IFTF: Reality is Broken

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

In 2010, IFTF's Jane McGonigal released her first book Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Drawing on her experience designing games, as well as her research at IFTF, Jane uncovered how game designers had hit on core truths about what makes people happy, and how to apply these truths to the real world to make it more immersive and engaging.

IFTF hosted Jane's book launch on January 20, with renowned game designers and researchers like Ken Ecklund and Nicole Lazzaro in attendance. Jane read from her book, which was followed by a lively discussion about gaming real life, the positive and negative impacts of video games, and much more. Below is an excerpt from the book:

Gamers have had enough of reality. They are abandoning it in droves—a few hours here, an entire weekend there, sometimes every spare minute of every day for stretches at a time—in favor of simulated environments and online games. Maybe you are one of these gamers. If not, then you definitely know some of them.

Who are they? They are the nine-to-fivers who come home and apply all of the smarts and talents that are underutilized at work to plan and coordinate complex raids and quests in massively multiplayer online games like Final Fantasy XI and the Lineage worlds. They’re the music lovers who have invested hundreds of dollars on plastic Rock Band and Guitar Hero instruments and spent night after night rehearsing, in order to become virtuosos of video game performance …

… These gamers aren’t rejecting reality entirely. They have jobs, goals, school- work, families, commitments, and real lives that they care about. But as they devote more and more of their free time to game worlds, the real world increasingly feels like it’s missing something.