Finally got around to watching Jane McGonigal’s awesome TED talk. It’s an expansion on some of the key ideas she presented during the GDC’08 rant session, essentially leveraging the problem solving power of games/gamers to make progress on real-world issues.

The second best part of the talk is when, at 1 minute 38 seconds, an audience member let’s out a nervous laugh of disbelief (ok, more like a cackle), when Jane proposes we have to collectively play 21 billions hours of online games (a dramatic increase over the current 3 billion). The best part is the standing ovation she receives at the end. Check it out:

Kind of ironic given the story that’s currently circulating about how folks from the White House asked Microsoft to create a game to help solve the budget/deficit problem.