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I completely understand your hesitiations with the free rice website-and generally agree with you. If we want to solve world problems like world hunger why don't we just go out and physically do things to end it? I also wonder, though, if free rice can earn money from people testing their vocabulary knowledge by the advertisements they have on their webpage. This would be interesting to look into.

But going away from the free rice game, I think it is really limiting to think of games only as video games or things like kickball. I think the definition of games can be expanded to a place that could help create better and more efficient games that could really make a difference in the world and specifically in the world of education. if you really think about it almost everything is a game from cooking dinner to completeing homework. For the example of cooking, you have a specific goal of preparing a dish. In order to prepare the dish, you must follow a list of instructions and complete small tasks to eventually produce the final dish. Then after you are done you have the reward of eating the dish and interacting with others who are enjoying the same reward. Like a game, cooking has specific insturctions with small task leading to the eventual goal, a reward at the completion of the task, and the possibility to create a community surrounded by the task. This break down can also be applied to homework that has specific instructions, small tasks leading to the ultimate goal, and an eventual reward of a grade which could be thought of as points.