Photographed by Molly DeCoudreaux
Photographed by Molly DeCoudreaux, hair and makeup by Renee Rael
Eureka Moment
“When I was a PhD student at UC Berkeley, I was designing games in my spare time and noticed that many players were looking for ways to take their gaming skills, like collaboration and collective intelligence, and apply them to real-world challenges. I thought this was fascinating: Were they crazy? Were they delusional? Or could gamers actually save the real world? They wanted to investigate government corruption, track down terrorists, and turn the biggest stresses in their lives, such as getting over a traumatic breakup or finding a new job, into a game. No one else was taking gamers seriously, so I decided to study how games were changing the way we solve problems in our real lives. It turns out that gamers can do everything, from helping scientists come up with new cancer treatments to identifying mysterious objects in the solar system to documenting illegal spending by elected officials!”
Reality (Doesn’t) Bite
“Playing games is all about volunteering to overcome a challenge. Every game asks us to work hard at something that requires focus, effort, and creativity. If you bring the gaming mindset to reality, you can look at the stress in your life as an opportunity to wrestle, creatively, with something that's truly tough for you. You don't see it as a threat. You see it as an opportunity to rise to the heroic occasion.”
The F-Word
“Every project I work on has one thing in common: I'm trying to invent something new. I'm going to make a game that accomplishes a real-world goal no one has ever tried to achieve before. I love how audacious this is. I'm not afraid of failure. And I won't be finished with my work until every single person on this planet wakes up and feels like they have something to contribute to tackling the world's toughest challenges.”
Connect Four
“The best advice I ever received was to throw out a traditional career plan and follow [these words] instead: ‘Whenever someone you admire invites you to work on something with them, go do that. Work with the most interesting people you can find, and you'll always be happy, and you'll always be learning.’ This has proven 100 percent true.”
Infinity and Beyond
“Find other people doing brave work and shine a light on them. Raise them up instead of promoting your own work. Don't be a lone wolf. You can't lead a movement unless there are people even more brilliant, more passionate, and more talented than you making your crazy idea look even better.”
Hair and makeup by Renee Rael.