After reading the introduction of Reality is Broken I was hesitant on what to believe. Questioning if McGonigal’s claims of fixing reality with gaming could truly ever work, I held my judgment while I began chapter one. Within the first few pages of the chapter, the four defining traits that produce games are introduced. Now if you’re anything like me, a finite player who strives for winning and only winning, prior to reading McGonigal’s perspective you never really considered the thought process behind what goes into a game.

It wasn’t until McGonigal used the example of golf that I began to understand where her logic was coming from. Immediately it reminded me of my own experience, playing the game of golf alongside my Dad. It was a pleasurable activity to occupy our afternoon, something I voluntarily said yes to partaking in. During these nine holes, I understood the goal. I was trying to get the ball into the hole, and quite frankly accepted how bad I was at doing that. But what I didn’t realize was the limitations and restrictions I was abiding too when I agreed to play. Who said I needed to swing at a ball with a club to make it down the fairway? Who said I needed to stand this far away from the green? Who said I had to count my strokes and keep my score? The answer was no one! No one was standing next to me telling me to do these things, yet these were the limitations that made the game fun. But McGonigal’s example of golf struck home for me because I never considered golf as a game of winning or losing. Yes someone always ended up with a lower score then I did but that wasn’t what I went home thinking about. Golf is a quintessential game that creates intrinsic motivation, a feeling of optimism when you face obstacles that make you want to improve. There’s motivation created from the scorecard that rests in your pocket and the people alongside you piercing their ball way farther than yours. The more we practice our swing, the farther we see the ball go. The more we go to the putting range, the more often we see the ball roll into the hole. In golf, we can track our progress and work on our potential. This example made me recognize that all along I was voluntarily participating, striving to reach a goal, obeying the rules, and interpreting my feedback. But to me it just seemed like the game of golf.

Later on in the chapter, we come across the science and research that supports McGonigal’s claims that just maybe, games could be taking us somewhere. Looking into positive psychology and the studies of the body and brain that correlate with gaming I began to become convinced. McGonigal explains that our attention system, reward system, motivation system, and emotion and memory centers, are all activated by gameplay. Adding to this, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s study of flow, the emotional high that makes us throw our hands above our head and yell, brought me to believe that perhaps gaming could solve some of realities dilemmas. His research on the insufficient amount of flow people obtain in their everyday lives is valid, so maybe we should be integrating games into our lives to fulfill what we are lacking. Although not completely persuaded that games are the ultimate solution, I was captivated that Mihaly thought that a rush like the flow that gaming commonly provided, cheaply, reliably, and quickly, could be a solution. Mihaly suspects that pressing issues in our society like depression, helplessness, and social alienation could be solved by implementing games. It may not be a cure for all, but if the occasional gaming could help people get over issues like these, I think it’s worth a try.