Gamer Culture

McGonigal provides us with some interesting and optimistic ideas on how to improve the world’s biggest issues. But I feel as though she needs a better outlet than videogames. She aims high with good intentions to help fix our planet’s problems but to motivate people to help with this they should go out into their communities or send food, clothes, and clean drinking water to those who desperately need it. Those are small but helpful ways to improve. As a gamer, I don’t see McGonigal’s idea working in practice at all. I see it backfiring horribly. I have spent the majority of my life playing videogames starting back on the original Nintendo and PC and then working up to Microsoft’s 360 with no plan to stop. Videogames are a large part of my life as I use them as an escape from reality. Life is no picnic thus games give me a way pardon myself away from an anxiety filled existence and simply relax and not have to worry. However, the flip side to this is all the time I spend in game world removes that time I could have spent in reality doing something productive like homework, reading, or writing. McGonigal states that we should spend seven times the amount of time playing games than we do right now globally. Say I spend seven hours a week playing videogames, one hour per day, every day. That’s an hour everyday that I could spend volunteering to help improve my community. By McGonigal’s theory, I should be playing 49 hours per week, 7 hours per day, every day. That’s equal to a full-time job with a little overtime. I could work full-time directly helping my community with that much time. The only skills that I have gained from videogames are my hand-eye coordination, reaction speed, and social collaboration (multiplayer games require one to work well with others). These are all nice skills to have within nearly any field, but that doesn’t help me better understand the field. You give me a game that’s fun and interesting that helps generate ideas to help fix our world’s problems and I’ll master that game. However, once I’ve left game world and reentered reality has that game given me the ability to actually go out and fix the world? No. Videogames do not compare to reality. They are purposefully made that way as escapism.