Jane McGonigal – How Games Make Life Better - [Invest Like the Best, EP.138]
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Jane McGonigal, PhD is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games — or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems.

She is the Author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World and is the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped nearly a million players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury.

Our conversation is about how to design useful games, how games effect us and our kids, and what the future might hold. Please enjoy.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast).

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub).

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag)

Show Notes

1:22 - (First Question) – Her take on the history of gaming and studying the players themselves

3:44 – Where her passion for gaming really started

4:55 – Her take on flow states

7:47 – Kids and gaming

10:32 – Advice for parents when it comes to the role of games

            11:06 – SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient--Powered by the Science of Games)

13:53 – Types of games that develop the right skills for kids

16:20 – Four things all games share in common

            16:23 – Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World)   

20:50 – Her take on Carse’s theory about infinite gaming

            21:04 – Finite and Infinite Games)

26:28 – How to understand gaming culture if you’ve never played a game before

28:28 – Amazon and gaming

31:18 – How fun makes anything more enjoyable

34:55 – How game designers calibrate feedback loops

39:14 – The good and bad of gamifying life

45:01 – What is the superbetter app)

52:43 - Why powerups and bad guys are so important in games

57:03 – Secret identity

59:04 – Playing with boundaries

1:00:36 – Most worried about in the gaming world, and most exited about

1:07:32 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Jane

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast). 

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub)

Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag)