Unit 1: Moves in Argument: "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

They’re the World of Warcraft fans who are so intent on mastering the challenges of their favorite game that, collectively, they’ve written a quarter of a million wiki articles about the fictional universe—creating a wiki resource nearly one-tenth the size of the entire Wikipedia.

They’re the Brain Age and Mario Kart players who take handheld game consoles everywhere they go, sneaking in short puzzles, races, and minigames as often as possible, and as a result nearly eliminating mental downtime from their lives.

They’re the United States troops stationed overseas who dedicate so many hours a week to burnishing Halo 3 in-game service record that earning virtual combat medals is widely known as the most popular activity for off-duty soldiers.

They’re the United States troops stationed overseas who dedicate so many hours a week to burnishing Halo 3 in-game service record that earning virtual combat medals is widely known as the most popular activity for off-duty soldiers.

They’re the United States troops stationed overseas who dedicate so many hours a week to burnishing Halo 3 in-game service record that earning virtual combat medals is widely known as the most popular activity for off-duty soldiers.

The real world just doesn’t offer up as easily the carefully designed pleasures, the thrilling challenges, and the powerful social bonding afforded by virtual environments.

And so, there is a growing perception in the gaming community:
Reality, compared to games, is broken.

It’s a phenomenon.

Economist Edward Castronova calls it a “mass exodus” to game spaces, and you can see it already happening in the numbers.

And we are creating a massive virtual silo of cognitive effort, emotional energy, and collective attention lavished on game worlds instead of the real world.

And we are creating a massive virtual silo of cognitive effort, emotional energy, and collective attention lavished on game worlds instead of the real world.

Meanwhile, they are met with bewilderment and disdain by more than a few nongamers, who still make up nearly half of the U.S. population, although their numbers are rapidly decreasing.

Many of them deem gaming a clear waste of time.

As we make these value judgments, hold moral debates over the addictive quality of games, and simultaneously rush to achieve massive industry expansion, a vital point is being missed.

The truth is this: in today’s society, computer and video games are fulfilling genuine human needs that the real world is currently unable to satisfy.

To a nongamer, this forecast might seem surreal, or like science fiction.

To a nongamer, this forecast might seem surreal, or like science fiction.

It’s a bit counterintuitive to think about the future in terms of the past.

But as a research director at the Institute for the Future—a nonprofit think tank in Palo Alto, California, and the world’s oldest future-forecasting organization—I’ve learned an important trick: to develop foresight, you need to practice hindsight.

But as a research director at the Institute for the Future—a nonprofit think tank in Palo Alto, California, and the world’s oldest future-forecasting organization—I’ve learned an important trick: to develop foresight, you need to practice hindsight.

In the opening book of The Histories, Herodotus writes:
When Atys was king of Lydia in Asia Minor some three thousand years ago, a great scarcity threatened his realm.

The plan adopted against the famine was to engage in games one day so entirely as not to feel any craving for food . . . and the next day to eat and abstain from games.

The plan adopted against the famine was to engage in games one day so entirely as not to feel any craving for food . . . and the next day to eat and abstain from games.

Whether Herodotus’ story of an eighteen-year famine survived through gameplay is true or, as some modern historians believe, apocryphal, its moral truths reveal something important about the essence of games.

We often think of immersive gameplay as “escapist,” a kind of passive retreat from reality.

For the Lydians, playing together as a nearly full-time activity would have been a behavior highly adaptive to difficult conditions.

Games made life bearable.

Today, many of us are suffering from a vast and primal hunger.

Today, many of us are suffering from a vast and primal hunger.