Everything Is a Game; We Just Don’t See It That Way
And how we can
There is a famous definition of games by Jane McGonigal. She says that:
“When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.”
— Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
When I read this definition for the first time, I realized that everything is a game. We just don’t see it that way. Any project, any task, anything we do or are up to is this way.
There is a goal defining what we want to achieve. We set rules for ourselves, or we get them set for us. For example, in a project, how to carry it out and what tools to use or not for it. The same is for a task or an assignment at school. And there are one or more feedback systems. We get feedback: how well — according to the rules — we are doing in any given project or activity. Even a phrase saying, “the game finishes when you reach this goal,” is a feedback system of its own. It can be that simple.
