FOURSQUARE
(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.
FREE RICE
(Chapter 11) Play games to help end hunger at http://freerice.com, a nonprofit website run by the United Nations World Food Programme.
GHOSTS OF A CHANCE
(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.
GROUNDCREW
(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.
HIDE & SEEK FESTIVAL AND SANDPIT
(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.
INVESTIGATE YOUR MP’S EXPENSES
(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.
JETSET
(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.
LOST JOULES
(Chapter 12) Learn more about this pending smart-meter game project, powered by Adaptive Meter, at http://lostjoules.com.
THE LOST RING
(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/.
NIKE+
(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.
PLUSONEME
(Chapter 8) Send someone you know a +1 inspiring, +1 kindness, +1 humor, or dozens of other positive strengths at http://plusoneme.com, created by Clay Johnson.
QUEST TO LEARN
(Chapter 7) Download sample curricula and assignments at the world’s first game-based public school, developed by the Institute of Play, at http://q2l.org.
SPORE CREATURE CREATOR
(Chapter 13) Contribute to the Spore galaxy by creating your own Spore creature for free at Maxis/Electronic Arts’ www.spore.com.
SUPERBETTER
(Chapter 7) To learn the rules for this injury or illness recovery game, or to share them with friends and family, visit www.superbetter.org.
SUPERSTRUCT
(Chapter 14) To view the archive of this future-forecasting game, created by the Institute for the Future, go to www.superstructgame.org. To learn more about the game and download game results, visit the Superstruct blog archive at http://iftf.org/search/node/superstruct.
TOMBSTONE HOLD ’EM
(Chapter 10) To learn the rules of this cemetery poker game, invented by Jane McGonigal for 42 Entertainment, visit www.avantgame.com/tombstone.
TOP SECRET DANCE-OFF
(Chapter 10) You can view the first prototype of this dance adventure game, developed by Jane McGonigal, at http://topsecret.ning.com. Future versions of the game will be announced at www.realityisbroken.org.
WORLD WITHOUT OIL
(Chapter 14) Explore a week-by-week replay of the peak-oil simulation, presented by ITVS and produced by Writer Guy, or download lesson plans for teachers, at http://worldwithoutoil.org.
Notes
1 Suits, Bernard. The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia (Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2005), 159.
INTRODUCTION
1 Castronova, Edward. Exodus to the Virtual World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), xiv-xvii. This condensed passage from the preface appears with the permission of the author.
2 “China Bars Use of Virtual Money for Trading in Real Goods.” Press release from the Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China, June 29, 2009. http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/aarticle/newsrelease/commonnews/200906/20090606364208.html.
3 “Newzoo Games Market Report: Consumer Spending in US, UK, GER, FR, NL, & BE.” Newzoo, Amsterdam, May 2010. http://corporate.newzoo.com/press/GamesMarketReport_FREE_030510.pdf; “Games Segmentation 2008 Market Research Report.” The NPD Group, May 2010. http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100527b.html.
4 These regional statistics are drawn from a variety of industry reports and market research studies conducted over the past three years, as follows: “An Analysis of Europe’s 100 Million Active Gamers.” Strategy Analytics, September 2008. http://www.strategyanalytics.com/reports/ix7hx8in7j/single.htm; “IA9 Interactive Australia 2009.” National research prepared by Bond University for Interactive Games & Entertainment Association, August 2009. www.igea.net/wp.../2009/08/IA9-Interactive-Australia-2009-Full-Report. pdf; “Online Games Market in Korea.” Pearl Research, July 2009. http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=1208384; “Games Market Summary: Russia.” Prepared by Piers Harding-Rolls for Games Intelligence/Screen Digest, June 2010. http://www.screendigest.com/intelligence/games/russia/games_intel_russia_100/view.html?start_ser=gi&start_toc=1; “Emerging Markets for Video Games.” Chris Stanton-Jones for Games Intelligence/Screen Digest, March 2010. http://www.screendigest.com/reports/10_03_18_emerging_markets_video_games/10_03_18_emerging_markets_video_games/view.html; “Online Games Market in Vietnam.” Pearl Research, November 2008. http://www.mindbranch.com/Online-Games-Vietnam-R740-14/; “Study: Vietnam, India Gaming Population To Hit 25 Million By 2014.” Pearl Research, March 2010. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27525/Study_Vietnam_India_Gaming_Population_To_Hit_25Million_By_2014.php; “Gaming Business in the Middle East.” Game Power 7 Research Group, February 2010. http://images.bbgsite.com/news/download/gaming_business_in_the_middle_east_KOGAI_2009.pdf; Menon, Naveen. “Insights on Mobile Gaming in India.” Vital Analytics. March 2009. http://www.telecomindiaonline.com/telecom-india-daily-telecom-insights-on-mobile-gaming-in-urban-india.html. “The Global Entertainment & Media Outlook: 2010-2014.” PricewaterhouseCoopers, June 2010. http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/global-entertainment-media-outlook. The gamer market statistics are constantly changing; the global trends are upward in every country, so higher numbers are likely to be accurate for each region with each passing year since the studies were published.
