Amy Jo Kim - Game Thinking: Innovate smarter & drive deep engagement with design techniques from hit games

Publishing Information

Copyright 2018 gamethinking.io

All Rights Reserved

All product names, logos, and brands in this book are property of their respective owners.

Published by gamethinking.io,

315 Concord Way,

Burlingame CA 94010

ISBN

Paperback: 978-0-9997885-4-7

PDF: 978-0-9997885-3-0

EPUB: 978-0-9997885-1-6

MOBI: 978-0-9997885-2-3

Second Edition

Production Credits

Illustrated by Scott Kim, with additional illustrations by Naida Jazmn Ochoa , Manny Aguiler.

Editing and layout by Misha Gericke.

Indexing by Jan Wright.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Ive been blessed with a wide circle of wonderful people whove helped bring these ideas to life.

My father, Wesley Bilson, is a serial entrepreneur who created new businesses in healthcare and renewable energy. My mother, Barbara Bilson-Woodruff, is a gifted and passionate educator who influenced a generation of students with her immersive, experiential Shakespeare classes. Im proud to carry on this tradition of innovation in my Game Thinking work, where we combine coaching, education, and an entrepreneurs approach to product development.

Much of the credit for this book goes to my husband and partner in crime, Scott Kim, who created the visual design and illustrations, and shepherded the publishing process. This book would not be in your hands without Scotts brilliance and hard work.

Many thanks to our production team. Misha Gericke edited and laid out the book. Jan Wright did the indexing. Naida Jazmn Ochoa drew the charming cartoons of people scattered throughout the book. Manny Aguiler drew the 3d diagrams of the MVP canvas and social action matrix.

A special shout-out goes to Raph Koster, my long-time collaborator and friend, who wrote the beautiful preface. Raph has many creative gifts, but his first love was writing and it shows.

Im deeply grateful to the colleagues, clients, and students whove helped me shape these far-ranging ideas into a tight, road-tested design framework. Thank you Ashita Achuthan, Paul Adams, Robin Allenson, Cindy Alvarez, Jeff Atwood, Irene Au, Cindy Au, Luc Bartholet, Jim Banister, Tomer Ben-Kiki, Buster Benson, Candis Best, Sair Buckle, Tim Chang, Jaxton Cheah, Dan Cook, Dennis Crowley, Nadya Direkova, Josh Elman, Blair Ethington, Laura Foley, Janice Fraser, Tracy Fullerton, Richard Garriott, Curtis Gilbert, Jeff Gothelf, Tom Gooden, Erika Hall, Steve Hoffman, Erin Hoffman-John, Chelsea Howe, Jason Hreha, Charles Hudson, Samuel Hulick, Tom Illmensee, Katherine Isbister, Mimi Ito, Naresh Jain, Vinayak Joglekar, Karl Kapp, Kevin Kelly, Donna Kelley, Laura Klein, Ranan Lachman, Felipe Lara, Matt Leacock, Ofer Leidner, Jeremy Liew, Kenneth Lim, Starr Long, Greg LoPiccolo, Megan Mahdavi, Wanda Meloni, Cara Meverden, David Mullich, David Murray, Dan Olsen, Myrian Pauillac, Jeff Patton, Steve Portigal, Sandie Richards, Eric Ries, Tracy Rosenthal-Newsom, Alex Rigopulos, Lisa Rutherford, Jesse Schell, Mike Sellers, Hiten Shah, Sarah Shewey, Michael Spiegelman, Jared Spool, Tony Stubblebine, Jeff Tseng, Steve Vassallo, Margaret Wallace. Casey Winters, Christina Wodtke, Will Wright, Robin Yang, and Eric Zimmerman. We couldnt have done it without you.

Foreword by Raph Koster

Foreword

by Raph Koster

Game designer, author of A Theory of Fun

Making stuff is hard.

We all know it. First, you arent sure what to make, then you start making it and youre convinced its right, then its all wrongand you go back and forth right up until the terrifying moment when you put it in front of someone else. And they hate it, or love it. Or worse, they are indifferent, that painful middle ground where you dont elicit any strong emotions at all. Thats the moment when you sit back and wonder to yourself, what could I have done differently?

Amy Jo Kim has an answer for that, and its this book. Its nothing less than what you could have done differently , laid out in concise, clear language, with diagrams, case studies, and processes.

I come from the world of games, and Amy Jo labels this approach game thinking. (I could only wish that all of our projects used a process like what she describes here!) She calls it that because it is inspired by the way in which we game designers think of our players and their journeys: as a process of learning, guided by feedback, of hobby- and habit-building. A process of getting players to care.

In games, we dont have any utility to offer, you see. We just offer respite, enjoyment, a break from a busy day. We dont have usefulness on our side, unlike most products. We have to rely on the real fundamentals: why does a human like something? Why does a human return to something? Why do they care ? We design to elicit that caring, that emotional attachment.

Thats really what game thinking is about. It begins by pushing you to look at what your users actually care about, through its process of interviews and job stories. It asks you to listen really listen when users tell you what problems they have, and what solutions they wish were out there. It does away with hoary generalizations and made-up personas and goes right to the people most likely to want a solution from you, and teaches you, the designer, how to ask the right questions.

Then the book proceeds to guide you through the process of making that solution, in the right order, validating and confirming your premises along the way. Pushing you toward a design thats about the player growing, changing, and learning through use of your product.

In games, we almost take that for granted. We just know that someone who starts out in a game has a lot to learn and that, by the end, they will be jumping, twirling, dodging, building, and trading like crazy, juggling a dense panoply of systems and intricacies. So we design for it. We build that journey into the very shape of the product, with levels and learnings that unfold as the player reaches the right competencies. Its not easy, but we do it a lot, so much that we often dont even talk about it.

That may be why everyone seems to get what we do so wrong.

These days, when everybody sprinkles badges and points on top of everything, it may seem a little late to say youve all missed the point! Because game designers dont design badges and points systems. Thats not the heart of what we do. We build systems that teach you themselves. We build systems that enable people to do things they didnt think they could dowhether its drive a race car, score a goal in the World Cup, or blast an alien monster in the face. What we do is build systems that unveil possibility. Points and badges and the rest are just markers along the way, and never the goal.

Wouldnt it be nice if the systems, the products, the services we used today were about that? About unveiling possibility? Meeting needs? About putting the users before the bland and vague ideological mission, above the endless metrics? About enabling people to do what they didnt think they could do? About expanding what was possible?

It isnt only about what you, the designer, could be doing differently. Its about what your customers, your users, your clients, could be doing differently. Its about creating real value, not just using parasitic means of extracting revenue.

In the end, when we make games, were working to bring more joy into the world. Thats too big a task to be left only to us game folk. It should be part and parcel of every design. Thats what game thinking can really mean. And thats what Amy Jo is documenting in this book: a method aimed at creating that core satisfaction a player feels when they turn to their partner and say wow, that was great .