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

The first part of the book is a great summary of why games are compelling and what we know about making a good game experience. Great reading for anyone working in the industry, or anyone who doesn't understand what the fuss about video games is. I would highly recommend that anybody who makes games or wants to should read at least the first few chapters of this book.

The latter part of the book gets a bit more far-fetched as McGonigal reaches for examples of games that have effected real world change, and speculates about how even grander scale game design could inspire large scale improvements to every day reality.

Another reviewer wrote this, which I liked very much:
"I’m in two minds about this ambitious beast. On the one hand, the author is clearly bonkers and operating on an epic bandwidth of partial megalomania. On the other hand, her enthusiasm and spirit of uncrushable optimism is a reassuring and powerful thing."

I can't help but think she's extremely over-ambitious and founding her optimism on some rather shaky supports. On the other hand, I really wish she turns out to be right.

McGonigal offers a compelling hook -- that games can change us and the world for the better -- and backs it up with psych research and tons of examples. The parts I found most compelling were the tie-ins with positive psychology ("happiness research"), neurochemistry, and productivity. I love the chapter where she explains how gameplay is the opposite of depression and where she describes her own story that inspired SuperBetter (which I read while sick with the flu).

This would be a five-star review except for a few minor things:

1) The writing is only okay. It got a bit wordy and repetitive.

2) The book started losing me around the second half where she was mostly describing her own game designs. I think this is a matter of personal taste, but the descriptions of many of the "reality games" (rather than video games) which are really just a thin veneer for some greater purpose, and where quests are some nebulous, difficult real-world task, whose scoring is entirely subjective -- such as recording a video of yourself dancing -- didn't compel me. Everything she said about the importance of tight feedback loops and fun failure seemed to get lost here -- it felt like bad game design. But apparently the games managed to engage people, so hey, more power to it -- but I didn't personally feel inspired reading about those games.