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Every time I hear someone talk about this skill set, I think of the Matrix. There is a scene where one guy is looking at what looks like gibberish….but he can read it.

When I do interviews, I usually rank ‘The Matrix Questions’ a little lower. My preferred questions?

1. When was the last time you asked for help? Who did you ask and why?
2. When was the last time you disagreed with management? What did you do about it and why?

I treat those questions like a game of poker. The speed and conviction you answer them with is extremely telling.

Tom said on July 9th, 2008 at 11:06 pm:
How? How do you master both of these skills? How do you even go about training yourself in them?

There are some things you can do.
For #1 – You must play a lot of games. However many you think ‘a lot’ is, play more than that. You study how other people play games, especially people that don’t play like you or all the hardcore gamers that you work with.

You can play games that aren’t video games – kids games, board games, “New Games” and “Junkyard Sports” , games played with the imagination and with string and sticks..and study the roots and history of games and people’s relationship with play.

And then when you have experienced lots and lots of different game systems your brain will help you make connections and shortcuts to new and elegant ways of communicating with and challenging the player. Mechanics will pop into your head like songs do now when you hear a matching phrase.

And when you have a base of experience to work from – that you really understand because you’ve tried those systems out – then you can start to make new rules and new mechanics and explore new ways to communicate with the player.

#2
I find my experience with improv theater (Renassance festival volunteer, musician, and character) is something I go back to again and again to understand (and explain) dynamic story and interacting with an audience.

You should personally understand the role of the audience in storytelling or theater or juggling or any entertainment medium…learn to read them, see when they are engaged and what excites them.

Experience Awe – maybe that is Burning Man, or Mardi Gras, or walking through the great redwoods or the cathedrals of Europe. Then once you have that emotional yardstick – once you’ve stretched your imagination enough – you can try to put that in your games. To take someone on that journey with you.

When you can think about the journey you want the player to experience, and you can see the whole thing from start to finish, and how every detail meshes together it is a very powerful thing. What do they feel, what do they think, what do they have time to do think? How does the journey change you? And how will it become an individual journey for someone else. What will they learn, what will they take away, what will they bring?

Watch people play your game in focus groups, or you just sit there quietly where you can’t guide them, where you see them trying to have that amazing experience but frustrated with controls, and confusing interfaces, and that thing that the Publisher thought was a good idea…and it changes you. So you start to see not just the experience you want to make but the pitfalls that get put in there by mistake – not with bad intent – just that nobody has the eyes for someone new to the experience after awhile.

You have to love the player that you will never meet, and remember their needs. You want to give them this gift, this unique experience they cannot get from any other medium, something unique and special and personal.

That is what kees us going at night, that dream.

-Mark

On the other hand, a great atmosphere can make up for poor service. The rooftop bar, Moonstone Lounge, at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego is a good example.

Only to a degree I’d assume though, yes? And the reverse is also true, where great service can make up for an inferior product, up to a point.

I think you can look at this all as sort of zero sum (kinda) system, where the positive and negative qualities have to come out to zero for the product to be tolerable. A negative value results in people staying away, while a positive, of course, attracts. And the individual “components” may be weighted to varying degrees depending on the product and the market. Atmosphere means more to a hotel than it does to an auto-mechanic shop, but good service is vastly more important for the mechanic.

A tasty desert will not make up for poor service.

On the other hand, a great atmosphere can make up for poor service. The rooftop bar, Moonstone Lounge, at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego is a good example.

A resturant owner needs to be able to review the quality of the food he is selling as well as the quality of the presentation of that food. A nice ice sculpture will not help make up for sour milk in the creamers; A tasty desert will not make up for poor service. This also brought to our mind the third idea of “value”: Trying to bring good food and good atmosphere at a good price.

@Bartle, I’d say that everybody has the potential for those skills, but it’s like music or writing. They have to be trained. Fortunately it seems to be pretty easy to pick up on, especially among people who play a lot of games.

There’s a single copy up on ebay right now, and it’s still rather low at the moment, but it’s got 6 days left on it so that might change. I seriously suggest you watch and buy it if it stays under 30 or so dollars. If you’re that interested in picking up a copy anyway. Unless Raph finally manages to get it back into print it may prove rather hard to find another copy of for anything remotely like a reasonable price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/A-Theory-of-Fun-college-text-book-by-Raph-Koster_W0QQitemZ200238245667QQihZ010QQcategoryZ2228QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

although i have dr. rigby’s idea on why video games attract players and have found that an interesting read; Rethinking Carrots