Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

100 Websites You Should Know and Use In the spring of 2007, Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH, gave a legendary TED University talk: an ultra-fast-moving ride through the “100 websites you should know and use.” Six years later, it remains one of the most viewed TED blog posts ever. Time for an update? We think so. Below, the 2013 edition of the 100 websites to put on your radar and in your browser. To see the original list, click here. And now, the original list from 2007, created by Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH.

Handbook of Collective Intelligence ?p=355 from johnbarberblog.com In a series of talks at Google, TED and SXSW, big ideas have been circulating in the emerging area of gamification. Revealing the psychological levers behind game mechanics and applying these mechanics to solving real-world problems, Sebastian Deterding, a UX designer and researcher, and Seth Priebatsch, founder and CEO of gamification platform startup SCVNGR, have emerged as two early thought leaders worth watching. Both contend that gamification, or making a non-game application more engaging by adding game-like features, is clearly more than a bolt-on marketing fad and even quite possibly the next big thing for the internet. A few core ideas shared by both of these thought leaders are deconstructed from their recent talks below so that we may more readily consider applying them in our own projects. Sebastian Deterding Deterding dives into three elements he believes are key to high-engagement, high-loyalty games and gamification – meaning, mastery, and autonomy. Meaning. Mastery.

The Future Of Work Is Play Humans love games. Just check the current news cycle for evidence: The Xbox 360’s sleek, new controller-free gaming device, Kinect, is the fastest-selling consumer electronic product ever. Foursquare has attracted millions of badge-seeking users and aspiring “mayors.” What is it about games that makes them so appealing? What’s the most basic definition of a game? I’m partial to the definition put forth by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman in their book Rules of Play: A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome. What are some examples of how I could use the power of games to keep myself motivated during a long, personal project (say, making a documentary film)? The trick here is to turn a long experience that has very limited feedback into something that is broken up into smaller and more rewarding chunks. Smaller self-imposed challenges can spark your creative drive in ways you don’t expect.

Digital Gaming Goes Academic Published Online: March 14, 2011 Published in Print: March 17, 2011, as Gaming Goes Academic Rice University created CSI: Web Adventures to introduce middle schoolers to forensic science through cases based on the popular TV-show franchise about crime-scene investigations. —Courtesy of Rice University Experts say technology and research have evolved to the point where educators can actually have a sense of the impact of games on individual learners Educators at Ocoee Middle School in Florida have built an online game lab to engage students and sharpen technology skills. Digital games for learning academic skills change depending on each student’s ability and course of action. “The technology and the research have evolved to the point where we can actually have a sense of the impact games are having on learning,” says Lee Wilson, the president and chief executive officer of San Antonio-based PCI Education, which makes instructional materials for students with special needs. Focus on Outcomes

social-gaming-trends from mashable.com Prita Uppal is the founder and CEO of YooMee Games, a social competition platform that brings tournaments and cash prizes to skill-based games across websites, social networks and mobile apps. More than 18,000 interactive gaming industry pros came to San Francisco for the Game Developers’ Conference this week, an annual event that draws programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and anyone else involved in the development of interactive games. At GDC in past years, hardcore gamers have been reluctant to accept social games into the fold, but this year there’s no denying it. Social games are the fastest growing segment of the gaming market with revenues projected to exceed $1 billion in 2011, and they are here to stay. Here’s a look at four of the biggest social gaming trends discussed at GDC 2011. 1. The time for higher-quality browser-based games is here. 2. 3. Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary from Ogmento on Vimeo. 4.

Social Gaming By The Numbers (Social Studies Blog) As the Game Developers Conference gets underway here in San Francisco, we thought we’d take a look at how the social gaming juggernaut is shaping the gaming and entertainment industries. Click for large version: What actitivies can be turned into games? Techniques for designing consumer scales Recently, my amazing wife picked up a copy of Wii Fit. No, this is not a review. Here is something you may not know about my wife. For the past year, she's been dealing with a rather serious, debilitating illness. So when the Wii Fit first booted up and cheerily prompted her to set a goal, she decided to try to get her BMI back up to the 'normal level'. We've had other exercise equipment around the house before, as well as gym memberships, yoga classes, etc. However, if the lessons of Wii Fit were broadly applicable, entire industries could be transformed. As I contemplate my wife's success with the Wii Fit, I'm struck by a multi-billion dollar question: What other activities can you turn into a game? Almost anythingFirst, though there is no doubt that Miyamoto is a genius, what he does is reproducible by mere mortals. It turns out that most learnable skills can be turned into a game. 1. 2. 3. In Wii Fit, you can learn to use the board in seconds.

