The Psychology of Video Games: The Book Is Coming!

(Image credit : Joebot. Not associated with my book in any way, but click here for many more like it.)

(Image credit : Joebot. Not associated with my book in any way, but awesome and more like it here.)

When I started this blog back in 2009, it was for fun. I had been doing little blogging projects for years and was looking for something new. I only expected to write a few articles about the psychology behind video games before moving on, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. What’s more, the website led to some freelancing work, some consulting work, two job offers (neither of which I was in a position to take, alas), some podcast guest appearances, and lots of great interactions with readers.

Last year while pondering where this was all going I decided that I should write a book, so I researched how that is done in this day and age. There are more options than ever, it turns out, but I decided to first pursue the traditional one involving four broad steps:

  1. Write a detailed nonfiction book proposal
  2. Find a literary agent
  3. Have the agent find me a publisher who wants to buy the rights to publish the book
  4. Oh crap, write the book

I’m super happy to announce that #s 1, 2, and 3 have been checked off as DONE. I wrote a proposal. I shopped that proposal around until I found a literary agent who wanted to represent me.1 She then shopped the proposal around to many publishers who said “Nope” and one who said “Yeah, this is pretty cool. LET’S DO THIS!” And so I recently signed an agreement with Rowman & Littlefield to publish my book on the psychology of video games. Woo!

The book will take a long form look at a variety of topics similar to the ones I’ve written about on this site, but I’ll update everything to include more recent research and generally more research. I’ll also be using the expanded space a book format allows to tell stories, present anecdotes, and provide illustrations to help make my points. The general thrust of the book will be that the field of psychology can help us understand how to get more out of games as players, how to design them better as developers, and how to understand how they’re being marketed and sold to us.

If you want to stay informed about the book, I’m going to be periodically sending out a newsletter about it via e-mail. I’ll probably talk about what chapter I’m working on, the process, what challenges I’m having, how things are going, and eventually when the book will be out and what events I’ll be attending to promote it. I’ll keep it low volume, probably once every month or two. If you want to join me and other readers there, you can use this handy form to sign up:

[wysija_form id=”2″]



So I’m psyched.2 Unfortunately I can’t tell you just yet when the book will be out, since it’s still underway and all those details are being figured out. But I can now say that it WILL happen. And I’ll also say “Thank you” to all of you who have come here, followed me on Twitter or Facebook, left comments, sent me e-mails, said hello to me at conferences, and generally been so cool. You gave my publisher a reason to take a chance on this project.

In addition to signing up for that newsletter, here are some other ways you can help me out with this book thing:

  • Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and RSS. If you don’t already.
  • Share a link with someone. Tweet, share on Facebook, or whatever. If you know of someone who might like this site, let them know about it.
  • Comment on the articles if you have thoughts. Activity is good and looks good.

And keep coming back! I continue to promise new content for you for free on this site. But for now, I’ve got some additional writing to do as well.

Footnotes:

1. Hi Courtney from Greenburger Associates!
2. Ha! Psychology pun.

8 thoughts on “The Psychology of Video Games: The Book Is Coming!

  1. Super excited for this! I often read some of your articles aloud when we have our gaming friends over, and it always leads to great discussions.

  2. Pingback: The Steam Summer Sale Hangout Cast | Game Wisdom

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