About
Welcome to the psychologyofgames.com, which is a website that examines the intersection of psychology and video games. I aim to use the science of psychology (queue thunderclap) to answer three broad classes of questions:
- Why do gamers do what they do?
- Why do those designing games do what they do?
- Why do those marketing and selling games do what they do?
Why do people get so excited about loot drops in games like World of Warcraft? Why do developers keep dumping good money after bad on a doomed project? Why do gamers stay up late playing just one more level, despite the fact that they know they have to get up for school or work in the morning?
Hey, these are questions about humans and squishy human brains. Psychologists have studied this stuff and we can answer these questions! In the process maybe you’ll learn something, be entertained, and be better equipped to realize when you’re being systematically manipulated. To get you started, here’s a list of the 10 most popular articles on the site.
If you’re interested in syndicating any of this content or hiring me to write similar articles, please don’t hesitate to contact me. If you’ve taken any of these ideas and implemented them in games or community tools, I’d love to hear about that, too! And I’m fluent in the language of academic research, too, so if you’re studying this kind of thing and have something interesting going on or being published, let me know about it.
About the author
Jamie Madigan has a Ph.D. in psychology (with an emphasis in Industrial-Organizational Psychology) and works as a Personnel Psychologist for the United States Federal government. He has been published in refereed scientific journals (way before it was cool to do so) and presented at conventions for psychologists. He has written on the topic of the psychology of games for Edge Magazine, Gamasutra.com, and GamePro magazine. He also co-authors a column in The Industrial Psychologist, the quarterly magazine for the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychologists. He has the strength of ten very tiny men, each of which has 1/10 the strength of one normal man.
On the gaming side, Jamie is a life-long gamer who worked for several years in the biz with a company called GameSpy Industries where he built web-based services and products related to video games. He has also written dozens (hundreds?) of game reviews, previews, and related articles, as well three books on the subject. Well, they were strategy guides, but still books. Finally, Jamie has covered trade shows and conventions like E3, Game Developer’s Conference, Quakecon, and others as a member of the press. His feet still hurt.
Also, he plays games a lot and follows the gaming scene like some people follow baseball.
