Perpare to Die

Jane McGonigal observes the 'realms' (our worlds societies) grasp of gaming and forms it into a whole new level through her understanding of the 'working' and 'hardening' level structure, found in her book, Reality is Broken: why games make us better and how they can change the world. 

Reality is hard no doubt about that, but games have a different form of difficulty setting then reality, that helps the player rather then hindering them. Games use volunteering work that provides a process in which the "unnecessary hard work" gives the 'gamer' a reason to "care about the outcome of their effort" (McGonigal, 2011, p.27). It also give the player a reason to become better through emotion not normally associated success or accomplishment. Anger.

In the PBS show, they look at anger to encourage the player to overcome problems and puzzles and a enlightenment factor that makes them what to win more. This is exactly want McGonigal states when she looks at the hard work which is special picked out to entitle the player. We are "always playing on the very edge of your skill level, always on the brink of falling off. When you do fall off, you feel the urge to climb back on. That’s because there is virtually nothing as engaging as this state of working at the very limits of your ability"  (McGonigal, 2011, p.24)

What game out of all games drives the gamer into pure insanity? Dark Souls. The tagline is just  'Prepare to Die'. Nothing more nothing less, and rightly so. Dark Souls is a Role Playing Game (RPG) in which you take the form of an undead and your quest is to bring light to the world. This game is known for its traffic yet deadly game mechanics, seen through its unique bosses or the smaller characters that come at you in hordes. The game changes its difficult level not only as you move along but through its online factor where higher level players can just walk into your world and kill you. 
 

As you can see from the video that deaths happen on a regular bases and the emotional rift seen in some players, drives them even more to complete the game or even just one boss. This factor alone can not show a change in the individual players true reality but what it does show that we look upon the world with new eyes. That every obstacle we see is like a boss in Dark Souls in which we have to over come no matter the cost.



Bibliography
McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Press HC.

YouTube Videos 
PBS game/show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJJdNS79PC8list=WLhg_SjL14f00j468dr8nuJQmCL8Pewey5
Dark Souls Montage:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrPYCP7s3K4

  
 

The Game of Life

Millions of people prefer spending time in the virtual gaming world instead of in reality, leading to a great deal of moral debates on the value of games. However, the consequences of games should not be questioned, but rather reality itself. According to McGonigal (2011, p.20), there is something wrong with reality and games should be used to fix it.

In order to do this, there should be a clear understanding of what a game exactly is. Jane McGonigal proposes a definition that does not connect games to a certain medium. Rather, she argues that all games structure experience in a unique way (McGonigal, 2011, p.21). According to McGonigal (2011, p.21), “what defines a game are the goal, the rules, the feedback system, and voluntary participation. Everything else is an effort to reinforce and enhance these four core elements”. In this respect, gaming can be understood as accomplishing unnecessary hard work voluntarily. Doing nothing does not make people happy. Individuals need challenges or diverse kinds of hard work at the right time for the right person (McGonigal, 2011, p.29). This is something that reality cannot offer, but games can. Gaming makes a player experience positive stress and pride and this results in happiness.

To fix reality, parts of games should be included into our daily lives to make it more challenging. This phenomenon is called gamification and relies on the intrinsic motivation of an individual. An example of this is Foursquare, where people can check into locations. The goal is to become major of a certain place, while feedback is received through badges which function as rewards for users. In this way, gamification could also be used to create more engagement in education and organizations.

Nevertheless, this is a too idealistic prospect since problems can arise with the voluntarily aspect. Moreover, the main problem remains the ambiguity of the definition of games. There is disagreement on the term, resulting in the adoption of diverse strategies for solving cultural problems.

Bibliography

McGonigal, J., (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Press HC.

Using Games To Our Advantage

McGonigal sets out that all games, no matter which medium they exist in or how complex or simple they are, consist of four traits that define them. These are “a goal, rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation.” (McGonigal, 2011, p.21) The goal is the end target the player wants to reach, the rules restrict how the player can go about completing these targets, making them harder than they would otherwise be. The feedback system is a way of showing how the player is doing or if they’re doing something correctly, from a point tally or rewards. The voluntary participation might be the most important aspect of games in that the player has no need to play if they don’t want to, this is what sets it apart from work that must be done and is a chore because of it.

This simple definition of what a game actually is makes it easier for us to understand them and how they do so well at making us complete tasks. “Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” (Suits, B. 2005: 54-55)

If every day work that has real world value, compared to todays games, can be altered to meet these four key traits to make them fun and effectively turn them into games, people would be happier and more productive at the same time. As a well known line from Mary Poppins says “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and - SNAP - the job's a game!” (Mary Poppins, 1964). This is gamification and it’s frequently something parents do to get their children to do chores. This would give us voluntary hard work that has real value to the world, but that people would actually like to complete rather than dreading and putting off for as long as possible “it turns out that almost nothing makes us happier than good, hard work.” (McGonigal, 2011, p.28) If this work also challenges us instead of always being the same, we enjoy it far more. Games challenge us in ways real life doesn’t and the challenge is something we enjoy the most which is why we enjoy games so much.

Bibliography
McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, Penguin Press HC.
Suits, B. (2005) The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Broadview Press.

Filmography
Mary Poppins (1964) Directed by Robert Stevenson [DVD] Walt Disney Productions, USA

The quest for a suitable defintion

In her first chapter of “Reality is broken”, Jane McGonigal provides us a wide ranging definition of games by defining four traits of this concept: a goal, rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation (McGonigal, 2011, pp. 20-21). This definition is a very useful starting point, but one might be able to add various other characteristics.
          To start with, McGonigal rejects ‘winning’ as a specific trait. She argues that there are games you simply cannot win, such as Tetris, as therefore it is not a universal characteristic (McGonigal, 2011, p. 24). However, this could be contradicted. In her terms, ‘winning’ would be defined as ‘ending the game and reaching the goal as intended by the game itself’. But winning could also be regarded otherwise, namely by reaching a goal you set up for yourself, for example breaking your own record, or breaking your friend’s record. There is always some sort of ‘winning’ in each game: you would, for instance, mainly replay Tetris to get further than you got last time. In that way, winning becomes a universal aspect of every game.
          Furthermore, ‘level of skills’ could be added to the list. A game always sets up a specific level of particular skills a player is required to have to be able to play it. This too is a universal characteristics of games. You might think of a cognitive skill (when the game demands some sort of thinking) or a mobile skill (when the game demands you to be maneuverable) and so on. You cannot play a game of Monopoly without the ability to move your hands, or without thinking about the strategies you’re applying.
          Grasping all the aspects of an abstract concept such as games is a difficult task. Although McGonigal’s definition of games is very extensive, narrowing down the concept to four traits might be too ambitious. This list is to be further complemented.


Bibliography
McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, Penguin Press HC, (pp. 19-34).