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

way, it’s almost impossible not to feel optimistic. And that’s the positive effect the researchers were measuring in the M.I.N.D. Lab: excitement, joy, and interest. The more we fail, the more eager we are to do better. The researchers were able to demonstrate this: the right kind of failure feedback is a reward. It makes us more engaged and more optimistic about our odds of success.
    Positive failure feedback reinforces our sense of control over the game’s outcome. And a feeling of control in a goal-oriented environment can create a powerful drive to succeed. Another player describes this phenomenon perfectly: “ Super Monkey Ball is pretty much the dictionary definition of addictive. It brilliantly balances the intense frustration at failing to complete a course with the absolute desire to have ‘just one more go.’” 4 To optimists, set-backs are energizing—and the more energized we get, the more fervently we believe that success is just around the corner. Which is why, on the whole, gamers just don’t give up.
    We aren’t used to feeling so optimistic in the face of things that are extremely difficult for us. That’s why so many gamers relish wickedly hard game content. Nearly every review you’ll find of the Super Monkey Ball games praises them with descriptions such as “insanely frustrating” and “fiendishly difficult.” We like it that way, precisely because it’s so rare in real life to feel sincere, unabashed hope in the face of such daunting challenges.
    It helps, of course, that gamers believe they have every chance of success when they sit down to play a new game. Justifiable optimism is built right in to the medium. By design, every computer and video game puzzle is meant to be solvable, every mission accomplishable, and every level passable by a gamer with enough time and motivation.
    But without positive failure feedback, this belief is easily undermined. If failure feels random or passive, we lose our sense of agency—and optimism goes down the drain. As technology journalist Clive Thompson reminds us, “It’s only fun to fail if the game is fair—and you had every chance of success.” 5
    That’s why Nicole Lazzaro spends so much time consulting with game developers about how, exactly, to design failure sequences that are spectacular and engaging. The trick is simple, but the effect is powerful: you have to show players their own power in the game world, and if possible elicit a smile or a laugh. As long as our failure is interesting, we will keep trying—and remain hopeful that we will succeed eventually.
    Which gives us our next fix for reality:
    FIX #4: BETTER HOPE OF SUCCESS
    Compared with games, reality is hopeless. Games eliminate our fear of failure and improve our chances for success.
    In many cases, that hope of success is more exciting than success itself.
    Success is pleasurable, but it leaves us at a loss for something interesting to do. If we fail, and if we can try again, then we still have a mission.
    Winning tends to end the fun. But failure? It keeps the fun going.
    “Games don’t last forever,” says Raph Koster, a leading creative director of online games and virtual worlds. “I play something I’m good at, I get really far and do really well, then I get bored.” 6 And that’s when he stops playing and moves on to the next game. Why? Because being really good at something is less fun than being not quite good enough—yet .
    Koster has written a book much beloved in the game industry, A Theory of Fun for Game Design , in which he argues that games are “fun” only as long as we haven’t mastered them. He writes, “Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension.... With games, learning is the drug.” And that’s why fun in games lasts only as long as we’re not consistently successful . 7
    It’s something of a paradox. Games are designed for us to learn them, get better at them, and eventually be successful. Any gamer who puts