According to world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal, the reason for this mass exodus to virtual worlds is that videogames are increasingly fulfilling genuine human needs. Playing games is a sustainable way of providing ourselves with better lives.More than 174 million Americans are gamers, and the average young person in the United States will spend ten thousand hours gaming by the age of twenty-one. You’ve surely experienced this rush yourself after beating a boss or completing a difficult mission in a game – it’s that moment when you jump from your chair throw your arms over your head and let out a celebratory scream! What’s more, games also can provide us with fiero, that wonderful feeling of triumph over adversity. Games, with their missions, secrets and “easter eggs,” can augment our otherwise dull lives with a bit of excitement, thus helping to prevent us from becoming unhappy.

Indeed, a world without fun or excitement leaves people deflated and depressed. In addition, games provide people with a genuine happiness. Reality, in contrast, does not provide them with anything similar.

Every game is solvable by design, which gives people hope.Īnd even if they do fail, they can take solace in having fun trying. Games also provide people with a degree of justifiable optimism: players feel good because they know that they can win – that the game can be beat. The real reason why people are playing more video games is that games can provide people with important social needs that might not be available in “real life”.įor example, chat rooms, wikis (websites and games developed by users), and communities of gamers provide gamers with a level of social bonding that reality isn’t offering them. Many experts believe their popularity is the result of mere escapism, a chance for us to distract ourselves from the pressures of reality for a few hours. But, what draws us to video games in the first place? In fact, a whopping 97 percent of youths play one game or another. Across the world, millions of us use our phones, PCs, or various consoles to play.

Today, video games are more popular than ever before.

Reality is broken by jane mcgonigal