Games, Gamers, & Gaming

At the 2010 TED Conference in Long Beach, CA, game designer Jane McGonigal, whose work I previously discussed in "Games with Heart" (LJ 1/10), said, in short, "Reality is broken. Game designers can fix it." (Watch video footage of her inspiring talk.)

The idea that we can create a better tomorrow through games may seem idealistic—even unrealistic—but it's grounded in a convincing premise: that games can be a powerful platform for change if they're designed responsibly, in a way that fosters the heroic qualities in all of us.

(McGonigal's book on the subject, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Help Us Change the World, will be published by Penguin Press in January 2011.)

Heroes one and all
Heroism is something we librarians practice daily as we fight for noble causes like the free exchange of information and ideas among all members of our community.

But, like all ideals, our causes are hard to achieve in practice and are often a matter of interpretation. Unrestricted Internet access could seem to some a stance against censorship and translates to others as a hostile work environment. Weeding might result in one arguably controversial book being sacrificed for another, perhaps blander one, or vice versa.

Players of action-adventure games face similar such conflicts, albeit under more contrived circumstances. They are regularly positioned by game designers as the embattled hero, one of the chosen few able to confront the wrongs imperiling their virtual worlds, empowered to drive back the forces of darkness and oppression.

They often have tough choices to make: their character might need to eradicate a plague-ridden village when medical help cannot be had, hijack a car to pursue the villains, or ambush the opposite faction's weaker players on the battlefield.

A transforming reality
Unlike real life, however, game worlds are crafted stories. As such, they frequently follow the classic pattern of the solar hero myth, wherein a hero travails through a period of darkness en route to redemption and renewal.

Joseph Campbell described this type of hero in The Hero with a Thousand Faces as one who leaves the everyday world to enter a Special Place of wonder. There, fabulous forces are encountered, challenges are faced, and, eventually, a victory is won. The hero is transformed by the experience and wends a troubled way back to the everyday world bringing new tools, skills, or beneficial knowledge.

If such games don't accurately reflect the complex nature of our daily reality, what value, then, do they have in arming us to cope with it?

The power of gaming
In thinking about what we have the power to accomplish, in going to battle in pursuit of higher ideals, we learn that big problems can be attacked in small steps, that teaming up with like-minded others who possess different qualities and strengths benefits everyone, that charging up the hill in the face of withering gunfire is a recipe for ­disaster.

These are life skills both real and metaphorical that can be learned in many environments but often are not. A game provides immediate feedback to testing out these skills, then ­reinforces the successes.

While the real world buffets us with things over which we have no control, certain games can teach us we have the means to take control of and improve our surroundings, ourselves, and serve the well-being of others. We might not be able to tackle world peace, but when we've fought Nazis, zombies, and demons—sometimes all at once—we become sensitized to our capacity to fight for what we believe in, in the need to right wrongs.

This, in turn, might affect how we conduct ourselves in the real world. (See literature describing the correlative relationship between game play and one's engagement in the civic, political, and social life of one's community.)

Game on, heroes
As McGonigal said, well-designed games can give players "all these amazing superpowers, blissful productivity, the ability to weave a tight social fabric, this feeling of urgent optimism, and the desire for epic meaning."

If that's not a good start to effecting real and meaningful change, the mark of true heroism, I don't know what is.