Why Every Company Needs a Chief Gaming Officer Over the past several years I’ve been producing Innovation Games® events to help my friends in the Intellectual Property industry define the role of the Chief Intellectual Property Officer (CIPO)1. As I’ve started to prepare for another round of games on this topic, I’ve come to believe that every company needs a CGO – a Chief Gaming Officer. This post is the start of a global conversation on the role of the CGO. If you care about the power of serious games to create amazing, transformative results for companies, I invite you to join me in this conversation and in defining this role. If you search on the internet, you’ll find that several gaming companies have CGOs. Indeed, Wikipedia defines a CGO as follows: A chief gaming officer (abbreviated as CGO) is an executive position whose holder is focused on research and technical issues within a computer game company. The problem with this definition is that it is tragically limited along a number of dimensions.

Video Games Win a Beachhead in the Classroom Gillian Laub for The New York Times Class Media Nicole Dodson, Dakota Jerome Solbakken and Nadine Clements, students at Quest to Learn, a New York City public school, play a game they designed. Doyle was, at 54, a veteran teacher and had logged 32 years in schools all over Manhattan, where he primarily taught art and computer graphics. In the school, which was called Quest to Learn, he was teaching a class, Sports for the Mind, which every student attended three times a week.

Play to win: The game-based economy Companies are realizing that "gamification" -- using the same mechanics that hook gamers -- is an effective way to generate business. Since the advent of videogames, skeptics have questioned their inherent value: why do players spend hours accruing virtual points working towards intangible rewards? Chalk it up to basic human behavior, which game makers have been trying to understand and appeal to for decades. So it's no surprise to some gamers -- including yours truly -- that the very same game-play mechanics that hook players are slowly wending their way into other parts of the economy, too. With "gamification," companies study and identify natural human tendencies and employ game-like mechanisms to give customers a sense that they're having fun while working towards a rewards-based goal. Proponents of "gamification" consider conventional incentive-based mechanics to be flawed, broken, or skewed. Profiting from workout goals. The ultimate education contest.

Teoría de juegos Desarrollada en sus comienzos como una herramienta para entender el comportamiento de la economía, la teoría de juegos se usa actualmente en muchos campos, como en la biología, sociología, psicología y filosofía. Experimentó un crecimiento sustancial y se formalizó por primera vez a partir de los trabajos de John von Neumann y Oskar Morgenstern, antes y durante la Guerra Fría, debido sobre todo a su aplicación a la estrategia militar, en particular a causa del concepto de destrucción mutua garantizada. Desde los setenta, la teoría de juegos se ha aplicado a la conducta animal, incluyendo el desarrollo de las especies por la selección natural. A raíz de juegos como el dilema del prisionero, en los que el egoísmo generalizado perjudica a los jugadores, la teoría de juegos ha atraído también la atención de los investigadores en informática, usándose en inteligencia artificial y cibernética. Representación de juegos[editar] Forma normal de un juego[editar] Forma extensiva de un juego[editar]

Sistema de juego Un sistema de juego es una regla o conjunto de reglas cuyo objetivo consiste en obtener una serie de resultados coherentes en el seno de un juego. Los juegos complejos, como los juegos de rol, pueden disponer de un gran número de reglas interconectadas en el seno de sus respectivos sistemas de juego. A la experiencia total que el juego provee o al conjunto de reglas de juego se le llama jugabilidad. La interacción de las diferentes reglas de juego determinan la complejidad de su sistema de juego así como del nivel de interacción de los jugadores. Los sistemas de juego entran dentro de varias categorías más o menos definidas. Sistemas de jugabilidad[editar] Estos son los sistemas que controlan la manera en que los jugadores juegan el juego. Administración de recursos[editar] Alcance[editar] Algunos juegos incluyen un sistema diseñado para hacer que el progreso de los jugadores hacia la victoria sea más difícil mientras más cerca estén de obtenerla. Un ejemplo es Los Descubridores de Catán.

Book Review: Game Urbanism The widening of the planning process is something we have only seen happening in the past 20 years. Public consultations are older, but not public participation. There was a strong practice of participation in the late eighties and early nineties, which has sort of established some public involvement, but it has also died out to a great extent again. It is however an upcoming topic again also with the availability of new tools and technologies such as digital and mobile gadgets. The tension between the 'planners' and the 'to be planned', has always posed obstacles and the understanding and the working together is complicated already because of the self image of the different parties. In a new Valiz publication Game Urbanism: Manual for Cultural Spatial Planning, Hans Verhuizen discusses his theories and his practice in this field of, what he terms 'Cultural Planning', of working with multiple stakeholders on planning processes. "Game Urbanism deals with the culture of spatial planning.