Jane McGonigal
| Jane McGonigal | |
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| Born |
October 21, 1977 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupation | Game designer, game researcher |
| Alma mater |
Fordham University University of California, Berkeley |
| Website | |
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 Jane McGonigal: Massively multi-player... thumb-wrestling?, TED Talks, published November 15, 2013 |
Jane McGonigal (born October 21, 1977) is an American game designer and author who advocates the use of mobile and digital technology to channel positive attitudes and collaboration in a real world context.
McGonigal was brought up in New Jersey. Her parents are teachers and emphasized intellectual attainment. She has an identical twin sister, Kelly McGonigal, who is a well known psychologist.
McGonigal received her BA in English from Fordham University in 1999, and her PhD in performance studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006.
After earning her BA in English, she started developing her first commercial games. In 2006, at the age of 28, she earned a PhD in performance studies and continued developing games. In 2009, she suffered a debilitating concussion that helped her in the development of a game, Jane the Concussion Slayer, for treating her concussion and other similar conditions. The game was later renamed SuperBetter. In 2011, her first book was published. Her sister Kelly is a psychologist and also an author.
McGonigal writes and speaks about alternate reality games and massively multiplayer online gaming, especially about the way that collective intelligence can be generated and used as a means for improving the quality of human life or working towards the solution of social ills. She has stated that gaming should be moving "towards Nobel Prizes." McGonigal has been called "the current public face of gamification". Despite this, McGonigal has objected to the word, stating, "I don't do 'gamification,' and I'm not prepared to stand up and say I think it works, I don't think anybody should make games to try to motivate somebody to do something they don't want to do. If the game is not about a goal you're intrinsically motivated by, it won't work."
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Wikipedia