5 “Major Findings of the 2008 Annual Review & Five-Year Forecast Report on China’s Video Game Industry.” Niko Partners Research, San Jose, May 2, 2008. www.nikopartners.com/pdf/npr_050208.pdf.
6 “Games Segmentation 2008 Market Research Report.” The NPD Group.
7 Dromgoole, Sean. “A View from the Marketplace: Games Now and Going Forward.” GameVision Europe Ltd., March 2009. http://www.scribd.com/doc/13714815/Sean-Dromgoole-CEO-Some-Research-Gamevision.
8 In 2009, the annual spending on games in the United States was $25.3 billion; in the United Kingdom, it was £3.8 billion; in Germany, 3.7 billion euros; and in France, 3.6 billion euros. “Newzoo Games Market Report.”
9 Rawlinson, George, trans., with Henry Rawlinson and J. G. Wilkinson. The History of Herodotus: A New English Version (New York: D. Appleton, 1861), 182. http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofherodot01herouoft#page/n5/mode/2up.
10 The first such taxes have already been proposed; for example, in Texas in 2006 and by lawmakers in New Mexico in 2008. Reported in “Texas Politician Proposes 100 Percent Game Tax.” GameSpot, January 25, 2006. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6143114.html; and “New Mexico’s Videogame Nanny Tax.” CNET News, February 11, 2008. http://news.cnet.com/New-Mexicos-video-game-nanny-tax/2010-1043_3-6229759.html.
11 “Essential Facts About the Game Industry: 2010 Sales, Demographic and Usage Data.” Entertainment Software Association, June 16, 2010. http:
//www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF.
12 Reinecke, Leonard. “Games at Work: The Recreational Use of Computer Games During Work Hours.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking [formerly CyberPsychology & Behavior], August 2009, 12(4): 461-65. DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2009.0010.
13 Fahey, Rob. “It’s Inevitable: Soon We Will All Be Gamers.” The Times (UK), July 7, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4281768.ece.
PART I
1 Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály. Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: The Experience of Play in Work and Games (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1975), 206.
CHAPTER 1
1 Suits, The Grasshopper, 38. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman were among the first game researchers to outline these three characteristics as essential to a game, drawing on the work of Bernard Suits. I am indebted to them, as are many other game designers and researchers, for drawing attention to Suits’ definition. Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004).
2 Tetris has been named “The Greatest Game of All Time” by Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue 100, among others. “The Best Videogames in the History of Humanity,” an extraordinary compilation of greatest-games lists compiled by J. J. McCullough, can be found at http://www.filibustercartoons.com/games.htm.
3 A master’s thesis written proving that Tetris is literally unwinnable: Brzustowski, John. “Can You Win at Tetris?” University of British Columbia, Master of Science, Mathematics, 1992. http://www.iam.ubc.ca/theses/Brzustowski/brzustowski.html.
4 Csíkszentmihályi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, 36.
5 Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility (New York: Free Press, 1986), 3.
6 Sutton-Smith, Brian. Ambiguity of Play (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 198.
7 This kind of real-time data collection helps researchers collect much better data than traditional surveys or questionnaires. It’s much easier to report your activity and mood in the moment than to try to remember what you were doing and feeling hours or days afterward.
8 Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991). See also: Csíkszentmihályi, M. “Optimal Experience in Work and Leisure.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989, 56(5): 815-22; Csíkszentmihályi, M., and R. Kubey. “Television and the Rest of Life: A Systematic Comparison of Subjective Experience.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 1981, 45: 317-28; and Kubey, R., R. Larson, and M. Csíkszentmihályi. “Experience Sampling Method Applications to Communication Research Questions.” Journal of Communication , 1996, 46(2): 99-120.
9 Kash, Thomas, et al. “Dopamine Enhances Fast Excitatory Synaptic Transmission in the Extended Amygdala by a CRF-R1-Dependent Process.” Journal of Neuroscience, December 17, 2008, 28(51): 13856-65. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4715-08.2008.
10 Gregory, Erik M. “Understanding Video Gaming’s Engagement: Flow and Its Application to Interactive Media.” Media Psychology Review, Issue 1, 2008. http://www.mprcenter.org/mpr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=207&Itemid=163.
11 Yee, Nick. “MMORPG Hours vs. TV Hours.” The Daedalus Project: The Psychology of MMORPGS, March 9, 2009, vol. 7-1. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000891.php.
12 Ben-Shahar, Tal. Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007), 77.
13 Nicole Lazzaro deserves the credit for introducing this term to the game industry via her presentations at the annual Game Developers Conference.
14 Hoeft, Fumiko, et al. “Gender Differences in the Mesocorticolimbic System During Computer Game-Play.” Journal of Psychiatric Research, March 2008, 42(4): 253-8. http://spnl.stanford.edu/publications/pdfs/Hoeft_2008JPsychiatrRes.pdf.
CHAPTER 2
1 Csíkszentmihályi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, xiii.
2 Ibid., 37.
3 Ibid., 1, 197.
4 “Study: Women Over 40 Biggest Gamers.” CNN, February 11, 2004. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/fun.games/02/11/video.games.women.reut/index.html.
