Motivation from Jane McGonigal, Part III

Continuing on my trek through Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, I spent some time reading the chapter entitled, "Fun Failure and Better Odds of Success."  McGonigal begins by putting it out there that "no one likes to fail"--myself included.  Call me crazy, but I've started equating feeling out of control in my life to a form of failure (more on how I'm recovering from that in my previous post).  Gamers, however, spend nearly 80 percent of their time "failing" within the context of their playing, yet still come back for more of the same.  And according to McGonigal, they actually enjoy their failure.

Now, I'm not a gamer, so I have a REALLY difficult time understanding why anyone would enjoy failure.  But McGonigal suggests that this concept of "fun failure" is fundamental in the history of video game research.  In fact, it supports the idea that well-designed video games help gamers develop a unique mental toughness.  According to McGonigal, it's as simple as showing gamers their personal power in a game and giving them something that exhibits a little emotion.  When failure is interesting, she says, gamers keep trying and remain hopeful for success.

McGonigal champions this "hope for success" as a fix for our broken reality.  By preserving the opportunity for success, the fun will last forever!  If this is really the case, maybe I need to start playing games...hmmm...

Here are some insightful TED Talks on the subject of failure.  Sidenote- I've noticed I have a new obsession with TED Talks...

Kathryn Schultz, "On Being Wrong"

Eddie Obeng "Smart Failure for a Fast-Changing World"