We’ve always been told that games are a distraction—fun perhaps, but unrelated to success. In , Aaron Dignan shows the opposite is true: games produce peak learning conditions and accelerated achievement. Life really is a game and it turns out better for those who know how to play it. outlines why games are such important trends in culture today, why everything from our iPhones to our Priuses actually prime us to be instinctive players, and how the brain skills learned in gaming can make anyone more competitive at whatever they do. The result is the first prescriptive explanation of what gaming is, how the psychology behind it works, and how the behaviors learned can sharpen our skills in everything from business to parenting. Illuminated throughout with a series of real world examples, Dignan delivers a crash course in game design and behavioral psychology that will excite readers of every generation.