Steam, the digital game distribution platform owned by Valve, often has these weird bundles for sale where they cram together, for example, every id Software or every Rockstar game or every game featuring squirrels into one package. One message board I frequent has a mega thread dedicated to gaming bargains, and doing a search for…
Last Thursday I did a talk at 2010 Login Conference in super nifty downtown Seattle. The title of the talk was “The Psychology of Games: Why We Do What We Do When Playing With Friends (And Screw That Other Guy).” I was pretty proud of myself for getting a talk accepted when it included a…
You may have heard about a little outfit called “Irrational Games” whose members can claim varying degrees of responsibility for scary and suspenseful titles like System Shock, Bioshock, and the Thief games. They do a semi-regular podcast about their games called “Irrational Behavior” that is a bit like a cross between “This American Life” and…
A while back I wrote an article about the Attraction-Selection-Attrition model that I thought could explain why gamers choose what guild, clan, or message board community that they do. You can read the article for the details, but the gist of it is that people… Are attracted to organizations that share their values Are selected…
Note: This article originally appeared in my column for Gamasutra. Okay folks, I’m going to nerd out a bit but bear with me. There was this show that my wife used to like watching called Star Trek: The Next Generation. In one episode Captain Picard is being held captive by the Evil Alien of the…