Recently I ran across an article about video games written by a woman named Jane McGonigal—a gaming expert with a PhD who wrote a book titled Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Amazon.com described the book this way:
With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world—from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change.
It’s clear that McGonigal believes that video games hold the key to making life better and brighter for us all. In the article I read, titled “How Might Video Games Be Good for Us?” she goes even further: According to her, playing video games gives purpose and meaning to life, and she seems to suggest that without games, we’d have little reason to live.
Huh?!
I’ll let McGonigal speak:
When I was a graduate student in 2003, I had the opportunity to attend the first annual meeting of the newly organized Digital Games Research Association. … The keynote session was an interview between Eric Zimmerman, an important experimental game designer, and Brian Sutton-Smith, one of the great psychologists of play from the entire twentieth century. … I’ll never forget the very first question and answer of the keynote. I’m not sure I heard the rest of the interview in fact, because the first question and answer left such an impression on me. As I recorded the exchange in my notes—there is no official transcript—Zimmerman asked, “What can you tell us about the importance of studying game play? Why should we study digital games?”
I must admit Zimmerman asked two thought-provoking questions. But how great was Sutton-Smith’s answer? Well, you decide.
Sutton-Smith thought for a moment, and then answered in a booming, and slightly cranky, voice, “WHY do we study play? WHY? We study play because LIFE is CRAP. Life is crap, and it’s full of pain and suffering, and the ONLY thing that makes it worth living the ONLY thing that makes it possible to get up in the morning and go on living is play. Art, and play. … I’m not sure what anyone else thought at the time, but I heard absolute truth in that answer. There is something transcendent about playing games that lifts us up and out of the tedium and pain of everyday life. … Games are freedom.
My reaction (and possibly yours) is this: How sad that a keynote speaker would enthusiastically conclude that the only thing that makes it possible to get up in the morning revolves around some type of gaming.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that video games (uplifting ones) can’t be fun. Or that they shouldn’t be used to occasionally relieve boredom. Or that the community they can provide can’t be fulfilling in some ways. But it seems incredibly shallow to live life believing games can somehow fill that “God-shaped hole” in all of us. Furthermore, I’m a firm believer that God has given all of us talents, and like the proverbial man who was chastised by Jesus, we’d be wise to not squander them by hiding them under some rock … or playing video games all day.
Although McGonigal’s beliefs about gaming seem outlandish, what’s even sadder to me is that there are folks in the Christian community whose actions seem to indicate they’re on board with her—the ones who seem to show more excitement about the latest game release or gaming platform than they do about Christ Himself.
Every day I want to get out of bed with a sense of calling and purpose. And playing some game just isn’t what I have in mind.
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