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" Marc Prensky, author of Teaching Digital Natives, describes the current educational crisis: “Engage me or enrage me,” today’s students demand. And believe me, they’re enraged. All the students we teach have something in their lives that’s really engaging—something that they do and that they are good at, something that has an engaging, creative component to it.... Video games are the epitome of this kind of total creative engagement. By comparison, school is so boring that kids, used to this other life, can’t stand it. And unlike previous generations of students, who grew up without games, they know what real engagement feels like. They know exactly what they’re missing.6 "
― Jane McGonigal , Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
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" So how should we think of games, if not as escapist entertainment? We should think of them the same way the ancient Lydians did. Let’s turn back one more time to the provocative history that Herodotus told of why the ancient Lydians invented dice games: so that they could band together to survive an eighteen-year famine, by playing dice games on alternate days and eating on the others. There are three key values we share in common with the ancient Lydians when it comes to how and why we play games today. For the starving and suffering Lydians, games were a way to raise real quality of life. This was their primary function: to provide real positive emotions, real positive experiences, and real social connections during a difficult time. This is still the primary function of games for us today. They serve to make our real lives better. And they serve this purpose beautifully, better than any other tool we have. No one is immune to boredom or anxiety, loneliness or depression. Games solve these problems, quickly, cheaply, and dramatically. Life is hard, and games make it better. "
― Jane McGonigal , Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World