> Skip to content
  • Published: 15 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409028987
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416

Reality is Broken

Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World




How we can harness the power of games to solve real world problems and improve our lives.

We are living in a world full of games.
More than 31 million people in the UK are gamers.
The average young person will spend 10,000 hours gaming by the age of twenty-one.
The future belongs to those who play games.

In this ground-breaking book, visionary game designer Jane McGonigaI challenges conventional thinking and shows that games - far from being simply escapist entertainment - have the potential not only to radically improve our own lives but to change the world.

  • Published: 15 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409028987
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416

About the author

Jane McGonigal

Jane McGonigal, Ph.D. is the Director of Game Research and Development at the Institute for the Future. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, and The New York Times; and on MTV, CNN, and NPR. In 2009, BusinessWeek called her one of the 10 most important innovators to watch. She has given keynote addresses at TED, South by Southwest Interactive, the Game Developers Conference and was a featured speaker at The New Yorker Conference.

Also by Jane McGonigal

See all

Praise for Reality is Broken

An intriguing and thought-provoking book

New Statesman

Despite her expertise, McGonigal's book is never overly technical, and as with a good computer game, anyone, regardless of gaming experience, is likely to get sucked in

New Scientist

I found as I read through her book I had already begin [sic] to feel empowered and make notes on the games I'd like to look into. Gamers can change reality - McGonigal proves that...

Keri Allan, Engineering & Technology

Inspiring and engaging

Daily Telegraph

McGonigal brilliantly deconstructs the components of good game design before parlaying them into a recipe for changing the offline, 'real' world'

Literary Review

McGonigal is persuasive and precise in explaining how games can transform our approach to those things we know we should do. McGonigal is also adept at showing how good games expose the alarming insubstantiality of much everyday experience. McGonigal is a passionate advocate... Given the power and the darker potentials of the tools she describes, we must hope that the world is listening

Tom Chatfield, Observer

She brilliantly links the growing scholarship on happiness to the gimmicks and tricks that commercial game designers devise to engage their febrile audiences

Pat Kane, Belfast Telegraph