
- Emergensight: the ability to spot patterns as they bubble up, comfort with the messy complexity of new things at large scales
These ten things amplify our natural tendency to the optimal human experience.
Where do we go next?
What is the infrastructure for this? Twitter is a natural interface. The Nike iPod is a useful tool for this. Trackstick is a way to map your location to a map with GPS. The console in the Prius is a video game. Virgin is putting really interesting communication systems on the plane. This is an opportunity for social games that will improve reality.
Look at places like dog parks. You can make that environment into a virtual game.
The lost ring
This is an alternate reality game for the 2008 olympics. It is a way for people to discover old olympic sports that nobody knows how to play any more. This is a way for people to participate in something that they could be the best at in the world.
Takeaways
- soon enough, most of us will be in the happiness business so look at the books about the science of happiness
- game designers have a huge head start because they've been doing this for twenty years so look to games for inspiration and research
- alternate realities signal the desire, need and opportunity for all of us to redesign reality for real quality of life
Q&A
Q: The military has been very aggressive in using video games and politicians have used videogame language. What is the impact of games on these big issues?
A: It is important to differentiate between different kinds of games and different components of games. The military has been using games to make it easier for soldiers to go to war. This isn't the "best" use of games but it is significant because it points to the same trend toward gaming. It is important for game developers to work toward benevolent causes.
Q: To what extent are things like gaming substitutes for absences in life or building on top of life?
A: Blogs work better for conversations for people and the same is true with games. Not all bloggers or gamers have lives that need fixing but some gamers are replacing their broken realities with games. It is important to have a real conversation about this. Game makers need to take this seriously and work to build games that make reality more survivable.
Q: Most ARGs seem to be more narrative driven. What is the direction?
A: Much of the press around this has focussed on the web but there is a rich history of these things happening in the world real.
- See SF0
Q: The best ARGs seem to be big productions but they are also temporary. How do we get these things to keep going?
A: This is a business model problem. Right now people see these games as part of a marketing strategy which will end. The pay-to-play model offers an interesting model for ongoing games but this is still being sorted out.
Q: One sponsor of The Lost Ring is McDonalds. How do reconcile this?
A: It could be a way to change McDonalds but it is also a chance to make this biggest best thing possible. The designers aren't thinking about the sponsor, the sponsor is enabling the project to happen.
Business model questions are always tricky. You need money to make things but it is moving in the direction of TV. We understand that TV is funded by sponsors but still engage with the content.
Q: Games change how we see our physical spaces.
A: Yes. Once you've had an ARG somewhere it changes the way you interact with a space. The idea that you can overlay a sense of confidence and adventure in a real space is a wonderful thing.
Q: How do you balance individual creativity and rules?
A: It is important to have top-down structure to start but then can open up as the game evolves. If you are trying to solve a problem with a game you need to do plenty of research and use that to push the gamers in a direction.
Q: What about things like "The Game" which encourages men to game women?
A: It is important to define the kind of game you're playing. Games need to be collaborative. This behavior is a game that isn't apparent to everyone involved. As games become more situated in real life it might help this by making it more apparent that this isn't fair or fun for everyone. It is important to separate real games from metaphorical games. We should realize what games we are playing and play them fairly to create engagement where there used to be disengagement.
Q: Given the reaction of states to older forms of happiness seeking do you suspect that there will be a crack-down?
A: The state will either crack down or co-opt. It is important to explain games to people who are in power so they are not scared of them. We need to make game powerful media for good and game developers need to be involved in the conversation.
Q: What about gender?
A: This gets into interesting issues about subject matter and the media itself (2d vs 3d). Guys tend to be more into dwarves and stuff. ARGs offer more diverse subject matter and modes of play.
Thanks for such a clear, comprehensive write-up! It was a great talk.