Well Read: A Theory of Fun for Game Design

You’ve almost certainly heard about gamification andlearning by now. Maybe you’ve participated in a Webinaror two. Maybe you’ve gone to a session on gamification or played one of the gamesbeing integrated into industry conferences over the past year or two.Maybe you follow one of the blogs that deal often with learning and gamingtopics. Maybe you’ve already incorporated some of what you’ve learned aboutgames into your eLearning – or maybe you’re still sitting on the sidelines,trying to figure out how to do it right.

Game designer wisdom

The learning world seems to be flourishing withgamification resources, some of which aim to help you distill what we likeabout games into something that you can inject into eLearning. You’re probablyhearing a lot of discussion about the potential of games to add engagement,interactivity, fun. As an occasionalgamer who usually runs screaming from “educational” games, I’ve becomeincreasingly interested in hearing about these topics not just from thelearning industry, but from the gaming industry. After all, they are theexperts at making products that are not just compelling, but addictive. My hopehas been to find methods in game design that are applicable when the purpose ofa game is not only to entertain, but to teach.

Koster on games: the intersection of learning and fun

You may imagine my surprise, then, to find thatRalph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for GameDesign is extremely concerned with the intersection of learning and fun; infact, his “theory of fun” even holds that fun and learning are inextricablyintertwined. He builds his case by examining some of the peculiarities of thehuman brain, for example, the release of pleasurable chemicals in the brain atthe “moment of triumph when we learn something or master a task.” For Koster,learning and fun aren’t at odds at all; fun is a natural result of learning ina no-pressure environment. Though he acknowledges that games can be fun in manyways, he writes that the most important way is the fun achieved through learning: “Fun from games arises out ofmastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles thatmakes games fun.“

That’s a perspective that casts a new light on manyof the products and methods being sold or adopted to “gamify” learning. It’sabsent in flashy animations, in leaderboards, and in badges. I think thatKoster would say that those things may have their places and purposes too, butthat they are not the essence of teaching through games.

What do games teach best?

Another insight that I found valuable in this bookis Koster’s assessment of what games are best at teaching. While most of thebuzz around building games for learning tends to center on making learningless painful, Koster makes a solid case for games being effective on adifferent level than typical learning experiences are. Games engage the “secondlevel of the brain” – the part of our thought processes that associates, intuits, and builds approximations of reality – and they allow this part of thebrain to practice, to chew on different permutations until it really groks what the game is communicating. (Grok is a term that Robert Heinleincoined in Stranger in a Strange Land;basically, it means to understand something on a deep level, buy into it,become one with it.)

It’s probably because Koster sees how games speak tothat level of thinking that he suggests that games are very strong atcommunicating generalities, but not specifics. This view got me thinking abouteducational games and why they often seem forced and heavy-handed. Could the reason simply be that the game creators are trying to convey something that is just beyond theability of the medium to convey? Or is it actually possible, but very difficult… andonly infrequently done?

Thinking back to my favorite educational game inchildhood, Oregon Trail (which I didn’t even realize was an “educational” gameat the time), Koster’s assertions seem to hold up. Today, I don’t believe Icould do a very good job of planning food and water for four people for amonth-long trip by covered wagon. But I still know that life in a wagon trainis difficult, that there are constant tradeoffs, and that whether you make itto your destination alive or die of dysentery on the trail may well depend onyour game-hunting skill.

Why read this book?

Even if you’re not interested in creating games, Irecommend this book simply for the applicable lessons in learning. For example:“Not requiring skill from a player should be considered a cardinal sin in gamedesign.” Is it any less so with learning design? How many courses have you seenthat waste time by teaching at too low a level or by simply not focusing onskill acquisition? At the same time, though, Koster warns against makingchallenges too great, or of no relevance to something the audience wouldactually have a reason to learn – again, common pitfalls in learning design.

All in all, if you’re interested in a book onlearning design, you could do a lot worse than simply reading this book,replacing “player” with “learner” throughout, and evaluating how your own ideasand creations stack up against Koster’s theories. A Theory of Fun for Game Design is an excellent, even foundational,read for anyone interested in creating experiences that challenge and engageminds, experiences that inspire learning, experiences that are – in Koster’sdefinition – fun.

Bibliographic information

Koster, Ralph. (2004) A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Phoenix,AZ: Paraglyph Press. 256 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1932111972

Publisher’s List price: $24.99

Amazon: Paperback $15.65, Kindle$9.99

Barnes& Noble: Paperback $15.65