Reality is Complicated, not Broken
I think her approach to the question: “Do games have value?” is problematic and I’m not sure if “flow” and emotional response is the best way to make that argument. Many of her points: that video games create community, and foster creative world development, participation, and give value to everyday actions, and give people the illusion of productivity she takes too literally for it to interesting. Does playing solitaire make you productive? Moreover, Lisa Nakamura writes about race in World of Warcraft (among other things), and rather than concluding that WoW is some sort of collaborative paradise (to be fair, McGonigall mentions this), Nakamura points out that the anonymity and disconnection between avatar and user results in an environment of increased hostility and racism. Nakamura’s arguments temper the overly positive view McGonigall has of MMORPGs.
Ian Bogost makes an argument that video games are valuable because they can present a narrative that does not simplify contradictions or provide easy solutions. At a time where the world is ever-more-complicated, and there is no easy solution to any problem, the most accurate (if that’s the term) depiction of reality is through video games. The idea that the world is ridiculously complex is the basis of Sarewitz’s book The Techno-Human Condition. He argues that there are three levels of problems: the precise, the general, and the global. So, solving one level of a problem may create other problems on higher levels, particularly on the global level. An example he gave was the train. On the first, basic level, the train solved the problem of quick transportation. On the next level, the train resulted in different forms of industry and communities based upon the quicker transportation. On the third level, it resulted in the standardization of clocks, industrialization, and different conceptions of space and time. On the global level, the results cannot be predicted with any accuracy (and rarely, if ever, are). So, when repercussions cannot be predicted, and always create different problems, the system of relations must be considered, rather than the problem-solution, cause-and-effect structure. Video games, in particular simulations, can better represent that system. Moreover, video games can depict conflicting conclusions and the lack of one, good solution to any problem. So, due to their ability to contain complexity, video games teach players not some easy moral or something as simple as “community” or “collaboration” exactly, but rather a way of seeing the world in terms of conflicting relations without a solution.
The Techno-Human Condition also argues that we need to start seeing things in longer time frames, generations rather than decades or presidential terms. Problems such as global warming, income inequity, mass media, or racial tension will not be solved easily, quickly, and often immeasurably. So, short term successes will rarely be translatable to long term successes, just as level-one solutions can rarely be up-sized to level two or level three solutions. The long-term scheme of many video games that Jane McGonigall touts provide a better model for the sort of thinking that needs to exist to solve real world problems.
Seeing things in terms of rules and structures, rather than narratives and causal links is important. And, I also agree that Augmented Reality games have uses. But playing games because they give you the happiness reality lacks does not “prime your brain” for action.