Jane McGonigal



Jane McGonigal, PhD, is a senior employee at 4orty2wo Entertainment.

Jane McGonigal is a lead designer and community architect for 42 Entertainment. She drives the development of interactive experiences that engage and build energized and sustainable communities for client campaigns.

Jane specializes in massively-collaborative game models and live-action gameplay. She has played a core role in the design of a wide variety of online and real-world gaming experiences. Previous award-winning and internationally produced live-action game credits include Cruel 2 B Kind (2006), Bounce (2006), Place Storming (2005), Demonstrate (2004), Organum (2004), Tele-Twister (2003), and the Go Game (2001).

Jane regularly presents her research on games and community architecting at major industry events, including the Game Developers Conference and E3, as well as international research conferences organized by the ACM, IEEE, DIGRA, and others. She is a frequent keynote speaker for game conferences, festivals and design workshops. Her research is regularly cited by groups such as Intel Research, Microsoft Research, the Institute for the Future, and the MacArthur Foundation.

In 2006, Jane received a PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, where her research focused on the application of ubiquitous and pervasive computing to experimental game design. She also worked on the design and development of physical and online systems for massively-scaled collaboration, as a member of the Alpha Lab for Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

Jane is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

She contributed to the ilovebees mini game as community lead and designer. She was also one of the people who worked on the puzzles for the game, which was a precursor to Halo 2.