Chapter 19. Real World Games

WHEN I FIRST GAVE A TALK on seductive interactions, several people commented that it was the best talk on “game design” they had heard.

Huh? I was genuinely baffled.

Here I was, pulling together all these ideas from psychology, persuasion, neuroscience, and other fields and it came off as a lecture on game mechanics? What’s even more interesting is that I am not a gamer. I do have a Wii and an Xbox at home (the Xbox was a gift), and I’ve got my share of casual games on the iPhone, but I don’t have much time for these pleasures.

So how is it that I gave a talk on game mechanics without knowing it?

Games are first and foremost about fun

What people naturally think of when we talk about games is the fun and joy of playing ...

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