Jane McGonigal

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Occupation: game designer, games researcher

Website: avantgame.com

Jane McGonigal (born 1977) is a noted game designer and games researcher, specializing in pervasive games and alternate reality games. She was a lead designer for I Love Bees, receiving a 2005 Innovation Award from the International Game Developers Association and 2005 Games-related Webby. She has collaborated on commissioned games for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She received her PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in August 2006. In 2006, Dr. McGonigal was named one of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35 by MIT’s Technology Review. [1]

Born in Philadelphia, Jane has a twin sister named Kelly who is a psychologist and yoga professional.[2] Jane currently teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a Research Affiliate to the Institute for the Future.

Writings

This Might Be a Game: Ubiquitous Play and Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

This Is Not a Game

A Real Little Game

Games

Cruel 2 B Kind (2006)

Tombstone Hold ‘Em (2005)

I Love Bees (2004)

Demonstrate (2004)

PlaceStorming (2005)

TeleTwister (2004)