Jenova Chen, 26

摘要

Jenova Chen has been playing video games for 20 years, and he's desperate to see something new: right now, he says, most games focus on stimulating players by inciting aggression. "I want to expand what a video game can be," he says. So as a graduate student in interactive media at the University of Southern California, Chen looked to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theory of "flow," which identifies a state of focus that people find enjoyable and fulfilling. Chen uses the theory's principles to design games that offer just enough challenge-not so little that players become bored, not so much that they become anxious. Chen's first effort was F1Ow, a Web-based "Zen game" in which players control a sea creature that swims, eats, and evolves. After graduating in 2006, Chen cofounded Thatgamecompany to continue his work.