Reality is Better

"If I'm going to be happy anywhere, Or achieve greatness anywhere, Or Learn true secrets anywhere, Or save the world anywhere, Or feel strongly anywhere, Or help people anywhere, I may as well do it in reality" -Futurist Eliezer Yudkowsky (McGongial 345).  Games are a great way to achieve all of these but whats the point when it only lasts for a few moments in a game compared to a life time in reality.  We can play the games we want, we can create any future we can imagine.  We play so many games for so long that sometimes it feels like these games have become our reality: but why not play it out in the real world.

McGonigal says," We can no longer afford to view games as separate from our real lives and our real work.  It is not only a waste of the potential of games to do real good - it is simply untrue" (McGongial 354).  But many of you haven't even played a "video game" or haven'y "played" it like a gamer has.  So whats the point? Well... "games aren't leading us to the downfall of human civilization.  They're leading us to its reinvention" (McGonigal 354).  If you think about it the great challenge of today is to integrate games more closely into our everyday lives, and to embrace them as a platform for collaborating on our most important aspects of our lives (McGonigal 353-354).

I play games to help myself learn about how to improve my real quality of life.  Games make us happy for a reason.  They aren't something we use waste time but something we use to fill our time.  Massive multiplayer games can help save the real world - by helping to generate more participation bandwidth for our most important collective minds.  Someone just like you.

We've come together to create new things.  Gaming isn't something that is to be looked down upon but something to be looking forward too.

Games have affected in the real life.  People do things like creating artwork or create music for these games.

Games have slowly found a way into our lives and people are finally starting to realize it isn't a time filler.  It's a part of life.

All the game time I've played has really changed my life for the better.  Through ups and downs games have always helped me get through tough moments as well as make happy moments into great moments.  I've taught you all I can about games and I hope one day that you will pick up a game and enjoy them as much as the gaming community and I have.  Do you think gaming will change our futures for the better or the worse?

Citation: McGonigal, Jane. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. New York: Penguin, 2011. Print.