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Jane McGonigal’s “Games For Change Keynote” lecture is about how much of an influence games have on society and the impact it can bring. Her two main questions to answer during this lecture are “What can games change?” and “What do games change?” McGonigal presents a list of some people’s twitter responses to what games do for them. The first few responses refer to ones emotional state. People with initial negative emotions such as sadness and anxiety can play games and end up feeling much better. Another change she presents is “mental resilience”. This refers to a person’s mindset and how it is altered with games. It is possible for people’s confidence and performance levels to increase after some time playing games. The next thing McGonigal talks about is “social resilience”. How people socialize and interact with the people around them can change with game play as well. For example, many of the games in the present day are multiplayer and present an option to connect with players around the world. This creates socializing and interacting with other online players who may even be real life friends. Before she talks about the science and data behind her lecture she gives us a list of how we can measure these changes when playing games. The list includes analyzing emotional, mental, neurological, social, self-efficacy, and engagement levels. In more general terms, McGonigal believes that “games can change your life.”
McGonigal talks about an interesting mission of hers for this talk, which is to “increase the lifespan of everyone in this room by seven and a half minutes” and even provides a formula to show where she got that specific number. A good point she brings up is that on our deathbeds, many people may end up regretting all the time they devoted to playing games. Many people will say that the time spent in front of a game console or computer controlling a virtual character could have been used more wisely. She presents to the audience a list of the top