I am back from GDC. And I bear with me THE CRUD. THE CRUD has also infected multiple members of
my family. THE CRUD is to be feared. I heartily recommend running in the opposite direction should
it seek to make your acquaintance.

Because of THE CRUD I have had to turn down a lovely opportunity to speak at ETECH this year on
serious games, A Theory of Fun, and whatever else might have fit into the 45 minutes. This
sort of sucks, as ever year I see ETECH happen in San Diego and I never get to go.

I have many many stories from GDC. Alas, THE CRUD prevents me from actually relating any of them. The
talks related to the book seemed to go well, though I think there are significantly more mixed reactions
to A Grammar of Gameplay than there were to the keynote for Serious Games, which was basically the familiar old AToF presentation again.

Nonetheless, there was a lot of coverage. Witness:

Theory of Fun keynote:

• Alice’s mad transcription that led to most of the coverage below.
• Josh Rubin’s detailed summary
• A summary of the Serious Games Summit
• I like the comment: “If you’re a gamer human, then there’s a transcript… I emplore you to read it.”
• I got Scobleized!!
• The Game Blog says “an excellent read”
• Someone on LiveJournal says “long, but fascinating read”
• “Keynote of the week” says Ryan
• Salon blogged it…
• The Hobbit Hole takes notice
• Ludonauts MISSED IT. Again.
• TerraNova (in the person of Cory) quibbles
• A lengthy summary from GameDev.Net
• Game News Blog says “sing it, brotha”
• Joystiq claims the speech is “like a shot of caffeine.” There is, however, a really bizarre discussion following.
• This blog somehow relates the talk to Sabrina. The movie. And not even the Audrey Hepburn one.
• Kotaku says “Go read it and then impress your friends with how brainy you are about video games.”
• BoingBoinged…
• Grown Up Gamer says “If I die tommorow and can’t post any more things in this blog, at least I will have linked to this keynote address.” I love you too. 🙂
• And another blog…
• Alice’s mad transcription
• The Listless Lawyer says “Pac-man gets horribly abused in the middle of the speech, but Koster makes some interesting points anyway”
• Blistered Avalon claims “It’s absolutely brilliant”
• Gamasutra’s Postcard summary
• Peter Butler over at download.com
• Idle Thumbs (scroll down a bit)

• A podcast about the session
• Dave Rickey’s take

Instanced vs Persistent panel:

• Zen of Design, aka Damion Schubert, discussing the panel
• Richard Bartle starts us off over at TerraNova

Grammar of Gameplay:

• Psychochild says “best non-keynote talk I saw”
• TerraNova’s discussion
• Dave Rickey’s debate with them
• Frans Mayra’s summary
• Laundry Sessions’ take

Enough for now, this pesky fever won’t let me stare at a screen for very long…

Oh, before I forget: I did a signing at the bookstore, and we sold out there. 🙂 And I am supposed to speak at SUPERNOVA (but I need to dig up the link). And I have posted the slides for A Grammar of Gameplay.

Lots of discussion of fun over at Terra Nova–some of it references the book.

And I don’t know how I missed it before, but here’s a review in Italian. “il tutto condito dagli stilisticamente poco convincenti ma molto divertenti fumetti” indeed! I’ll have you know that the cartoon’s style was intended that way! Surely the Pascal, Shakespeare, and countryside pics show that it was a conscious choice? 🙂

In fact, a bit of trivia for you: the scene of the farmhouse and cows is a portrait of a spot in Rueschlikon, Switzerland (outside of Zurich).

More reviews have popped up. Slashdot posted theirs, accompanied by the usual Slashdot comment thread full of vituperation. 🙂

With the endless rehashing of game and design concepts currently in circulation and parent groups growing ever more shrill at the release of morally ambiguous titles, Raph Koster’s book is a refreshing read. The book is an unpretentious examination of what it is that makes a game a game. He steps beyond the dehumanizing aspects of game mechanics to look at games and their designers in a broader societal context. If for no other reason that that, Theory of Fun is worth a look to read the opinion of someone who gives a damn.

The Slashdot review resulted in a big spike in sales on Amazon.com, and the book landed at #2 in the Game Development charts. Unexpected and pleasing, of course.

Another interesting take, which raps me for overemphasizing cognitive science, is the one by
Steven Shaviro:

I feel I learned a lot from Theory of Fun in Game Design; Koster provoked me to think a lot more than most academic books tend to do. (I hope that doesn’t seem like too backhanded a compliment). It’s only against this background of general enthusiastic approval that I will note what seems to me to be the book’s major limitation. That is its overall assumptions based on cognitive psychology…

Lastly, a brief five-star review from the Midwest Book Review.

I spent Monday up at USC, invited there by Amy Jo Kim, who with Tracy Fullerton is teaching a class there on multiplayer game design. It was refreshing to be in front of students again–it’s been a long time–and I very much enjoyed it. I can easily see myself going back to teaching again someday, if I can just get out of having to grade papers…