Getting A Few Hours Closer To An Epic Win

A few days ago, I related some news articles about the potential health benefits and addictive nature of the MMORPG (for the non-geeks following along at home, that stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) known as World of Warcraft.  Shortly after posting, I received a message in my inbox from a friend (if you read the earlier post, you know how that goes) that he thought I might be interested in.  This video also featured some interesting facts and studies about WoW and about gaming in general.

Wait, I know.  This is the second time this week that I’ve mentioned WoW here on Geekcentricity.  Lest some of you worry, unlike my friend and fellow blogger Jason over at De-Bugging Life, I have not “fallen off the wagon” and started playing again.  I can stand up at my meeting and proudly say that I’ve been clean since September 2008.  I must admit that I used Warhammer Online as my methadone equivalent for a while, but it was much easier to wean myself off of that game than quitting “World of Warcrack” cold turkey.  The video my friend sent me finally made it clear to me why I spent so many hours over several years playing this game (and of course, by the transitive property of gaming, the same can be related to tabletop role-playing games as well).

The video is one of the TEDTalks from TED 2010.  TED is a wonderful little non-profit organization that started in California in 1984.  The name is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment & Design.  Their mission is to encourage innovative thinking and the spread of ideas.  They have had some fantastic presentations by some of the great minds of our time and a trip to their website could easily lead to three or four hours of video watching.  Besides, how can you not like an organization whose musical director is Thomas “She Blinded Me With Science” Dolby.

The particular video which I received from my friend is a presentation by game designer Jane McGonigal entitled  ”Gaming Can Make A Better World.”  I encourage you to watch the entire video (it is long… as in 20 minutes long).  If you stop when you start thinking “this woman is CRAZY” then you will miss the transition.  She is so crazy that she makes sense.

The video gives some insane statistics:

• Collectively, we spend over 3 billion hours a week playing online games. [I point the finger of blame at you, Farmvillians!]
• Since World of Warcraft was released, we have spent, collectively, over 5.93 million years solving the virtual problems of the world of Azeroth. [Think of how many poor Murlocs have had to die.]
• There are 500 million people in the world who play video games.  [This makes the 8 million WoW subscribers seem like a paltry sum.]
• With nearly 80,000 articles  and more than 5 million hits each month, the WoW wiki is the second largest wiki in existence, behind Wikipedia.
• By the age of 21, the average young person in a country with a strong gamer culture will have accrued more than 10,000 hours playing online games.

(Jane McGonigal, “Gaming Can Make A Better World“)

It was the last statistic on the list above that piqued my interest.  Having read Malcolm Gladwell’s incredible book Outliers, which Ms. McGonigal has also read, I immediately recognized that number and what it signified.  Gladwell calls it “The 10,000 Hour Rule.”  According to extensive research, 10,000 hours is the amount of time it takes the average person to achieve mastery at something.  I’m going to leave it to Mr. Gladwell to illuminate you on the actual research that was used to arrive at that figure.  He does an excellent job of it, tracking the path to success of virtuosos in a multitude of fields, from Mozart and The Beatles to Bill Joy, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  It is a remarkable read, which I highly recommend.  I will also leave it to Jane McGonigal to explain what she thinks a veritable army of video game virtuosos could accomplish if their talents were slightly refocused.

If you haven’t checked out “Natural 20 On Your Blog Roll!!!” over at De-Bugging Life, please do so.  It was my podcasting debut and I think it turned out rather well.

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world | Video on TED.com