How Gaming Makes an Impact on the World

Many people think that gaming has no purpose and is simply a time-waster but they are wrong. Gamers tackle involuntary obstacles every day inside games, making them some of the most likely people in the world to contribute to online projects."They already have the time and the desire to tackle voluntary obstacles. They're playing games precisely because they hunger for more and better engagement" (McGonigal 232). Gamers have a craving for obstacles and a hunger for entertainment, so how can these be combined to help benefit the world? The answer is with online games such as Free Rice that actually make a global impact the more you play.

Free Rice is an online game where the player answers trivia questions and as they answer correctly are rewarded with virtual rice. The questions get harder or easier depending on if you answer correctly or incorrectly. You may be wondering how this benefits the world but the trick is each virtual rice you gain is real rice donated to hungry people around the world. Earning 100 grains a day (10 questions worth) is hardly a teaspoon but with thousands of players earning 100 grains each day it all adds up to a total, so far, of 69,024,128,710 grains of rice. (McGonigal 234-235). The game makes you want to keep playing not only because you know that you are part of something bigger, feeding hungry people around the world, but also for the fact that you get instant feedback with a bowl full of rice on the side showing just how much you have accomplished so far.

This shows me playing Free Rice with a total of 190 grains donated from just a minute of playing.

Free Rice is a perfect example of how games can actually make an impact on the world to help end hunger or save lives. By harnessing gamers' natural craving for entertainment and obstacles, large-scale goals can be accomplished to better the lives of people around the world. If everyone reading this right now went to freerice.com and played just a few minutes worth of trivia we would be able to help a large amount of hungry people around the world. Does that not sound enticing to you? Let me know how much rice you earned in the comments below! 


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

Becoming Friendlier and Happier In Life Using Video Games

You may not think of video games as a tool for building happiness but through games you can become a happier person and learn to reach out and help others more often. In society today it is unusual to have a stranger walk up to you and ask if they would help you. Games help solve this. "Compared with games, reality is hard to swallow. Games make it easier to take good advice and try out happier habits." (McGonnigal 189). Video games commonly have a social aspect of interacting with others and this helps gamers become more used to helping random people with whatever they may need. My favorite game Guild Wars 2 is commonly praised as having the friendliest community of players out of all other MMOs. Why, you may ask? Well the answer is because players are encouraged to help others and are rewarded for doing so until it eventually becomes a natural habit.

In the game there is a mechanic when your health gets down to 0 where you must fight for survival, one last shot at life. In this "downed-state" your character is laying wounded on the ground with a  limited set of skills such as throwing a rock or healing yourself up. If you manage to kill something while downed you will rally back up to continue the fight, however if you don't manage to kill a foe and your downed-state health bar reaches 0 you die for good. 

This shows me in downed-state with my limited skills and the words "fight to survive!" on my health bar.

This mechanic allows for other players to revive their friends in order to keep them in the fight. You can revive someone while they are downed and in doing so will bring them back up just as if they had rallied. This promotes a sense of friendship and makes you feel happy inside, knowing you were able to help someone out. The two biggest happiness activities known to science are showing gratitude and acts of kindness, even if you don't know the person (McGonnigal 189). This mechanic provides both of these activities to each player in this situation. The player reviving gets an act of kindness and the player being revived expresses gratitude. In this way players are able to practice small acts of kindness that eventually build social habits when in the real world, making you a happier person overall.

This picture shows me reviving someone in downed-state who got a little too close and personal with some enemies.

When I see someone downed while playing I always go out of my way to help them. Usually I don't even realize it, I just go over and help them out. I do this because it has become a habit to help others when they need your assistance. I want to know, when playing games, what is something friendly you habitually do that makes everyone happy?

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

What Makes Games Feel Epic

Part of why we play video games is because they are epic. Games give us epic environments, epic projects, and epic contexts for action. "Compared with games, reality is trivial. Games make us part of something bigger and give epic meaning to our actions." (McGonigal 98). Reality really isn't exciting or filled with big epic moments; you go to school/work, do your daily routine, and repeat it all again. When playing video games you feel like you are part of an epic battle or are part of something much bigger. Games fill you with awe, an emotion that is only felt when being in the presence of something bigger and epic. 

One of the way games make you feel like a part of something bigger is through tracking your progress. The game may have a community-set goal such as 10 billion virtual kills of an enemy. Players know that they are contributing, but how they know their total is given through achievements or kill counters. In Guild Wars 2 there is an achievement panel where you can see how far you have gotten towards these goals. There are many types of achievements that all make you feel like a part of something bigger such as 'greatsword master' given by killing 10,000 enemies with a greatsword. These achievements are also real-time data that is a part of how gamers get better at video games. With progress bars and live feedback achievements help you become better at any game you are playing. (McGonigal 157). Achievements and progress bars help to give epic projects, cooperative efforts carried out by players on massive scales.

