De Koven, Bernard The Well-Played Game, a Player's Philosophy, MIT Press 2013

​

     When I began going to the Games, Learning, and Society (GLS) conference in Madison, people mentioned this book all the time. To any extent that a speaker saw their work in educational games as rising above "doing their job better" and was in fact a better way of engaging life, this book was almost always cited as an inspiration. Bernie (as he is apparently known by this crowd) investigates what makes a game "well-played". For example, a game you win isn't "well-played" if it was too easy, or if you cheated, and a game you lost could be "well-played" if both sides played at a high level. So being "well-played" isn't just a matter of winning vs. losing. In a similar way it's not just a matter of following the rules vs. changing them, just starting the game vs. having mastered it, or a variety of things that might be candidates. Ultimately, the "well-played game" is a kind of mindful social interaction that kids intuitively grasp but many adults have forgotten. For example, all kids know that if someone starts crying you stop the game until it's all better, but how many college professors need to be reminded of that? Ultimately, 'playing a game' is a kind of social interaction that makes all the activity worthwhile, and this model should be the guiding star in all our work in educational gaming. I revisit this book every few years as a touchstone.

 

Suits, Bernard, The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Broadview Press, 2005 (originally published 1979)

 

     This is a fun book modeled on Plato's Phaedo (where Socrates and his friends debate about what happens after death on the eve of Socrates' execution). Based on the tale of the ant and the grasshopper, the ant and grasshopper have an ongoing discussion about the nature of games on the eve of winter, when the industrious ant will survive and the frivolous (game-playing) grasshopper will perish. Great fun playing with the question of what makes something a game, exactly. (Spoiler alert: the grasshopper is Socrates and playing games is 'the good life' which he's ready to die for.)

​

Walz, Steffen and Deterding, Sebastian The Gameful World: Approaches, Issues, Applications, MIT Press 2014

 

   This is a great collection of articles on, as the title says, approaches, issues and applications to gamifying our world. It has so many good articles in it I don't know where to start describing what to expect. But some of my favorites so far (confession: I have not read the whole thing yet) are Why Gamification is Bullshit by Ian Bogost, where he criticizes the current fad of superficial gamification of anything (business practices, advertisement, education), Gamification and Motivation by C. Scott Rigby, who offers an insightful analysis of 'better' and 'worse' external motivation in games, and Playing the Good Life: Gamification and Ethics by Miguel Sicart, who asks the question of whether our gamification of our lives really leads us to be better people. 

​

​

McGonigal, Jane Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World, O'Riley Media 2011

​

     The "Broken Reality" if the title is how the structure of our society does not provide us with meaningful engagement in our world. How do we fix this? By learning the lesson of well-designed games. This book contains a wealth of psychology and game design to analyze the situation. For example, although we often seek 'free time' or 'relaxation time', psychological studies show that, as McGonigal puts it, 'we enjoy living time more than we enjoy killing it.' More than avoiding work, happiness depends on finding good work, rewarding work, engaging work. This book looks into how we can turn our daily tasks or even work into games, thus 'hacking' our psychology to make these tasks meaningful and rewarding. This book is a good introduction to the notion and goals of "gamification" as a way to approach life. 

​

​

​

​