A renowned game designer and researcher turns to social gaming to help change the world

Jane McGonigal has a simple goal: she wants to see a video game developer win a Nobel Prize within the next two decades. At first, it might seem a bit impractical; how can a video game possibly contribute to world peace, or aid in the relief of poverty and hunger? The gaming industry is a profit-driven machine, yet McGonigal believes that some of today's most lucrative products—MMOs and online gaming—might hold the key to unlocking a vast resource of untapped, world-changing potential.

This Wednesday, McGonigal is launching Urgent Evoke, a new MMO-ARG (Alternate Reality Game) hybrid that she hopes will "help empower young people all over the world, and especially young people in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems," according to the official blog. The upcoming game offers players the chance to earn tangible rewards—scholarships and venture capital, for example—by performing real-world "quests" like volunteer work and career-building tasks. The concept might not seem that enticing to conventional gamers, but it's an early, real-world application of what McGonigal believes social gaming can help achieve.

McGonigal worked for the popular ARG development company, 42 Entertainment, from 2004 to 2006, where she helped design successful projects like the Halo 2 "I Love Bees" game. She went on to become a respected game designer and researcher, speaking at events like SXSW Interactive, the Games Developers Conference and more.

In 2007, McGonigal was recognized for her World Without Oil ARG, which highlighted her activism and study of collective intelligence within MMOs and online gaming communities. In an interview with Salon.com, McGonigal explained her philosophy of game design:

"Any time I consider a new project, I ask myself, is this pushing the state of gaming toward Nobel Prizes? If it's not, then it's not doing anything important enough to spend my time." To explain why she thinks games can get someone that plane ticket to Stockholm, McGonigal likes to quote game designer Sean Stewart, whose company created the first ARG in 2001. "He said that these games create 'a collective intelligence that is unparalleled in entertainment history,'" she says. "Because it is unparalleled, I believe it would be a real crime to use it only for entertainment."

Today, McGonigal is the Director of Games Research and Development at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif. She frequently talks about her research and design philosophy in interviews and video conversations, such as Boing Boing's "Emotion in Electronic Games" and "Games Can Change the World." In 2011, McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Help Us Change the World" will be published by Penguin Press, according to her bio.

But for now, McGonigal is capturing headlines for her work on Urgent Evoke, a Web-based MMO-ARG hybrid that hopes to utilize the "collective intelligence" of online gaming communities to solve real-world problems like poverty and hunger. "Gamers are willing to work hard all the time if they're given the right work," she said in a recent interview with CNN, dubbing them "super-empowered, hopeful individuals."

In her first attempt to apply social gaming as a means to philanthropy, McGonigal enlisted the aid of The World Bank Institute, which provided $500,000 in funding for the project. The game intends to raise education about social and economic issues in Africa, as well as giving young African players the chance to earn rewards like online mentorships, travel scholarships to the "EVOKE summit" in Washington, DC and investment money to develop their "first social venture," according to the site.