This shows my achievement panel, currently showing my progress towards a legendary backpiece.

Another way that games feel epic is through large boss fights. Boss fights are large, epic events that combine the games epic environments with epic contexts for action. Players all over are called to complete to kill the big bad boss that spawns and in the process feeling like you are part of something bigger. In Guild Wars 2's expansion, Heart of Thorns, the final map you go to has a large boss event where you must kill the Mouth of Mordremoth in order to continue to the final story mission of the expansion. When I did this event the first time I felt like my entire story had led up to this moment and it was and epic moment that filled me with awe.

This is a picture of the Mouth of Mordremoth boss attacking one of nine islands you must defend during this event.

Video games give you experiences that you would never be able to do in your real life. When was the last time you killed a dragon or battled in war against other players? If you can say a number other than 0 then you live a crazy life, but for the average person they want something epic so they turn to video games.

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

How Video Games Make You More Social

When people think of a gamer they usually think of a vampire-like person in the shelter of the dark avoiding all light and contact with society. This however is wrong and quite totally the opposite. "Compared with games, reality is disconnected. Games build stronger social bonds and lead to more active social networks. The more time we spend interacting within our social networks, the more likely we are to generate a subset of emotions known as 'prosocial emotions'" (McGonigal 82) These prosocial emotions are feel-good emotions including love, compassion, and devotion. You get these emotions when playing games with your friends or family, they help to strengthen your relationships. I play Guild Wars 2 with my brother and this helps to build our relationship as spend time together in the game. When we aren't fighting we are bonding through video games. Along with my brother I have many other friends in the game and you can create a friends list to get notified when people log in so you can always play with someone.

This is the friends list in game that shows you who is on and where they are in the world.

Another example of how games build stronger bonds is in the game I play on my phone called Clash of Clans. Clash of Clans or "CoC" is a strategy game where you join a clan and raid other players bases while defending your own. I play this game with several other people from around the world including my close friends in an in-game clan (A clan is a group of people up to 50 that can donate troops and spells, chat, and attack in wars together). This helps to build my current social connections and make new ones with people I never knew before. All these connections help fuel the prosocial emotions that McGonigal talks about.

This is a picture of my base and my clan chat open where you can talk to your whole clan.

As well as direct connection McGonigal talks about ambient sociability. Ambient sociability is playing with others but not actively interacting with them, it is the idea of playing alone together. Players recognize each other because they can relate to what others are doing; their actions are meaningful to each other. (McGonigal 89-90) This is most commonly seen in MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) where you can have several players in the same area all trying to do the same thing such as killing a dragon or escorting a caravan. Nobody is really interacting directly with each other but everyone is helping to achieve the same goal and are looking towards the same rewards thus creating this "playing alone together" feel. Guild Wars 2 is an MMO and when I play I experience this ambient sociability. An example can be seen below where several players rallied together with me to defeat a world boss in order to get sweet loot.

This is the shadow behemoth world boss where tons of people gathered for the same cause, to kill it for loot

It all comes down to the fact that video games can help strengthen your social connections with friends and family as well as forge new ones. Whether you are directly communicating or not while playing video games you are actually being social and helping your social skills when it come to face-to-face interaction. Think about it after reading this post, how many people do you communicate with on a daily basis while playing video games? The answer may be surprising!


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

Why Play Video Games?

Video games have always been a big part of my life. It all started in 3rd grade when I started playing a game my dad used to play called Guild Wars. I have always been interested in the franchise and today I am playing Guild Wars 2. What is it that makes the game so fun? Why do I consistently come back? These are some of the questions McGonigal answers in the book Reality is Broken.

Why play a game franchise for almost 8 years you may ask. To be honest I'm not sure myself but McGonigal tells us why we keep playing video games. "Gamers want to play the game. They want to explore and learn and improve. They're volunteering for unnecessary hard work - and they genuinely care about the outcome of their effort." (McGonigal 27). After reading this I realized that I in fact like the unnecessary work and obstacles in video games. I usually log on to the game because I like fighting other players for loot and enjoy long journeys for legendary rewards. Below is a picture of my main character wielding the legendary great sword named Eternity. This weapon took so much of my time and energy but I liked all that work and was very happy when I first crafted it.

Sure hard work with big payoffs is great but what makes us engaged and actively want to play the game? McGonigal says that when we play games we are looking to find intrinsic rewards to become happy. These rewards fall under the categories of satisfying work, being successful, social connections, and meaning. Games give you satisfying work to be successful at by playing with friends and feeling part of a greater community (49 McGonigal). An example of this when I play is raids. Raids are very challenging dungeons that you must conquer with a group of 10 people all battling for big loot. When in these raids you are being social with your friends to succeed at killing the boss and this all attributes to the happiness your brain is playing games for. These social raids and progression of legendary rewards are the reason that I continue to play video games; what makes you play yours?

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