{"id":48,"date":"2012-10-03T23:03:39","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T06:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/?p=48"},"modified":"2012-10-03T23:03:39","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T06:03:39","slug":"putting-reality-back-together-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/2012\/10\/03\/putting-reality-back-together-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Reality Back Together Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy #1 goal in life is to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.\u201d \u2013Jane McGonigal<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Jane McGonigal<\/a> is known as being a designer of alternate reality games that ultimately have the goal in improving real life problems and situations.\u00a0 On top of her New York Times best seller Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World<\/em><\/a>, Jane is the Director of Games Research and Development at the Institute for the Future.\u00a0 In addition, Jane is the founder of a game developing headquarters, Gameful.\u00a0 Some of her other accomplishments include that more than 30 countries have been exposed to award-winning games that have been targeted at tackling real life problems through collaboration and strategy.\u00a0 With a PhD from UC Berkeley, Jane McGonigal\u2019s achievements have been recognized throughout the world, no matter what view someone holds on her topics of choice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World <\/em>focuses on…<\/p>\n

“games for personal and social change,” “positive impact games,” “social reality games,” “serious games,” and “leveraging the play of the planet.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jane feels that games are crucial for the future\u2026\u00a0 That the games are rooted in pushing collaboration, dedication, strategy, organization, motivation \u2013 basically features that push for a better world.\u00a0 She explains in the book that these games will continue to create an appetite for involvement, and ultimately will result in worldwide solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cGame developers know better than anyone else how to inspire extreme\u00a0effort and reward hard work. They know how to facilitate cooperation and\u00a0collaboration at previously unimaginable scales. And they are continuously\u00a0innovating new ways to motivate players to stick with harder challenges, for\u00a0longer, and in much bigger groups. These crucial twenty-first-century skills\u00a0can help all of us find new ways to make a deep and lasting impact on the\u00a0world around us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With this book being written, Jane hoped to establish a framework to how all of these hopes can be accomplished.\u00a0 Because in the Unite States there are \u201c183 million active gamers\u201d.\u00a0 There is a sense that people who are devoted to these games (otherwise known as gaming cultures) are finding that reality is missing something that a game provides.\u00a0 That is where Jane gets this \u201cbroken reality\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real world just doesn’t offer up as easily the carefully designed pleasures,\u00a0the thrilling challenges, and the powerful social bonding afforded by\u00a0virtual environments. Reality doesn’t motivate us as effectively. Reality isn’t\u00a0engineered to maximize our potential. Reality wasn’t designed from the bottom\u00a0up to make us happy.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a sense I agree that games are providing us with a sense of satisfaction that reality does not.\u00a0 These games bring together people, creating this culture that motivates and connects people to a common interest.\u00a0 Within these game cultures, the gamers are dedicated to overcoming all of these puzzles\/levels\/problems.\u00a0 Whether people want to admit to it or not, games are a way people can escape reality and just zone into another realm and play.\u00a0 That does apply to everyone.\u00a0 There are some people who are more introverted and do not do well in a social atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was reading some audience reviews<\/a> on Jane\u2019s views, and I feel that some people are so naive\u00a0concerning this topic.\u00a0 I read that driving video games could actually make someone a better driver, or when playing a baseball video game it improves your hand eye coordination.\u00a0 I am not a believer in this approach.\u00a0 I feel that if someone wants to improve their driving skills, or their hand eye coordination, to go out and actually drive a car or swing a bat.<\/p>\n

I just feel like this is way too big of a stretch for me. \u00a0That Jane can honestly claim that her new revamped video games are a cure for depression, obesity, and other major issues like curing cancer. \u00a0To further this, I feel that this is why the majority of America is unhealthy and overweight.\u00a0 We are promoting playing video games, rather than going out and getting exercise.\u00a0The irony in solving our nation wide obesity problem by playing a video game is beyond me. \u00a0If my psychologist told me the cure to my depression was in playing a video game, I would not pay her for the session and never go back to her. \u00a0People want real answers, not a virtual outlet.<\/p>\n

What if these video games were used in an academic setting or a business setting and had someone monitoring the purpose of the game and what users should be getting from it? \u00a0Would that be enough to change my mind on Jane’s views?<\/p>\n

Yours Truly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy #1 goal in life is to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.\u201d \u2013Jane McGonigal \u00a0Jane McGonigal is known as being a designer of alternate reality games that ultimately have the goal in improving real life … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"gutentor_comment":2,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"ajepsen","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/author\/ajepsen\/"},"qubely_comment":2,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"\u201cMy #1 goal in life is to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.\u201d \u2013Jane McGonigal \u00a0Jane McGonigal is known as being a designer of alternate reality games that ultimately have the goal in improving real life … Continue reading →","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/ajepsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}