If you're not a gamer, it’s hard to imagine why 183 million Americans spend over 13 hours a week playing video games. It’s even harder to see why game designer Jane McGonigal would claim that games are the route to solving the world’s problems. Games instill some very good habits in people, McGonigal writes in her recently published book Reality is Broken. For starters, they make people happy because when they compete against each other or against artificial intelligence, their creative juices flow. As they improve in the game, their sense of accomplishment and self-confidence rises. Complicated games also require complex moves, which further gives players the rush of overcoming a challenge. If you play in an online community, your peers cheer you on. And in many games, you partner with others to achieve a goal.
The book is exemplary: McGonigal has expressed a vision for games that even the layperson can understand and should read. One of the games she recommends is a social game called Extraordinaires, which allows you to do a good deed in as little as a minute.
Ayesha and Parag Khanna explore human-technology co-evolution and its implications for society, business and politics at The Hybrid Reality Institute.
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