5 Sutton-Smith, Brian, and Elliot Avedon, eds. The Study of Games (New York: Wiley, 1971).
6 Thompson, Clive. “Halo 3: How Microsoft Labs Invented a New Science of Play.” Wired, August 21, 2007. http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/ff_halo.
7 Sudnow, David. Pilgrim in the Microworld (New York: Warner Books, 1983), 41. Full text available online at http://www.sudnow.com/PMW.pdf.
8 Ibid., 35.
9 Ibid., 9.
10 Ibid., 20.
11 Corey Lee M. Keyes explains how flow fits into the bigger picture of positive psychology in “What Is Positive Psychology?” CNN, January 24, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/fyi/teachers.tools/01/24/c.keyes/.
12 Hoeft, Fumiko, et al., “Gender Differences.”
13 Thompson, Clive. “Battle with ‘Gamer Regret’ Never Ceases.” Wired, September 10, 2007. http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/commentary/games/2007/09/gamesfrontiers_0910?currentPage=all.
14 Jenkins, David. “Chinese Online Publishers Sign ‘Beijing Accord.’” Gamasutra News, August 24, 2005. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=6312.
15 Lyubomirsky, S., K. M. Sheldon, and D. Schkade. “Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change.” Review of General Psychology, 2005, 9: 111-31; and Sheldon, K. M., and S. Lyubomirsky. “Is It Possible to Become Happier? (And if So, How?)” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2007, 1: 1-17.
16 Originally described by Brickman and Campbell in “Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society.” In M. H. Apley, ed., Adaptation Level Theory: A Symposium (New York: Academic Press, 1971), 287-302. Most recently assessed in Bottan, Nicolas Luis, Pérez Truglia, and Ricardo Nicolás. “Deconstructing the Hedonic Treadmill: Is Happiness Autoregressive?” Social Science Research Network, January 2010. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1262569.
17 The term “autotelic” was originally coined by Csíkszentmihályi in Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, 10.
18 Lyubomirsky, Sonja. The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 64.
19 Nelson, Debra L., and Bret L. Simmons. “Eustress: An Elusive Construct, and Engaging Pursuit.” Research in Occupational Stress and Well-being, 2003, 3: 265-322.
20 I owe credit to Chris Bateman for enlightening me about the neurochemical basis for fiero, in “Top Ten Videogame Emotions.” Only a Game, April 9, 2008. http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2008/04/top-ten-videoga.html.
21 Berns, G. S. “Something Funny Happened to Reward.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2004, 8(5): 193-94. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2004.03.007.
22 Keltner, Dacher. Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (New York: Norton, 2009), 219-20.
23 Ibid., 250-69.
24 Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love (New York: Viking, 2006), 260.
25 Many of the studies whose results I’ve based this set of intrinsic rewards on are reviewed in the following books: Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism; Seligman and Christopher Peterson’s Character Strengths and Virtues; Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness; Tal Ben-Shahar’s Happier; Jean M. Twenge’s Generation Me; Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s Beyond Boredom and Anxiety; and Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss.
26 Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness, 16.
CHAPTER 3
1 That’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation—derived from adding up the average number of subscribers each year since 2004, ranging from 2 million to 11.5 million, times the average hours per player according to Blizzard statistics and Stanford University research, added up through early 2010. This isn’t a precise way to measure gameplay, but even with a margin of error of as much as 50 percent, we’re still talking about gameplay on the magnitude of millions of years.
2 In 2008, scientists discovered fossils sug
gesting man’s earliest upright ancestors date to 6 million years ago. Richmond, Brian G., and William L. Jungers. “Orrorin tugenensis Femoral Morphology and the Evolution of Hominin Bipedalism.” Science, March 21, 2008, 319(5870): 1662. DOI: 10.1126/ science.1154197.
3 Nielsen reports seventeen hours per week per World of Warcraft player, while a Stanford researcher reports twenty-two hours; other studies confirm consistent numbers in this range. “Online Games Battle for Top Spot.” BBC News, December 26, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7156078.stm; and “WoW Basic Demographics.” The Daedalus Project, 2009, vol. 7-1. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001365.php.
4 “Full Transcript of Blizzard 2010 Plans.” Activision Blizzard Fourth-Quarter Earnings, conference call, posted online by INC Gamers, February 11, 2010. http://www.incgamers.com/News/20949/full-transcript-blizzard-2010-plans; and “World of Warcraft Expansion Shatters Sales Records.” PC Magazine, November 20, 2008. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2335141,00.asp.
5 The term “blissful productivity” was first applied to WoW by a team of computer scientists at the Indiana University School of Informatics; they were studying the unusually high gaming stamina of WoW players, particularly in the face of what seemed like repetitive and often tedious tasks. Bardzell, S., J. Bardzell, T. Pace, and K. Reed. “Blissfully Productive: Grouping and Cooperation in World of Warcraft Instance Runs.” In Proceedings of the 2008 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Diego, November 8-12, 2008 (New York: ACM, 2008), 357-60. DOI: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1460563.1460621.
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