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• "It's the best game design book I have ever read. Please read it."

  -- David Jaffe,
  director of God of War

• "An important and valuable book."

  -- Ernest Adams,
  game designer

• "If you're interested in game design, get it and read it."

  -- Steve Jackson, designer of
  GURPS and Munchkin

• "A welcome addition to the libraries of both gamers and non-gamers alike."

  -- Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society

• One of "50 Books For Everyone In the Game Industry"

  -- EDGE Magazine

• One of the "Five Books You Should Read About Game Design."

  -- 1up.com

• "Whatever your game design experience, it will appear just right for you. At times it's breathtaking."

  -- Dr. Richard Bartle, co-inventor of MUDs

• "A convincing manifesto for why people do or don't have a good time in games."

  -- Game Informer

• "Please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy."

  -- Brenda Brathwaite, game designer

• "You cannot possibly read it and not feel at least twice like your brain has been hit by lightning."

  -- Jessica Mulligan,
  online gaming legend

• "The arcane mysteries of game design go poof with this delightful approach to the fundamentals of fun."

  -- Computer Games magazine

• "One of the best books for our industry. I hope everyone adds it to their bookshelf."

  -- Scott Miller,
  co-founder of 3dRealms

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  -- Training Media Review

• "Great sophistication yet without a trace of pretention or even an excess of big words."

  -- Michael Feldstein,
  SUNY Learning Network

• "[One of] my very favorite books of all time."

  -- George "The Fat Man" Sanger, game audio legend

• "Well worth reading. A great deal of thoughtfulness crammed into few pages."

  -- Lee Sheldon,
  writer and game designer

• "A fantastic book. It has truly inspired me."

  -- Reid Kimball,
  designer, Ritual Entertainment

• "If you have any interest in game design, you should read this book."

  -- f13.net

• "Tackles the questions of fun and engagement in a fun and engaging way."

  -- Learning Circuits, American Society for Training and Development

• "The epilogue is practically a poem. I am going to try to get my parents to read this."

  -- Mike Hommel, Hamumu Software

• "Highly recommended for anyone working in entertainment today."

  -- Dan Arey, former creative director at Naughty Dog

• "This book is worth reading. You should go buy it and read it."

  -- Dave Sirlin,
  game designer

• "Brilliant--not a game design primer, but a meditation on what it is that makes them fun."

  -- Greg Costikyan,
  legendary game designer

• "I think I've handed out close to 15 copies of this book so far, including a copy to my mother."

  -- Paul Stephanouk,
  game designer at Zynga

• "Anyone that wants to know what really makes a game fun needs to read this book."

  -- Chris Melissinos, curator, The Art of Video Games

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  " "

  -- Midwest Book Review

• "Both intelligent and highly accessible."

  -- Steven Shaviro, professor at Wayne State University

• "Thoughtful... a discussion of games as learning tools, art, and societal shapers."

  -- Slashdot.org

• "A wide-ranging intellectual foray into what games mean, both to individuals and society."

  -- BlogCritics.org

• "...An important book. A manifesto for social responsibility and artistry in game design."

  -- Nonprofit Online News

• "What Campbell and Vogler did to storytelling, Koster has done to play."

  -- GameDev.net

• "It's a book I sincerely believe everyone should have read at least once in their lifetime."

  -- GameDev.net

• "I'll never look at game design in quite the same way again."

  -- Grimwell.com

• "May not be the Bible of game design, but I would certainly include it in the Apocrypha."

  -- Alan Emrich, Art Institute of California

• "It's my favorite work on this subject to date and I highly recommend it. "

  -- David Perry, game industry legend

• "An instant classic, fascinating to anyone who has ever made a game--or played one."

  -- Noah Falstein, industry legend

• "A book about fun which is actually fun to read. It reminds me of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics."

  -- Professor Henry Jenkins, USC

• "Does for games what Understanding Comics did for sequential art."

  -- BoingBoing.net

• "An absolute classic on the theory of playing games."

  -- Tom Chatfield, author of Fun Inc

• "Non-gamers: Buy this for the gamer in your life. Gamers: Buy this for the non-gamer in your life."

  -- Cory Doctorow, author and activist

• "Well-written, timely, passionate and scientifically informed."

  -- Prof. Edward Castronova, Indiana University

• "Asks the important question about games: why are they fun, and what does that say about games and about us?"

  -- Clay Shirky, NYU

• Nominated for the Front Line Award for best game industry book.

  -- Game Developer Magazine

• Selected as one of the top ten game books.

  -- Game Informer

• "A fascinating and unique book that should be required reading at the world's many video game college programs."

  -- Game Informer

• "An excellent, even foundational, read."

  -- Learning Solutions Magazine

• "A cleverly illustrated, easy-to-read book with lots of good ideas... well worth a quick read."

  -- math-mom.com

• "A truly astonishing piece of work."

  -- Prof. John Artz, George Washington University

• "A clear manifesto to bring more art into our game designs."

  -- Yehuda Berlinger, board game designer

• "A delightful read. This book fills the 'game apologist' niche in my bookshelf."

  -- Dan Cook, game designer

• "A very fun book :D executed in a witty entertaining style."

  -- Michael Samyn of Tale of Tales

• "Everyone involved in game design -- students, teachers, and professionals -- should read this."

  -- Ian Schreiber, co-author of Challenges for Game Designers

• "An incredibly relevant and enjoyable read. I highly recommend it."

  -- John Pile Jr, Asst Prof of Game Programming, Champlain College

• "An incredibly relevant and enjoyable read. I highly recommend it."

  -- Scott Brodie, game designer

Welcome!

An exploration of what fun is, and why games matter.

Widely considered a classic.

Used in dozens of university-level programs on game design all around the world.

A go-to text for gamification, educators, trainers, and interaction designers.

New! "A Theory of Fun: 10 Years Later"

It's the tenth anniversary of the original talk! There was a GDC Online keynote revisiting it. Read it here (PDF).

Print English edition from O'Reilly, Foreword by Will Wright	Japanese from O'Reilly, Foreword by Masaya Matsuura
Chinese from Coolman, special foreword for Chinese readers	Korean from Digital Media Research, special foreword for Korean readers

About the author

Raph Koster is a veteran game designer who has been professionally credited in almost every area of the game industry. He's been the lead designer and director of massive titles such as Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies; and he's contributed writing, art, soundtrack music, and programming to many more titles ranging from Facebook games to single-player titles for handheld consoles.

Koster is widely recognized as one of the world's top thinkers about game design, and is an in-demand speaker at conferences all over the world. In 2012, he was named an Online Game Legend at the Game Developers Conference Online. Visit his blog at www.raphkoster.com.

All contents of this site Copyright 2005-2011 Raphael Koster