Podcast 35: Player Empathy and Drivers of Gameplay

In this episode of the podcast, I talk to one veteran game designer Jason Vandenberghe, who has tackled the issue of understanding what kinds of experiences gamers want with the aid of psychology and psychological theories. He aims to avoid false consensus and advocate for what he calls "player empathy." That is, using a framework of personality and motivation psychology to break out of our false consensus and talk about what kinds of gaming experiences that players may want and how to give it to them. 

Jason Vandenberghe's blog

GDC 2012 Talk 

GDC 2013 Talk 

GDC 2016 Talk 

 

Audio Credits

 "Robot Motivation" by The Polish Ambassador, licensed under Creative Commons: CC BY-NC-SA 3.

"Industrious Ferret" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/