Jane McGonigal from the Institute for the Future is now on stage, talking about the next generation of gaming.

How can games help connect gamers with a ‘better’ reality?

For many gamers, “reality is broken”. Games are designed to make it easy to form relationships, and to build connections. Real life often doesn’t make that easy. Hmm.

“Networked games work better than reality”; they come with better instructions; better feedback; better community

A lot of people care more about their game lives than their real lives; and this is perfectly rational. “For many gamers today, in terms of perceived quality of life, virtuality it beating reality”

So what do we do about it?

Jane thinks that instead of making games that provide ever-better ‘offsets’ to reality, we can make life more like a game.

“My car is a video game” – hybrid car with great visual feedback about driver’s performance.

Chore Wars – ‘finally you can claim experience points for housework’… “MMO-style missions around doing housework”

Serios from Seriosity – designed for the enterprise, around virtual currency. Every time you send an email asking someone to do something for you, you have to assign an amount of currency to it. Great visual feedback about how the company works…

Oh boy.

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