The real world just doesn’t offer up as easily the carefully designed pleasures, the thrilling challenges, and the powerful social bonding afforded by virtual environments. Reality doesn’t motivate us as effectively. Reality isn’t engineered to maximize our potential. Reality wasn’t designed from the bottom up to make us happy.

Game developers know that people have more fun when they're in large groups. They feel more fired up when the challenges are more epic.

There is no problem that doesn't have some underlying need for more optimism, stamina, resilience and collaboration. And games are, I believe, the best platform we have for providing that.

When we're in game worlds, I believe that many of us become the best version of ourselves - the most likely to help at a moment's notice, the most likely to stick with a problem as long at it takes, to get up after failure and try again.

Clinically speaking, depression is a pessimistic sense of your own capabilities, and despondent lack of energy.

What's really amazing about games is how they change our emotional response to challenges

A traumatic event doesn't doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.