SXSWORLD

Jane McGonigal Ready to Make SXSW Interactive SuperBetter by Michael Trice D McGonigal endured in 2009. About the incident McGonigal says, "I tried to fi nd a way to be actively engaged with my recovery and to culti- vate optimism, purpose and social connection during a tough injury that can be socially isolating, depressing and anxiety producing. [Th e game] worked really well for me, and I was able to share the rules online." Th e wide variety of uses that developed from sharing the game rules surprised McGonigal. "I heard back from lots of people that were using it for all sorts of interesting things," she recounts. "Th ings that were physical, like knee surgery, and also more mental things, like depression and addiction. Th en there were really creative uses, like getting over being dumped or fi nding a job. Hearing all these stories made me really happy that it was helping people, so I decided to focus all my creative eff orts into making a platform that made it easier for people to pick up the game. Instead of having to learn the rules, you could just click a button." doctors of another variety: medical doctors. Fresh off the release of her bestselling book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How Th ey Can Change the World, McGonigal has been putting her visionary ideas to the test by developing SuperBetter. Th is ground-breaking game is designed to help people improve their health and well-being by over- coming a wide variety of obstacles through play. Social Chocolate, a new startup where McGonigal serves as Creative Director, plans to launch SuperBetter in March 2012, just in time for SXSW Interactive. SuperBetter actually originated as the result of a severe concussion r. Jane McGonigal may have received her doctorate in per- formance studies from UC Berkeley, but her latest foray into augmented reality games has her spending plenty of time with McGonigal explains that for SXSWedu (to be held March 6-8, where she will be part of the Spotlight Series of Distinguished Speakers), she will discuss a game that she designed for the New York Public Library. "Th e game taught you how to write a book," she explains. "If you won the game, then you'd have actually written a book that could go in your library. So I'll talk about the extreme collaboration that games can bring to education." When asked what to expect during her SXSW appearance, And for SXSW Interactive? "We're actually going to be inviting people at the talk to play SuperBetter. So they'll actually get to be pretty much the fi rst people in the world to play if they come. Th ey'll play and get 'super better' while hearing about all the ideas and research behind the game." Speaking of all that research, the user testing of SuperBetter took Jane McGonigal at SXSW 2011 of Pennsylvania—which are the top centers for research on well-being in the United States. We've been working with doctors at places like the Ohio State University Medical Research Center and the Stanford School of Medicine to understand how to integrate a game with some- one's health care and get it into a formal health care system." In fact, the medical research has been so extensive that McGonigal describes the game as having two tracks: over the counter and prescrip- tion. About the prescription version, McGonigal says, "You'd be able to work with an actual health care practitioner around a goal that you might have, whether it's quitting smoking, losing weight, curing your diabetes or getting pregnant — everything you could imagine." So what has the early testing been like? Th e biggest hurdle involved making the doctors and patients comfortable with the process, she explains. But once the SuperBetter team overcame that obstacle, patients were able to easily understand and play the game. "We've been studying all kinds of things, the actual, physical out- McGonigal into new territory: working directly with medical doc- tors and their patients. "We've been working with a lot diff erent folks over the past year: a lot of doctors, a lot of experts in physical health, mental health and social well being. We have a science team of people from Stanford, the University of California at Berkeley, the University More ScreenBurn Programming at SXSW 2012 AUSTIN CONVENTION CENTER: Monday, March 12: Featured Speaker Katie Salen from the Institute of Play PALMER EVENTS CENTER: Saturday, March 10 and Sunday, March 11: ScreenBurn Panels "Live the Game: A Lifestyle with a Gaming Sense," "Journalists Discuss the Future of Games," "Unpacking the Myth of the Intuitive," "Games for Change: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility," "Why is Anyone Dumb Enough to Try to Make an MMO?," "The Kinect Effect: More Than Rally Ball," "Cloudy with a Chance of Gaming" 20 SXSW ORLD / FEBRUAR Y 2012 McGonigal. Instead of just seeing if the game was engaging, it needed to be both engaging enough for the patients to play and stick with the game, but it also needed to show results. Th is made balancing the med- ical science and game play a real challenge. In March, SXSW Interactive attendees will get a fi rst-hand look at just how these balances play out. ■ comes," says McGonigal. "Do [patients] get better faster? Do they recover physically faster? But also, are they just happier through that process? Is it less stressful? Not just for them, but also for their family members and caretakers." SuperBetter involved an entirely diff erent type of play-testing for FRANKIE NORSTAD

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