Chapter 8 of Reality is Broken, “Leveling Up in Life,” is about games that ride along with things you were going to do anyway.
Jane McGonigal’s examples include JetSetter, Day in the Clouds, Nike+ and Foursquare. Each one takes an ordinary activity, like a run or a night out with friends, and makes it feel more rewarding.
Her argument is that these games add real value to life because they work on intrinsic motivation. People play them for the activity itself, and the activity gets better.
This readalong summarizes the chapter, then asks the question a designer has to ask next: what keeps someone playing once the game has done its job? Foursquare is the cautionary example, and the answer runs through Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness, Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance, and the Endgame.
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.
Speed Run Notes
- Chapter 8 of Reality is Broken, “Leveling Up in Life,” surveys games that accompany real-life activities instead of replacing them.
- McGonigal’s examples: JetSetter to relieve boredom, Day in the Clouds to calm anxiety, Nike+ to make people run harder, and Foursquare to get friends out together in new places.
- Nike+ rewards something you already do. Foursquare rewards you for doing new things and being more social, which taps Core Drive 5 (Social Influence & Relatedness).
- The weak spot: once a Foursquare user remembers that seeing friends is fun on its own, the app becomes optional, and losing a digital Mayorship is a weak Core Drive 8 (Loss & Avoidance) consequence.
- The design lesson: a game that improves real life still needs an Endgame (Experience Phase 4) to keep its veteran players.
In This Article
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
In this chapter, McGonigal introduces us to games that accompany real life activities.
She explains how their inclusion of intrinsic motivation alleviates boredom (JetSetter), stems anxiety (Day in the Clouds), makes us run harder (Nike+), and hang out with friends more in new places (Foursquare).
It is a great survey of the underlying studies and behavioral psychology.
Octalysis Analysis: Why Foursquare Lost Its Players
The examples in this chapter won’t surprise anyone reading in 2017, but I was drawn into a reflection on Foursquare, a popular app that is no longer high on the App Store charts.
McGonigal rightly points out that instead of a game that rewards you for what you’re already doing, like Nike+, Foursquare “is a game that rewards you for doing new things, and making a better effort to be social.” This taps directly into Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness.
Designers will notice a problem here, however. Once I ‘rediscover’ (if I ever forgot) that hanging out with friends is a fun and healthy activity, I can stop using the app.
If I take this undesired action (for Foursquare), all I lose is a digital ‘Mayorship’, which, unless you are someone who gets really attached to things that don’t exist, is easy to let go. This is a classic failure of Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance — the stakes simply aren’t high enough to keep users engaged.
Creating Endgames is one of the most challenging elements of behavior design in any experience.
Leveling Up in Life: The Core Drives at a Glance
Read through the Octalysis lens, this chapter’s examples touch three Core Drives and one Experience Phase, from the White Hat and Black Hat sides of the octagon to the player’s long-term journey.
| Core Drive or Phase | Position in Octalysis | Where it shows up in Chapter 8 |
|---|---|---|
| Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment | White Hat, Left Brain | Nike+ makes people run harder at an activity they already do. |
| Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness | Right Brain | Foursquare rewards doing new things and making a better effort to be social. |
| Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance | Black Hat | Quitting Foursquare only cost a digital Mayorship, so the stakes were too low to keep users. |
| Experience Phase 4: Endgame | Player journey phase | Once users rediscover that the real activity is fun on its own, the game needs a reason for veterans to stay. |
What Do You Think?
What games are adding value to your life?
Let me know in the comments or on Octalysis Prime‘s community.
Updated 14 October 2026. Added a Speed Run summary, the Octalysis Framework and Black Hat Core Drive diagrams, and a Core Drive table for the chapter.
Related Reading
- Readalong for Reality is Broken: Introduction
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 3 — More Satisfying Work
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 7 — The Benefits of Alternate Realities
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 9 — Fun with Strangers
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- Left vs Right Brain Core Drives: Extrinsic or Intrinsic?
- White Hat vs Black Hat Gamification
- Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
- Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness
- Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance
- The Endgame: Experience Phase 4
- What is Gamification?
- Books by Yu-kai Chou