Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (52 page)

These are exactly the good game skills and abilities that the ancient Lydians drew upon in order to survive catastrophic climate change and reinvent their own civilization.

If they did it then, we can do it again today.

We have been playing computer games together for more than three decades now. By that count, we’ve accumulated our own eighteen years’ worth of preparatory good gaming, and then some. We have the collaboration superpowers. We have the interactive technology and global communication networks. We have the human resources—more than half a billion gamers and counting.

More than three thousand years after the ancient Lydians harnessed their game skills and abilities to reinvent the world, we are ready to do the same.

We are ready for humanity’s next epic win.

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.

Games don’t distract us from our real lives. They
fill
our real lives: with positive emotions, positive activity, positive experiences, and positive strengths.

Games aren’t leading us to the downfall of human civilization. They’re leading us to its reinvention.

The great challenge for us today, and for the remainder of the century, is to integrate games more closely into our everyday lives, and to embrace them as a platform for collaborating on our most important planetary efforts.

If we commit to harnessing the power of games for real happiness and real change, then a better reality is more than possible—it is likely. And in that case, our future together will be quite extraordinary.

I could not have written this book without the inspiration, collaboration, advice, and support of the following individuals. I wholeheartedly thank:

This list is designed to help you learn more about the games in this book—and to get firsthand experience playing them. If you want to become actively involved in the community of people who are already making and playing world-changing games, these resources will show you where to start.

 

To read more case studies and learn about new and upcoming alternate reality games, forecasting games, happiness hacks, crowd games, and collaboratories, visit the website for this book,
www.realityisbroken.org
.

 

If you want to help create, playtest, sponsor, or commission a game designed to have a positive impact—to improve players’ lives, to solve real problems, or to change the world—join the social network Gameful, at
www.gameful.org
. Other organizations dedicated to a similar mission include Games for Change (
www.gamesforchange.org
), Games Beyond Entertainment (
www.gamesbeyondentertainment.com
) and the annual academic Games, Learning, and Society Conference (
www.glsconference.org
).

 

Many of the alternate reality and world-changing games described in this book are free and available to play online or on your mobile phone. Others are no longer playable, but have been archived online for public viewing. The best online resources for learning about or playing these games are described below. Because many of the games in this book are, at the time of publication, still in beta or prototype form, their availability may change; we will track their availability and the emergence of new games at the book’s website,
www.realityisbroken.org
.

The games below are arranged in alphabetical order, with the chapter in which they are described listed after their name.

 

(Chapter 9) A beta version of this cross-generation conversation game, developed at the UC Berkeley Center for New Media by Irene Chien, Ken Goldberg, Jane McGonigal, Greg Niemeyer, and Jeff Tang, is available in English and Spanish at
http://heidegger.ieor.berkeley.edu/bounce/
.

 

(Chapter 7) A beta version of the chores-management game, created by Kevan Davis, is playable at
www.chorewars.com
.

 

(Chapter 9) Find out when and where the annual street festival for new mobile, social games is happening at
www.comeoutandplay.org
.

 

(Chapter 9) Find out more about how to play this social street game, invented by Simon Evans and Simon Johnson, at
http://swarmtoolkit.net
, or watch a short documentary at
http://vimeo.com/1204230
.

 

(Chapter 10) A short documentary of the game of benevolent assassination, created by Jane McGonigal and Ian Bogost, is available at
www.cruelgame.com
, where you can also download a kit for running your own Cruel 2 B Kind game.

 

(Chapter 8) You can play the archived version of this in-flight game, developed by Google Apps and Virgin America, wherever you are—even if you’re not on an airplane!—at
www.dayinthecloud.com
.

 

(Chapter 14) You can join the EVOKE game network for social innovation, created by Jane McGonigal and Kiyash Monsef, and developed by the World Bank Institute and Natron Baxter Applied Gaming, at
www.urgentevoke.com
.

 

(Chapter 12) Join the microvolunteering game, created by Jacob Colker and Ben Rigby, or design your own nonprofit mission, at
www.sparked.com
. Find out more at
http://blog.beextra.org
.

 

(Chapter 11) You can solve protein-folding puzzles for science at
http://fold.it/portal
, a collaboration between the University of Washington departments of computer science and engineering and biochemistry.

 

(Chapter 8) Sign up for this social life-management game at
www.foursquare.com
, or search your smart phone’s app store or market for the Foursquare mobile phone app.

 

(Chapter 11) Play games to help end hunger at
http://freerice.com
, a nonprofit website run by the United Nations World Food Programme.

 

(Chapter 9) Explore the archive of the Smithsonian Museum’s experimental game and sign up to play a ninety-minute version at the museum at
www.ghostsofachance.com
.

 

(Chapter 12) Organize your own team of agents to tackle any social problem at
http://groundcrew.us
, and learn more about the company behind the platform and its founder, Joe Edelman, at
http://citizenlogistics.com
.

 

(Chapter 9) Keep track of new mobile, social immersive experiences and games being invented and publicly playtested in the United Kingdom at
www.hideandseekfest.co.uk
.

 

(Chapter 11) Play with the crowdsourcing tool and read updates about the
Guardian
’s political investigation of UK parliament members at
http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk
.

 

(Chapter 8) See more screenshots from the airport game developed by Persuasive Games, and download it for your iPhone, at
www.persuasivegames.com/games/game.aspx?game=jetset
.

 

(Chapter 12) Learn more about this pending smart-meter game project, powered by Adaptive Meter, at
http://lostjoules.com
.

 

(Chapter 13) To learn more about The Lost Ring, created as a partnership between McDonald’s, AKQA, Jane McGonigal, and the International Olympic Committee, explore the player-created wiki at
http://olympics.wikibruce.com/Home
or watch the interactive case study at
http://work.akqa.com/thelostring/
.

 

(Chapter 8) View all the Nike+ challenges and sign up to join the running game at
www.nikeplus.com
; an inexpensive Nike+ sensor and an iPhone or iPod are required to play.