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.
