JANE MCGONIGAL

There are people who are very dismissive of games and gamers.

A dramatic decrease in oil availability is not at all far-fetched.

Evidence shows that having even weak social connections in a stressful situation is really good for your health and your ability to handle that situation.

My mom is a public school teacher and works with third grade students.

Compared with games, reality is disconnected.

My favorite part of running is the thinking time.

If you make it a game, gamers will play it no matter what your motivation is in making it.

'Superbetter' looks more like a social media platform or a social network than a typical video game. You know, there aren't any 3-d spaces to explore. You don't have this avatar that you're building up. It's more about thinking like a gamer.

Games that make you feel good about yourself are good games to be playing.

I ran through most of college and ran through most of grad school. When I was writing my dissertation for my Ph.D., it was literally the only hour of the day that I wasn't working. It was nine months of torture, but I made sure I got out to run.

Game designers are obsessed with emotion. How do we create the emotions that we want gamers to feel, and how can we really make it this intense, emotional experience?

In the future, I think it's pretty plausible that collective intelligence tools and skills will be important in order to be a part of global dialog, global business, and global creativity. People who know how to negotiate collective intelligence networks are going to be in a good position to contribute to global society.

There is no problem that doesn't have some underlying need for more optimism, stamina, resilience and collaboration. And games are, I believe, the best platform we have for providing that.

The Gamifaction Movement is trying to help companies engage their audience and community by using game mechanics and wrapping them around shopping or achievements, so you get achievements for coming to a store or purchasing things, like rewarding activities.

Although I'm perceived as very optimistic and upbeat, it comes out of being the opposite of that - feeling isolated or lonely, looking for meaning and the kinds of things that ease that suffering in life, and finding them in large-scale social interaction, like theater and games.

For most people, an hour a day playing our favorite games will power up our ability to engage whole-heartedly with difficult challenges, strengthen our relationships with the people we care about most - while still letting us notice when it's time to stop playing in virtual worlds and bring our gamer strengths back to real life.

There's no reason why the 'Lost' alternate reality game had to be officially made by the 'Lost' production crew.

It seems like what happens when we play games is that we go into a psychological state called eustress, or positive stress. It's basically the same as negative stress in the sense that we get our adrenaline up, you know, our breathing rate quickens, our pulse quickens.

I want to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Prize.

I'm not a fan of simulations. Where, 'Oh, we'll go play a simulation of world peace and figure out how to make peace' and then somehow magically that will get translated into the real world. No, that's not the kind of games that I make.

Every game designer should make one explicitly world-changing game. Lawyers do pro bono work, why can't we?

When parents or gamers ask me, 'What's the best game to play?' I say that playing face-to-face is more beneficial than playing online.

Things like depression and obesity are global challenges.

I'm always thinking about whatever game I'm working on. My brain works subconsciously on design pretty much every hour I'm awake.

I remember the first year at the Game Developers Conference I wore these big red giant knee-high boots. Nobody cared. You can wear anything you love, because that's what you do in games. You make yourself who you want to be.