Games are a complicated topic in media culture today. Over the past few decades, video games have gone from a niche industry to something that makes more money than the film and music industry combined1. Along with their explosive growth, video games have slowly been more and more accepted by the general public as a valid form of entertainment.
“We can play any games we want. We can create any future we can imagine.”
Jane McGonigal
However, there’s still a lingering worry about what video games actually do to us physically, emotionally, and mentally. There still remains some prejudice against games. In the book Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal, the author, addresses why games are good for us, and how they can provide solutions to real life problems. Throughout the book, McGonigal lists 14 “fixes” for reality that we can learn from video games. For the purposes of this short analysis, I’m going to focus on two of the fixes that I’ve personally seen work in my life and observed in others.
FIX #2: EMOTIONAL ACTIVATION
Compared with games, reality is depressing. Games focus our energy, with relentless optimism, on something we’re good at and enjoy.
A few years ago, I was suffering from some severe depression. Nothing was going right in my life. I had just broken up with a girl I thought I was going to marry. I wasn’t sure what I was doing in school, let alone what I would do afterwards. My grades were rock bottom; I couldn’t even make it to class most of the time. I didn’t feel like I had any friends that understood what I was going through. Overall, I didn’t feel like I was good at anything. A failure. The only thing I gathered any enjoyment from were video games.
During that time I started playing a game called Destiny 2. It’s an MMO where players control “Guardians,” people endowed with extraordinary powers to protect the last remnants of humanity from extraterrestrial invaders. Throughout the story, your character, and by extension, you the player, literally save the world over and over. Succeeding in this game was something that made me feel accomplished despite the depression I was wrestling with. I connected with people online and developed friendships, despite never meeting them in real life.
McGonigal states that gameplay is the direct emotional opposite of depression. As we engage in games, they can put us in a positive mind set where everything else fails. Video games gave me a temporary sense of direction and belonging during a time where I was aimless. More than games were required for me to overcome my depression, but the games I was playing were a part of the process. They helped me feel successful in spite of how I felt I was doing in reality.
FIX #5: STRONGER SOCIAL CONNECTIVITY
Compared with games, reality is disconnected. Games build stronger social bonds and lead to more active social networks. The more time we spend interacting within our social networks, the more likely we are to generate a subset of positive emotions known as “prosocial emotions.”
One of the most common stereotypes of gamers is that of the solitary single man, sitting in his mother’s basement playing video games all day. People like that exist, but they’re not the rule. McGonigal observes that more and more, gamers prefer to play with people that they know rather than alone or with strangers. Games have been a platform that I’ve used to socialize for a long time. All throughout high school I would play video games with my friends. We would bring our consoles to each other’s houses, plug them into multiple TVs, and then play for hours on end. My friendship with one of my best friends was built on those late nights at his house, yelling and hollering in response to what was going on in the game. It’s been years since we’ve gotten together just to play video games, but our friendship continues to be close.
More recently, I’ve been using virtual reality as an opportunity to bring my friends together. Every week for the past month, I’ve been hosting what we call “VR night,” where I lug my computer and Oculus Rift into the front room of my apartment and clear a space for people to dive into VR. I’ve had groups of up to 12 people participating in an activity that is generally considered a solitary experience. While one person is totally immersed in a virtual world, everyone else can watch what the player is seeing on the TV. They’re free to provide commentary, laugh, and become collaborators in the player’s experience.
The ability to introduce people to VR also causes a sense of vicarious pride, a concept that McGonigal covers in the book. Being able to introduce and mentor people in an experience that I’ve been comfortable with for a few years has been satisfying. I’ve had the chance to continue nurturing my friendships with people I don’t get to see often due to differing schedules. In short, games have helped me stay social.
“Reality is our destiny.”
Jane McGonigal
In the conclusion of the book, McGonigal sums up all the ways that reality is broken. Reality is boring. It’s disconnected. It’s unambitious. However, she addresses reality’s relationship with games in a single statement, “…in at least one crucially important way, reality is also better: reality is our destiny.” Reality has its issues, but we’re never going to be able to step away from it. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play games. The primary purpose of games is to make our lives better. They help us feel better about ourselves and grow closer to others. Games help us coordinate and collaborate massive groups of people.
McGonigal concludes the book with an interesting statement. “Games aren’t leading us to the downfall of human civilization. They’re leading us to its reinvention.” Games can be a force for good. As we figure out how to harness them, we will be able to bring more people together and accomplish more than we’ve ever done before. We just have to try.
