Reality Is Broken
by Jane McGonigal · first published 2011
18mentions
5recommended by
18HN commenters
2011–2024first – last mentioned
28% recommend56% neutral17% critical
Why HN recommends it
Explores the psychology of why games motivate people, covering attainable goals, flow, and fiero, and how those ideas can apply to education and work; suits readers curious about gamification and learning design.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Visionary game designer Jane McGonigal shows how we can harness the power of computer games to solve real-world problems and boost global happiness, since her research suggests that gamers are expert problem solvers and collaborators because they regularly cooperate with other players to overcome daunting virtual challenges.
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Reality is Broken. Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, by Jane McGonigal (http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Is-Broken-Better-Change/dp/014...)
on “Ask HN: Summer reading” ↗…to pay. TV by comparison is more passive so perhaps it’s less likely someone consuming it would experience the type of ‘flow’ and rewards you get from a game. You can also check out Jane McGonigal’s Reality Is Broken for a bit more about the psychology of gaming or Yu-Kai Choi’s Actionable Gamification book. Choi’s book details many of the black hat persuasive techniques) commonly found in games, which also compel…
on “Ask HN: Why do games (as media) make so much money?” ↗I've been reading Jane McGonigal's "Reality is Broken" this semester and think she has some great suggestions on how to get students to learn - make it an attainable goal. Videos games do this well, she argues, because the player can see that a goal (say,…
on “A better way to teach technical skills to a group” ↗…because I did it. It was also satisfying to help another developer solve a problem that I was responsible for. I felt better about myself the more complex the system I worked on. Jane McGonigal's book Reality is Broken was the first place I heard the term Fiero. The definition of fire is: "Fiero" is what we experience after we overcome adversity. It is what you feel and see. It's because almost everyone expresses fiero…
on “Ask HN: Would you like to join a mob programming group?” ↗Reminds me of the book “Reality is Broken” which understates its case considerably.
on “It's not them, it's us: the real reason teens are 'addicted' to video games” ↗In the book "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal, she argues that instead of video games being something that are a corrupting influence, real life is not nearly as engaging as it could be compared to video games. Consider how some…
on “Plato Would Have Wanted Us to Unplug” ↗Jane McGonigal's book on gamification, Reality is Broken, includes quite a bit of detail about this similarity between work and games. The basic idea is that humans enjoy work if certain conditions are met, and games are designed to meet these conditions. She…
on “Why Do We Play Video Games That Feel Like Work?” ↗…interesting, you have to do more." It conceals in that the author feels there is no value add. It impresses in that it's such a fad. This tends to ignore Jane McGonigal's work on games as necessary because reality is broken. I'd be very curious about the author's thoughts on her work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_McGonigal
on “Gamification is bullshit” ↗Another obscene stat - We've Spent 5.93M Years Playing WoW... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiE2czrG0MI Jane McGonigal, author of Reality Is Broken, points to the 3 billion hours the world invests every week in online gaming as a clear indicator that many people are not being sufficiently challenged in their day-to-day lives. "5.93 million years…
on “The World Spends 0.2% Of Its Time On Facebook” ↗…takes to complete? Mix of time, complexitity, scarcity, x y z? What are possible x y z, and in what proportions do i mix them? - books are "Gamification by Design" by Gabe Zichermann (biggest proponent), "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal, Also "Flow", "Drive" and a couple more. All of those seem too theoretical, and when i sit to create something, i cant put numbers to the theories.
on “Ask YC: Where to find practical guide on gamifying?” ↗>In the book "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal, she argues that instead of video games being something that are a corrupting influence, real life is not nearly as engaging as it could be compared to video games. The same could…
on “Plato Would Have Wanted Us to Unplug” ↗And McGonigal, whose games are filled with top-secret missions in which you get to play the superhero, says "reality is broken" because people don't get to feel "epic" often enough. This is a child's view of how the world works. I disagree. There seems to be good reason to believe that the need to "feel epic" is a basic drive.…
on “Against Gamification” ↗After having read all the "positive" stuff about gaming in "Reality Is Broken" by Jane McGonigal I remember thinking: To some children/adolescents games are the perfect (psychological) parents: providing all the endless, almost limitless attention and appreciation, perfectly dosed…
on “Inside the Tragic, Obsessive World of Video Game Addicts” ↗…feel after we triumph over adversity. You know it when you feel it – and when you see it. That’s because we almost all express fiero in exactly the same way: we throw our arms over our head and yell." - Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal Life without challenge is lived poorly and never punctuated by fiero.
on “Nearly half of couples living in sexless marriages in Japan, says report” ↗Has anyone read Jane McGonigal's books on the subject? I read "Reality Is Broken" a while ago but I don't remember the conclusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_McGonigal
on “Video game play is positively correlated with well-being” ↗