I'm a gamer and if your reading this you're likely a gamer or someone related to me (again, hi mum). I imagine, even if you haven't consciously acknowledged it, that one of the things that draws you to games is the feeling of incredible untapped potential. The technology and creativity of games has evolved at an incredible rate, from space invaders and pong only mere decades ago, to massive worlds where people live whole other lives and share experiences with people they might never have contacted before. Like me you may have wondered why gaming isn't used for something greater than, you know, just games. Games are great, but why hasn't the medium been used in other, more innovative ways, like education, communication and therapy. I know certain games are used for these things, but game like worlds created specifically for the purpose are pretty rare. Maybe you don't think about these things, personally I think about them all the time and thats why I love games, it feels when playing a game that we all ready have one foot (or in the case of motion controls at the moment two feet and two hands) in the future and it feels cool.

The interesting lady in the video above is Jane Mcgonigal. She's one of those enviable people who turns interesting thought into actions and her TED talk is about just that. If you love games and haven't watched it yet I strongly recommend you do. On top of the futurist scenarios she proposes there's some interesting bites of info, like the fact todays children will have played as many hours of games by age 21 as they've spent time in school and how do we harness stuff like that.

I strongly suggest you watch the video then head to the forums and post your thoughts.