Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 14 – Saving the Real World Together
This continues the Readalong by Erik van Mechelen of Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken with insights from Yu-kai Chou’s Octalysis framework. For in-depth discussions of this book and others, join Octalysis Prime.
tl;dr By taking a long view and using game design now, we can save the real world together.
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Summary
Will Wright shared that he believes one of the largest skills to be gained from playing games is a better imagination.
Why? For the survival of humanity.
Survival is present in many games from the Sims to Black and White to Civilization.
World without Oil was a collaborative forecasting and problem-solving game which helped people expand their imaginations through fictional obstacles.
Superstruct Ten Year Forecast was yet another collaborative game created and run by McGonigal’s Institute for the Future, which developed 550 superstructs, or combinations of structural solutions to problems.
Analysis
This final chapter is largely example driven and uncontroversial.
It is a rallying call for Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning and Calling — the idea that players are motivated when they believe they are part of something greater than themselves.
The collaborative games McGonigal highlights, such as World Without Oil and Superstruct, also draw heavily on Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness, where working alongside others toward a shared mission amplifies individual motivation and output.
Together, we can tackle what may be the most worthwhile, most epic obstacle of all: a whole-planetary mission, to use games to raise global quality of life, to prepare ourselves for the future, and to sustain our earth for the next millennium and beyond.
What’s next?
Congratulations! You completed the Reality is Broken readalong!
Which book should we read together next?
Let me know in the comments or on Octalysis Prime‘s community.
Related Reading
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 13 — Collaboration Superpowers
- Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification?
- Five Examples of Gamified Crowdsourcing
- Books by Yu-kai Chou