Bob Stein sent me (thanks) a link to a fascinating profile by Eliza Strickland of San Francisco game designer Jane McGonigal. I've long thought that games were a logical expansion of public media. McGonigal, without calling it that, has probably developed this concept further than anyone else. Strickland writes:
... McGonigal wants to harness the power of the communal cerebellum her games create, and put it to work solving real-world problems. Maybe young folks in warring countries could play games together, and would be less inclined to shed each other's blood. Maybe players could analyze real scientific data in the course of a game, crunching numbers and looking for patterns just as they always do, but with a payoff that goes beyond advancing to the next stage of a game. ...
Link: SF Weekly. --Dennis
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