416 american journal of PLAY • winter 2011

worlds, writing stories, creating compel- one hundred lenses for overcoming design ling characters, choosing a visual aesthetic, obstacles, and thirty steps to producing a types of puzzles, issues of balance, and even game—mashed together into an awkward, developing play communities. He details single work. motivational considerations of players with The Art of Game Design is a compe- examples like Marc LeBlanc’s taxonomy of tent introductory textbook that, thanks to game pleasures, “interest curves,” and the its conversational tone, offers a more invit- collusion of the game system and the player ing read than competing books like Katie working together to enact the experience. Salen and Eric Zimmerman’s Rules of Play: The book addresses organizational deci- Game Design Fundamentals. But whereas sions like the use of the spiral model of soft- the latter better conforms to the units and ware development, rapid prototyping, and topics of a college syllabus, Schell’s work play testing. It even explains how to create demands to be read cover to cover—not a pitch to sell the game to a client—be it because it compels readers to take in every employer or college professor. word of every page, but because they would Yet, in covering such wide ground, be lost if they attempted to skip around. Schell tackles some of the more difficult Schell’s book contains sound advice about and contentious issues of game develop- sources of inspiration, characters and sto- ment less adeptly. His discussion of the play ries, world building, balance and pacing, desires of boys and girls offers an obvious player feedback, and the trajectory of the example. Schell’s back-of-the-napkin sug- game as an experience, but it offers little gestions about the play interests of males practical advice on choosing appropriate and females might be a handy reference in mechanics and building functioning game a general design textbook, but the issues systems from the ground up. Though easy are far more complicated than the text lets to read and full of constructive advice, its on and will probably put off the audience convoluted organization prevents it from of video game studies scholars likely to being a definitive contribution to canon pick up the book. The Art of Game Design of game design. is a guide to producing games with wide appeal, so do not expect to find any par- —Bobby Schweizer, Georgia Institute of ticularly challenging concepts hidden in Technology, Atlanta, GA its pages. Schell incorporates his own experi- ences as a game designer, sympathizing with newcomers who will face the reali- Fun Inc.: Why Games Are the ties of making concessions while design- 21st Century’s Most Serious ing within constraints. His conversational Business tone and anecdotes strengthen the prose, Tom Chatfield but they sometimes feel out of place in London: Virgin Books, 2010. 288 pp. the pages of a textbook. The Art of Game $27.95 cloth. ISBN: 9730753519852 Design often reads like three different books—a series of professional anecdotes, Despite the impression Tom Chatfield’s title

AJP_TXT Corrected4-3.3.indd 150 5/19/11 12:18:40 AM Book Reviews 417

might give, Fun, Inc. is not first and fore- million monthly players when Segerstrale most a business book. Instead, it is a wide interviewed for the book in mid-2009, and and shallow look at the full spectrum of the numbers have grown since. Particularly things in contemporary society that involve helpful to readers in the game industry play. It touches on play in general and the are his observations about how his com- history and business of video games, both pany—and others in the mobile game mar- stand alone and networked, as well as their ket—have adapted a more agile, flexible impact on education, psychology, and approach than the traditional, large, block- more. Chatfield interviews a wide variety buster, Christmas-season approach. “You of experts in the field, some of whom have don’t have a separate publisher or a crazy become well known, some less so. crunch at the end to deliver a huge project The first three chapters cover the on a set date,” he explains. “What you want basics: an introduction to play, games, to do is get something out and get a sense and fun; a quick history of games; and an of how big it might be. If it’s a dog, you kill overview of the reach and economic power it as soon as possible. If it turns out to be a of the gaming industry. The information massive success, you add more.” in these first three chapters will be familiar Throughout the book, Chatfield fol- to anyone with a passing knowledge of the lows a solid journalistic practice of laying topics, but the people Chatfield chooses the groundwork for the topic in a chap- to interview, notably in the ter then selecting voices from the field first chapter and Kristian Segerstrale in the to flesh out his initial explanations and third, do offer valuable insights. descriptions. So, in “A Beautiful Science,” Koster is well known inside the video Chatfield examines motivation in games, game industry as one of its more thought- interviewing Alexy Pajitnov, creator of ful designers, having been a lead designer the OCD-inducing Tetris to discuss “non- on Online, Everquest, and Star Wars deterministic polynomial hard” problems, Galaxies. He is a great speaker who draws of which his game is a great example. He standing-room only audiences. His A also invokes Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Theory of Fun for Game Design became a concept of flow, talks to hot commodity when it briefly went out (father of the multiuser dungeon game, of print, selling for up to one hundred the grandfather of today’s World of War- dollars a copy on eBay. His insights into craft, and other massively multiplayer- play, neurology, video games, and fun are online games) about Joseph Campbell’s enlightening and entertaining, though he concept of the hero’s journey, and inter- considers fun a weak word. “There isn’t views Nicole Lazzaro, XEODesign CEO even a consensus across the European and expert on player experience, about languages as to what to exactly call this the role of emotion in games. The book vague, general feeling that is in English similarly mixes insight and interview to called fun,” says Koster. explore topics such as the rise of virtual Kristian Segerstrale, while less known, worlds like Second Life, the perceived dan- heads a successful mobile game company, gers of video games such as violence and Playfish. The company’s games had thirty addiction, and the new ways a game like

AJP_TXT Corrected4-3.3.indd 151 5/19/11 12:18:40 AM 418 american journal of PLAY • winter 2011

Guitar Hero enables us to interact with Playing video games, we can live out our traditional media. whitest or our blackest fantasies. Playing Like any technology, video games can them, we can even meet our soul mates. be a good or bad. We use them to spend Fun, Inc. does a solid job of intro- leisure time killing mythical monsters in ducing the outsider to the wide spectrum Koster’s Everquest II, create empathy and of topics and issues pertaining to video understanding for others in the games like games. For the novice and outsider seek- those promoted by Suzanne Seggerman’s ing a map of the territory, this book is a organization Games 4 Change, or make a good place to start. legitimate living from them with, say, Sec- ond Life. Or we can, say, illegitimately sell —Steve Jacobs, Rochester Institute of Tech- off in-game assets like castles and char- nology, Rochester, NY acters via black-market auction houses.

AJP_TXT Corrected4-3.3.indd 152 5/19/11 12:18:40 AM