I have always enjoyed playing video games since I was a child. I consider my generation as the first generation to always have video games. I first started playing video games when I was 3 years old. I played Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo. I was really good at this game at a young age. I was that generation that upgraded video games systems every few years when "something new" came out. My friends and I would spend hours playing Zelda and trying to figure out the right paths to beat the game. I didn't realize we were actually learning, working together as a team and problem solving all in one. My mom would always get mad and tell us to go play outside and she would say that we were "wasting time." This is why I chose to read the book Reality is Broken Why Games Make Us Better and How they Can Change the World. This book gave me validity on what I was doing as a child. "In the United States there are 183 million active gamers."(4). Video games have become the norm for all ages now a days instead of just for children. My 80 year old grandma plays candy crush on her Iphone. This is the world we live in. Videos games are not going away. It is only going to get bigger and bigger. Jane Mcgonigal is a video game programmer that uses games to bring people together to solve problems. She believes that gamers are excellent at problem solving and working together as a team. She also mentions that we have not even scratched the surface on video game innovation and the future is going to be filled with even more gamers. I am very excited for the future that video games will bring to our culture.
Mcgonigal, Jane. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Group, 2011.
Mcgonigal, Jane. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Group, 2011.