Kristen Baumlier

I recently saw a new TED talk by Jane McGonigal where she had the audience play her favorite game – Massively Multiplayer tThumb-Wrestling. In the opening of her talk, she promises the audience that if they play this game for one minute, they will experience 10 positive emotions that include creativiety, contentment, joy, relief, love, surpise, and excitement.

The game is an expansion of thumb wrestling.  The principle of thumb-wrestling is simple. Two players take each others right hand and entangle their fingers – except the thumbs – forming a fist. The players then try to catch and freeze the opponent’s thumb.

To play the game Massivley-Player style, players form a group and play with 3 or four people.  You also can play two games at once, being part of a group with your left hand, and other group with your write.  As the number of players is unlimited, global thumb-wrestling may emerge through self-sustaining peer-to-peer networks and ad-hoc socializing.

In her talk, you watch as she asks each member of the audience to play, and they stand up and connect in to multi-player thumb circles, forming a large connected formation, where the whole audience playing the gmae.

In her talk, McGonigal talked about games and challenges “When we play a game, we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others for help.”

McGongigal has been doing research about games and emotions, and this talk supports her interest in interactions that create oxytotin in our brain, which makes us feel happy and also connected to others. In her talk she talked about emotions and said, “If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion … you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing.”

The Massively Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling game was introduced in 2004 by the group monochrom which is based in Austria.

To experience the game, go find 3 friends and ask them to play or check out the video on TED.com.

Images and Links:

Jane Mcgonigal – TED Talk 

monochrom.at- Massively Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling