Jane McGonigal - Writings

Writings

On January 20, 2011, McGonigal's first book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World, was published. In this book, McGonigal looks not only at massively multiplayer online gaming and alternate reality games but also at games more widely. Using current research from the positive psychology movement, McGonigal argues that games contribute powerfully to human happiness and motivation, a sense of meaning, and the development of community.

The book was met with a favorable reception from The Los Angeles Times, and Wired, and mixed reviews from the The Independent. The book received criticism from some quarters, notably the Wall Street Journal, specifically writing that her thesis, which claims to use games to "fix" everyday life by making it seem more fulfilling and optimistic, and to provide a sense of achievement, was out of touch with the complexities of everyday life because it did not account for conflicting individual goals and desires, evil and death. The New York Times Book Review also criticized some points in her book, though to a lesser extent, calling out the lack of evidence demonstrating that in-game behavior and values translates into solutions to real world problems, such as poverty, disease and hunger.