Review
--New Scientist
`An intriguing and thought-provoking book. And if the worst thing you can say about McGonigal's vision of the future is that she underestimates the human race's obsession with sex and fondness for puerile humour, that's pretty good.'
--New Statesman
`The book serves as an ambitious call to arms to games designers to make the real world as satisfying as the virtual world of gaming'...`There are a number of astute observations here, with lots of big ideas that will undoubtedly come into focus over the coming years, and it will serve as a n effective anecdote to the relentless dismissal of gaming culture' --Irish Times
`Reality is broken is the most powerful justification yet for computer games as part of our central literacies - parallel to literature or movies in the way they connect our motivations and energies within the challenges of understanding and intervening in our social worlds' --Independent
`she brilliantly links the growing scholarship on happiness to the gimmicks and tricks that commercial game designers devise to engage their febrile audiences' --The Belfast Telegraph
`McGonigal is an inspiring and engaging speaker and what she had to say was fascinating' --The Telegraph
`her central idea-that games hold lessons for the real world as well as vice versa- is interesting, and worth taking seriously' --The Economist
`I found as I read through her book I had already begun to feel empowered and make notes on the games I'd like to look into. Gamers can change reality - McGonigal proves that.' --Engineering & Technology, Keri Allan
`McGonigal is persuasive and precise in explaining how games can transform our approach to those things we know we should do. McGonigal is also adept at showing how good games expose the alarming insubstantiality of much everyday experience. McGonigal is a passionate advocate... Given the power and the darker potentials of the tools she describes, we must hope that the world us listening.'
--The Observer, Tom Chatfield
`McGonigal brilliantly deconstructs the components of good game design before parlaying them into a recipe for changing the offline, "real" world' --Literary Review
Book Description
Product Description
More than 31 million people in the UK are gamers.
The average young person in the UK will spend 10,000 hours gaming by the age of twenty-one.
What's causing this mass exodus?
According to world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal the answer is simple: videogames are fulfilling genuine human needs.
Drawing on positive psychology, cognitive science and sociology, Reality is Broken shows how game designers have hit on core truths about what makes us happy, and utilized these discoveries to astonishing effect in virtual environments. But why, McGonigal asks, should we use the power of games for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking exploration of the power and future of gaming, she reveals how gamers have become expert problem solvers and collaborators, and shows how we can use the lessons of game design to socially positive ends, be it in our own lives, our communities or our businesses.
Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality is Broken sends a clear and provocative message: the future will belong to those who can understand, design and play games.
From the Back Cover
More than 31 million people in the UK are gamers.
The average young person in the UK will spend 10,000 hours gaming by the age of twenty-one.
What's causing this mass exodus?
According to world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal the answer is simple: videogames are fulfilling genuine human needs.
Drawing on positive psychology, cognitive science and sociology, Reality is Broken shows how game designers have hit on core truths about what makes us happy, and utilized these discoveries to astonishing effect in virtual environments. But why, McGonigal asks, should we use the power of games for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking exploration of the power and future of gaming, she reveals how gamers have become expert problem solvers and collaborators, and shows how we can use the lessons of game design to socially positive ends, be it in our own lives, our communities or our businesses.
Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality is Broken sends a clear and provocative message: the future will belong to those who can understand, design and play games.
