Be A Gamer Save The World Summary

Jane McGonigal’s “Be a Gamer, Save the World,” was first published in the Wall Street Journal in the beginning of 2011. McGonigal’s article is set out to convince her audience that video games inspire people to do great things in the real world. “Players of ‘Guitar Hero’ are more likely to… learn how to play [the guitar]”. Her use of facts, personal studies, and real world examples construct a persuasive argument that games make the best of people. McGonigal begins her article comparing the world’s view of video games as escapist and games’ true capabilities. It is kind of a bland way to introduce her topic, but it opens up discussion on the controversial topic of whether games are good or bad for humans. Her delivery may not do the best job of engulfing the reader in the article, but the topic being debated appeals to a wide audience, so her presentation of the problem enables a large portion of that audience to understand her message. This leads to her presenting the facts about the amount of time people spend on games to further show games’ abilities to “fulfill genuine human needs that the real world fails to satisfy”. Her use of these facts allow the audience to estimate the impact video games have already made on the world and the impact they will make going forward in life. These statistical facts are a great
She talks about companies that started up after playing the game EVOKE, which focuses on “building up players' abilities to design and launch their own social enterprises” helping the world. She is using real world data to prove that video games are meaningful. It is effective in proving her points and walking the walk instead of her just talking a bunch of