The One True Dave

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal is an awesome book that I think you should read.  It is not only because it talks about video games, making workplaces more fun, alternate reality games (ARGs), crowd-sourcing and more, it is because there are some underlying ideological currents within it that I think are very positive.

One: it supports an egalitarian and democratic use of the internet in very practical and persuasive ways complete with current examples of political change caused through ordinary citizens becoming engaged (in the Sartrian sense) online.

Two: it has an underlying criticism of late capitalism’s fundamental lie that consuming goods will make you happy.  McGonigal is suggesting rewarding people and true happiness are found in many ways and ultimately monetary or material rewards are not sustainable.  She points to how and why video games are “addictive” and why people “work” so hard at them voluntarily, then flips that lens toward the workplace and how it fails.

Three: McGonigal uses a tactic often used by the Right to obfuscate or spin facts to support their agenda in her book to support her points.  She is very smart, teaches at MIT, gives speaking tours and keynotes all the time (including a very good speech online about this topic on TED Talks.  Here’s the link: http://www.ted.com/speakers/jane_mcgonigal.html).  When I first started reading the book I spotted the rhetorical manipulation but soon realized this was a strategic move on her part considering the audience she wants to reach.  By giving stats like how the number or players in World of Warcraft (WOW) multiplied by the number of hours each of them has played accumulates to be longer than the history of man on earth (more than 50 million years) is an example she uses early in the book.  It is spectacular, it is a sound-bite, but literally it doesn’t hold any specific meaning.  What it does do is help convince the reader that what follows is important and unquestionable.  What follows – the point of her book – is that:

Games (and especially video games) are not a waste of time but are instead and excellent use of time as a model of how to both motivate people and make them happy.  Her point is that if reality (assumed to be our post-modern/hyperreal/late capitalist reality) was structured more like a game the benefits realized for both individuals (in relation to happiness and work satisfaction) and ultimately the world (in the sense of engaged and informed citizenry) is incredible.  Incredible like how Wikipedia has more content and editorial effort put into it (for free) than the history of world literature.

Why? Because it’s fun (aka: voluntary work set in a framework that encourages flow).

Read it.  I encourage you.

DAve