PDF Summary:A Theory of Fun for Game Design, by Raph Koster

Humans play a wide variety of games, from basketball and chess to video games and poker. Why are we so enthralled with these games, even when they don’t seem to have an impact on our lives outside the game? Perhaps it’s because they actually do.

In A Theory of Fun for Game Design, veteran game designer Raph Koster suggests that games scratch an evolutionary itch in our brain: We get pleasure from learning new mental models in a low-stakes environment where it’s safe to play with ideas, roles, and possibilities. Koster discusses why games are fun, what games teach their players, and how to make a meaningful game.

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Somewhere in adulthood, society starts to stigmatize games as frivolous. Nevertheless, we continue learning from abstract models of reality—we practice speeches in front of mirrors, or we run fire drills to prepare for a real fire. We simply stop calling these abstract practice sessions “games.”

What Do Games Teach?

So games are fun because they teach patterns. But what are these patterns? Koster offers several you’ll probably recognize:

• Calculation of odds and prediction of events, as in any game involving chance or probability, such as rolling dice or drawing random cards
• Social power and status, such as when children playing “house” jockey for social status
• Spatial relationships, as with games like football in which you have to understand how the environment reacts to change
• Memory, especially in games that require you to recall and manage complex chains of information, as when counting cards in blackjack
• Visceral responses, such as the reflexes you learn in video games to aim, shoot, and move in response to what’s on screen
• Teamwork, most easily seen in team sports events, but which you also learn in many multiplayer online games

These patterns have been universally helpful in our evolutionary history. Consider how useful teamwork, memory, and social status were when humans were cavemen. But many skills we learn today are no longer immediately relevant to our survival, such as archery or long-distance running. Koster argues that we can design contemporary games to teach skills we need for modern life, some of which might be counterintuitive and possibly against our nature. For example:

• Empathizing with people not in your in-group
• Questioning obedience to leaders
• Resolving problems without the use of force
• Understanding complex relationships
• Finding alternative ways to reach a goal

Games for some of these examples do exist, but they’re niche. Why are they less popular than the ones that teach obsolete skills? Perhaps because games that don’t challenge us to reevaluate our basic assumptions allow us to let those assumptions stay unconscious. (To do otherwise can be uncomfortable for many people.) However, those assumptions are largely based on the lives we led as cavemen, and Koster argues that games provide an avenue for rewiring the brain for the needs of the modern world.

The Basics of Game Design

To create the kind of games Koster describes, it’s necessary to understand what makes games work in general. Koster explains that games are composed of building blocks (called “ludemes”) that work together to create the game experience. Examples of these building blocks include:

• The core mechanic: The intrinsically interesting puzzle to solve or rule set to follow, such as moving pieces in chess or buying property in Monopoly
• Preparation: A way for the player to make choices in the game that affects their odds of success
• Sense of space: The landscape of relationships between objects or players
• A range of challenges: This describes the game’s content rather than its abstract rules—such as levels that progressively get more difficult
• A range of abilities: Skills the player unlocks or learns over time, so that as they progress, they have more to choose from
• Variable feedback: An element of unpredictability, as well as greater rewards for better players
• A cost to failure: This would include features like opportunity costs, a forced redo of a level, or having to start the game over again

Another aspect of design Koster highlights is that games can be used to model human behavior in terms of competitive, collaborative, or solo activities, as well as on a spectrum ranging from “creative” to “deconstructive.” In this way, a game can act as a metaphor for broader human interactions, like so:

	Collaborative	Competitive	Solo
Constructive	Community	Career	Hobby
Experiential	Performance	Sport	Audience
Deconstructive	Teaching	Criticism	Analysis

For example, playing a hand of Solitaire might be considered a “Solo Constructive” game, whereas a group of Dungeons & Dragons players creating an epic saga are arguably playing a “Collaborative Experiential” game. Some categories are easier to create games around than others, but all offer ways to link gaming to the human experience. According to Koster, the perfect game would provide never-ending challenges, require a wide range of skills, and have a difficulty curve that adjusts to your skill level. In other words, a simulation of life.

Different Games Are Fun for Different People

Koster points out that people will gravitate toward puzzles they can solve given their different natural strengths. This is why some people prefer sports over Scrabble. People with strengths in particular cognitive abilities, such as spatial intelligence or an ear for music, tend to enjoy games that cater to that strength. People may also play games that match their personalities—for example, social people tend to play games that let them interact with others, as opposed to games you might play on your own. Research has shown differences in game preference by gender, but only in terms of population averages, not individuals.

Given all this variation between people’s preferences, Koster says it’s impossible for any single game to appeal to everyone. The difficulty ramp will be wrong for many people, and what the game teaches may not match everyone’s preferences.

Are Games Art?

If games can be meticulously designed to appeal to a target audience, like movies, music, and popular books, does this mean that game design is an art form in itself? This question is often pondered by gamers and critics, hoping to “legitimize” gaming as more than merely disposable entertainment or a waste of anyone’s time. In doing so, many people have tried to justify games as art based on their degree of interactivity, how fun they are, or the complexity of their rules.

Koster rejects these arguments as being beside the point. Instead, he makes the case that simple entertainment provides comforting, simplistic information, whereas art provides challenging information that you have to think about to absorb. For Koster, games fulfill this criterion. They may do so in different ways than novels, plays, or symphonies, but as we’ve already discussed, games can hold a mirror up to life while making players look at the world in new ways—the very definition of art, arrived at by what might be the most fun way to get there.