Preparation for Essay 4 - Book Club - Exploratory Draft

Dillon Waugh

Hayes

English 100 – 9:10

5/1/13

Word Count: 513 (509 excluding the phrase “Press X to Jason.”)

Book Club Essay - Exploratory Draft

McGonigal’s three main points, most directly retorting to those who believe that gaming is wasteful and lazy, are as follows: video games make the people who play them truly happy by simulating feelings of real productivity, challenge, and triumph (in other words, they feel like everything a person’s dream work should be); understanding of how a game does this can be applied to and used to enrich real-life tasks; and that implementation of game elements has already been used to invite and guide throngs of average citizens into assisting in projects with real-world productive value.

Our group agrees on the points of McGonigal’s first section and in part on her second – video games do feel fulfilling, for many of the reasons that she describes, and filtering out talk of video games, her explanation of humans’ emotional needs is supported by many other classic ones – such as those on motivation in the workplace (and note, McGonigal believes that many gamers are gamers because aspects of their immediate lives, work doubtlessly foremost in mind, do not give them what games can – they are not as motivated to work as they are to game); knowing why any activity feels fulfilling, like understanding any other task, can be used in practical study of so-to-speak nutrition of the psyche and used to improve general life. However, she writes about it as if it’s simple, when simplicity is the failing of a number of the ARGs she cites as excellent examples of practical gaming: Chore Wars players must think of themselves as doing chores with a twist before they think of themselves as playing a game or taking part in a competition; simplicity of games such as Foldit and Free Rice feel rather detached from their real world impact and repetitive – their players likely shove along with playing due to the promise that they are doing real good by rather easy-to-access means. Closer to “doing my good deed for the day” than feeling part of something truly vital – the meaning that McGonigal describes in “epic” games. The museum ARG as well as games such as Zombies, Run! likely better examples for their story and continuity – investments, long-term visible progression.

The book is written in an easily-digestible fashion, arguably so much so that the greater part of its worth for a book club would not be in challenging oneself outside of their comfort zone – in fact, it would be especially recommendable to a class attended by a significant number of gamers. For those familiar with games – or at the very least most of the terminology – it should be easy to discuss for an entire class period and then some; book club meetings can double as productive and intelligent “gaming club” meetings. Bear in mind that it is also to gamers that reading will be most effortless. All of that said we do indeed recommend the book – if nothing else for pleasure reading by curious parties, for a book club most ideally to groups of gamers or non-gamers with a gamer or two to offer exposition. (Because PRESS X TO JASON!)