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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.

social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the role of Christianity in American history and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

Republicans on the board have passed more than 160 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school.

They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.

Cheong is down to playing two or three hours on "Starcraft" and "World of Warcraft" three times a week,

The South Korean government estimates that the country has 2 million citizens addicted to the Internet

Earlier this month a three-month-old baby girl succumbed to malnutrition while her parents spent 12-hour stretches in an Internet café playing the role-playing game Prius Online

Over the last year, he started grading two of his classes (both involved with game design) using a system based on “experience points,” or XP, similar to the way gamers in World of Warcraft and other massively multiplayer games award points for various tasks. Students started the year at level one, with zero XP, and then gained points — and higher grades — by completing “quests” and “crafting,” which corresponded to giving presentations and doing exams and quizzes. Students also formed “guilds” similar to the gaming groups that rule WoW and other multiplayer games. Sheldon says that his students seemed far more engaged than they had been before.

The bottom line is that good games take advantage of people’s innate desire to compete with each other, but balance that with their need to receive rewards, including the approval of their peers — rewards that in some cases can be used to modify their behavior in certain ways. T