Games are work. There are economies popping up in games now because people value them.
Game design isn’t just a technological craft. It’s a twenty-first-century way of thinking and leading.
We’ve been playing games since humanity had civilization – there is something primal about our desire and our ability to play games. It’s so deep-seated that it can bypass latter-day cultural norms and biases.
A dramatic decrease in oil availability is not at all far-fetched.
It seems like what happens when we play games is that we go into a psychological state called eustress, or positive stress. It’s basically the same as negative stress in the sense that we get our adrenaline up, you know, our breathing rate quickens, our pulse quickens.
I’m not a fan of simulations. Where, ‘Oh, we’ll go play a simulation of world peace and figure out how to make peace’ and then somehow magically that will get translated into the real world. No, that’s not the kind of games that I make.
The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy.
Games are providing rewards that reality is not.
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.
A traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
I see a future in which games once again are explicitly designed to improve quality of life, to prevent suffering, and to create real, widespread happiness.
Games that make you feel good about yourself are good games to be playing.
The single biggest misconception about games is that they’re an escapist waste of time.
Games make us happy because they are hard work that we choose for ourselves, and it turns out that almost nothing makes us happier than good, hard work.
We mistakenly think that by putting ourselves first, we’ll finally get what we want. In fact, true happiness comes not from thinking more of ourselves, but rather from thinking less of ourselves – from seeing the truly small role we play in something much bigger, much more important than our individual needs.
Gamers don’t want to game the system. Gamers want to play the game. They want to explore and learn and improve. They’re volunteering for unnecessary hard work – and they genuinely care about the outcome of their effort.
Whether it’s money, grades, promotions, popularity, attention, or just plain material things we want, scientists agree: seeking out external rewards is a sure path to sabotaging our own happiness.
Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension... With games, learning is the drug.
The research proves what gamers already know: within the limits of our own endurance, we would rather work hard than be entertained. Perhaps that’s why gamers spend less time watching television than anyone else on the planet.
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.