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Why do people play video games, and what keeps them playing? Do we want to have to think through innovative puzzles or just lose ourselves in mindless reactivity? Mark, Erica, and Brian are joined by Dr. Jamie Madigan, an organizational psychologist who runs the Psychology of Video Games podcast, to discuss what sort of a thing this is to research, the evolution of games, player types, motivation vs. engagement, incentives and feedback, as well as the gamification of work or school environments. Some games we touch on include Donkey Kong, Dark Souls, It Takes Two, Returnal, Hades, Subnautica, Fortnite, and Age of Z.
Some of the episodes of Jamie’s podcast relevant for our discussion are:
- Ep. 3 on psychological flow in games
- Ep. 6 on using psychology to craft user experiences
- Ep. 9 on how games differ from other media
Check out his books and articles too. Here are a couple of additional sources about engagement:
- “The Player Engagement Process– An Exploration of Continuation Desire in Digital Games” by Henrik Schoenau-Fog
- “Understanding Video Gaming’s Engagement” by Eric Gregory
The site Erica mentions about disabled modes in gaming is caniplaythat.com.
This episode includes bonus discussion you can access by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.
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The next one should be about Adult Amateur Sports. Kickball, Pub. Trivia, Soccer Leagues, Roller Derby Leagues. Why do some adults love sports so much that they never stop playing until they get old? I’m not one of those people. I’ve stopped running etc. and gained weight…I stopped in middle school. Bring in an Amateur Athlete in an adult league to talk about why they do it.