Game Change
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
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A visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness.With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games.
Practical Advice for Gamers by Jane McGonigal Reality is Broken explains the science behind why games are good for us--why they make us happier, more creative, more resilient, an
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Customer Reviews
| 56 of 62 people found the following review helpful  Well written, enthusiastic, overpromised, but great, By Mortimer Duke (RI, USA) - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Hardcover) McGonigal has written a fun and readable book. She has found a niche here -- the idea that video games express our best selves -- and her enthusiasm on the subject is downright infectious. I kept thinking that she is one of those people in the center of her social network. One of those people that convinces her friends to get out of the house and try new, quirky, interesting things. She makes life fun by making it a game. It's nearly impossible not to get caught up in her enthusiasm.There are two sides to this enthusiasm. First of all, she has managed to convince people, on a grand scale, that video games can be a force for good. She has actually gone out and done things to reform the way we think about video games by creating ones that tap the potential to be useful in the world. She and game designers like her may well be a force that sees this grand idea through to the end. On the other hand, there's a nagging feeling (the devil on my shoulder) that tells me that this idea is overstated and undersupported. The "science" here really doesn't (and couldn't, when it comes down to it) say that the world is better off as a direct result of video games. In short-term laboratory experiments, there are some interesting results. But the comparison groups here are what beg the question -- playing video games makes you more optimistic as compared to what? Because playing a role playing game for a few minutes makes you more confident in talking to the opposite sex immediately afterward does not mean that playing WoW for 22 hours a week is going to jazz up your sex life. I can't help but think that what McGonigal is talking about is absolutely true for a select group of people -- her included, and perhaps other optimistic and playful individuals who like to treat life as a game -- but is overstated as a panacea for the human race. In the end, I'm glad to have read the book, and would recommend it as a well-articulated vision of a very interesting idea, one that is certainly worth having a debate over. 22 of 23 people found the following review helpful  Some Good Ideas, Some Very Poor Writing, Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Paperback) I sympathized strongly with McGonigal's viewpoint from the beginning. I've played games for almost all of my life, having been born a few years after the release of the NES, and have long felt like games were responsible for some of the better parts of my education. So when McGonigal began her book heralding the possibilities of games educating and improving society -- one of her strongest arguments -- I was totally on board.But when McGonigal goes more in-depth, expounding on readings of specific games mixed with hand-picked psychology findings, I was very disappointed. Her readings hardly scratched the surface of these games. Most were structured around some combination of "this is what players do in these games" and "this is how many people play this game", and drew very unearned conclusions on these bases. She explained the games in a very general way that would be clear to non-gamers, but didn't go into any kind of convincing detail. Her summaries of psychological studies were equally unconvincing; to name one example, Tal Ben-Shahar's work is significantly more complex and interesting than how it is presented in McGonigal's book. My biggest complaint along these lines, however, has to be aimed at her extremely low standard of "evidence" or "proof". Two sentences in particular are burned in my memory as examples of the kind of writing that would earn poor marks in a college-freshman-level environment: "As countless scientists, psychologists, and spiritual leaders have proven..." "This [that people could have fun playing her cemetary poker game] proves that Alternate Reality Games can change the world in a positive way" What? No, it doesn't! Neither of these sentences prove anything -- moreso, her poor writing renders interesting and plausible ideas unconvincing and tenuous. Which is a very unfortunate thing, because some of her formulations are quite challenging and impressive. McGonigal is absolutely right about the incredible amounts of energy and effort expended by gamers in service of play, and that instead of trying to direct that attention away from games, we would benefit much more from games that improve the world. She's right that games fulfill real-life needs that are unsatisfied by reality, and that we need to change reality, rather than make more interesting diversions, to properly harness the latent energy of games. I'm in total lock-step with her up to that point, and it's unfortunate that such a poor writer as McGonigal has been given such a prominent voice with which to represent these ideas. Perhaps a more competent writer could also see a larger flaw in the argument itself, which is that the problems McGonical seeks to address are, with very few exceptions, extremely bourgeois. Putting it another way, she seeks to transform daily life through games, but her conception of daily life assumes abundance of money and food and material need. Can games change poverty? Hunger? Can they change disenfranchisement of the second- and third-world? How can games transform the world we live in if they cannot change the material conditions of the world? If they truly cannot--as is implied by her failure to consider these topics as worth discussing--are games impotent, useful only for improving the leisure time of the priveleged class? My most common feeling in this book was that of frustration: there are some truly transformative and interesting ideas buried under layers of oversimplified, overstated arguments. It felt like having to open a hundred empty boxes to find the prize buried in a single layer of annoying packaging. Sure, the prize was good-- but was it worth the drudgery? 14 of 16 people found the following review helpful  Perfectly captures the depth of engagement games provide, Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Hardcover) Having been around computers and games since I was 2, and having played online games from the start when I was 13, I can say that Jane McGonigal's description of the online world today's kids are growing up with is extremely accurate. When I sat down to write what soft skills I've picked up from all my years playing online games, I came up with a rather exhaustive list. It's astounding, regardless of the genre played (FPS, like Halo, MMOs like World of Warcraft).Why do we find games so engaging, so engrossing? Many schools, businesses and the like are blaming 'addiction' to games for people tuning out. It goes far, far beyond simple 'addiction' (though problems do exist). Jane goes to great lengths to EXPLAIN the concepts of engagement this 'video game addiction' really consists of - and that schools, businesses and the greater community can and SHOULD learn from such an efficient, accessible use of these concepts to improve the quality of life for everyone in society. This is a must read - particularly for any businessperson, teacher, parent, or gamer in the community. |
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