Reality Is Broken

When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. (Location 348)

But there’s also busywork, which is completely predictable and monotonous. Busywork generally gets a bad rap in our real lives, but when we choose it for ourselves, it actually helps us feel quite contented and productive. When we’re swapping multicolored jewels in a casual game like Bejeweled or harvesting virtual crops in a social game like FarmVille, we’re happy just to keep our hands and mind occupied with focused activity that produces a clear result. (Location 519)

There’s mental work, which revs up our cognitive faculties. It can be rapid-fire and condensed, like the thirty-second math problems in Nintendo’s Brain Age games. Or it can be drawn-out and complex, like the simulated ten-thousand-year conquest campaigns in the real-time strategy game Age of Empires. Either way, we feel a rush of accomplishment when we put our brains to good use. (Location 523)