‘Reality is Broken’ – Jane McGonigal
In her work ‘Reality is Broken,’ Jane McGonigal argues that many people turn to games to fulfil a desire for accomplishment and engagement they miss in real life. Rather than criticizing the large role games have, she turns the narrative around by suggesting the use of games to improve our reality. She gives examples in the following chapter, such as the games ‘Quest to Learn’ for schoolwork and ‘Chore Wars’ for household tasks. I find this a very powerful stance, as it embraces the development of games and their technology, rather than fighting against it.
However, while I appreciate the effort to shift the narrative around games, I think there is another side to the story to consider. McGonigal briefly discusses the issue of overstimulation, observing that constant digital engagement results in reality feeling less rewarding. Her solution is to integrate more games into our everyday lives, but I wonder if this could not expand the initial problem even further. If more of our reality is gamified, including school, work, and chores, it will be even harder for individuals to handle tasks that are not gamified and do therefore not provide constant stimulation and gratification. Will children who grow up with this constant stimulation still be able to concentrate to read a normal book or write an extensive essay?
Altering and improving our reality by using games has great benefits, and clearly motivates people to reach certain goals. Therefore, it should definitely be further explored. But meanwhile, we should be cautious not to only depend on games and instead find a balance between games and reality.
‘Meaningful Play’ – Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman
The chapter ‘Meaningful Play’ from the book ‘Rules of Play’ defines meaningful play as both descriptive and evaluative. The text suggests that a game is descriptive when an action by a player has an effect on the game, and it is evaluative through discernibility and integration. Discernibility means that the consequence of an action is perceivable to the player. Integration refers to the impact these consequences have on the larger system of the game.
Initially, I attempted to find a game that breaks these seemingly restrictive ‘rules’ for defining meaningful play, but I discovered the opposite. Namely that the definition is widely applicable. I thought rock, paper, scissors might not fall into this description of meaningful play. The game is descriptive, as each player’s choice has a clear consequence, and it is discernible, as the outcome (winning or losing) is immediately evident. However, there seems to be little integration into a larger system at the logical level of the game. Yet, when I gave it a second thought, on a social and cultural level there seems to be some degree of integration. For example, the communication between the players, and the game itself is often used as a cultural reference. At the same time, this shows that while rock, paper, scissors has meaningful play to some degree, a game of chess might offer more meaningful play, as the game also contains a deeper level of integration within the logical level of the game.
Therefore, I agree that when designing a game that is aimed to contain ‘meaningful play’ these definitions laid out in ‘Rules of Play’ offer an excellent starting point. Because by making the game more descriptive and evaluative, it becomes more meaningful.