A Theory of Fun for Game Design, by Raph Koster. Book Website. Read the 1st edition online from our library.
Reality is Broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world, by Jane McGonigal. A PDF for the Introduction and Chapter 7. The Wikipedia page for Jane McGonigal (use it to access reviews of her book). The personal website of Jane McGonigal, which has among other her TED talks. We will watch her first TED talk: Gaming can make a better world.
What if we decided to use everything we know about game design to fix what's wrong with reality? What if we started to live our real lives like games, lead our real businesses and communities like game designers, and think about solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists?
One of the games analyzed in McGonigal's book is "Investigate your MP's expenses", written by Guardian UK website. Here is an article about the "game".
Wiki page on Alternate Reality Games (ARGs).
Wiki page on Games for Change.
The Depression Map: genes, culture, serotonin, and a side of pathogens - by David Dobbs. Published in Wired (2010).
Games that teach empathy, published in Graphite.org (2014).