Getting Gamers cover art

Getting Gamers

The Psychology of Video Games and Their Impact on the People who Play Them

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Getting Gamers

By: Jamie Madigan
Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Getting Gamers will show that rather than being a waste of time, video games can help us develop skills, make friends, succeed at work, form good habits, and be happy. Taking the time to learn what's happening in our heads as we play and shop allows us to approach games and gaming communities on our own terms and get more out of them.

With sales in the tens of billions of dollars each year, just about everybody is playing some kind of video game whether it's on a console, a computer, a web browser, or a phone. Much of the medium's success is built on careful (though sometimes unwitting) adherence to basic principles of psychology. This is something that's becoming even more important as games become more social, interactive, and sophisticated. This book offers something unique to the millions of people who play or design games: how to use an understanding of psychology to be a better part of their gaming communities, to avoid being manipulated when they shop and play, and to get the most enjoyment out of playing games. With examples from the games themselves, Jamie Madigan offers a fuller understanding of the impact of games on our psychology and the influence of psychology on our games.

©2016 Harold James Madigan (P)2019 Tantor Developmental Psychology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Psychology & Interactions Social Sciences Game Video Game Gaming History

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Blood, Sweat, and Pixels cover art
Video Game Storytelling cover art
Offline cover art
Press Reset cover art
Nobody's Fool cover art
Gamedev cover art
The Dream Architects cover art
Actionable Gamification cover art
Sid Meier's Memoir! cover art
The Psychology of Zelda cover art
Replay cover art
Choice Hacking cover art
Masters of Doom cover art
How To Win With Your Data Visualizations cover art
World History cover art
Think Like a Game Designer: The Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking Your Creative Potential cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
All his points are well thought out and derived. The reading quality is one of the better ones.

Well thought out

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book was more about the phycology that the game makers use to sell games, things I never thought of, it's definitely worth a listen.

Interesting Points

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Jamie writes wonderfully and I enjoyed his arguments nad theories. I will highly recommend this book to any who is curios about the psychological aspects of playing games, gamers, and game producers.

I will however point out that for a person without a psychological education some of his arguments will seem rushed. Particularly his arguments founded in some of history's more controversial psychological experiments. Those that view humans as quick to selfishness and violence. The faults and critiques of these experiments are important to include, if only briefly.

Good points

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
enjoyed reading this book for the parts I read but just found it to be not quite relevant for where we're at with our game development company so will instead be focus more upon marketing our games so we can grow our audience but good book perhaps will come back to in the future

got through about 3 hours of this book in total

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating for anyone interested in video games or psychology. I loved it! if you're a games designer or marketer this book is essential reading. If you're a 'gamer' this book might make it into your top 10 books ever read. If you're not a gamer, you'll understand why video gaming is a more lucrative industry than other media such as movies. Enjoy!

A fantastic insight into the psychology of games

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What I like about this book, being an extremely avid gamer myself, was that it is clearly written by a gamer. Not someone judging it, not someone peering into the world of it, but just by a gamer. It speaks to me as though I was having a good conversation about a lot of the stuff I already think about. Well written, well narrated, well done.

For gamers, by gamer.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Chapters section is broken, making it hard to reference and seems to play funny when skipping to find the right chapter.

Chapters are broken, hard to reference

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Absolutely critical to understanding why gamers play and come back to play. Indie developers a must.

Missing link

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found this book really interesting and very different to what I expected. It focuses a lot more on gaming psychology and marketing.

I strongly recommend this book not only for game developers looking how to grab players attention but also anyone in sales or marketing .

Lots of great advise and useful information all backed up with research.

Very useful and interesting book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author starts at the bottom of proverbial donkey kong mountain and attempts to make his way to the top and wave a flag of victory of the vast amounts of negative press the gaming industry has garnered since it's creation. However he only makes it to windmill hills base.

Good points made about social accountability and the consequential effects of deindividuation drawing evidence from Zambardo and Milgrams famous psychology experiments in the 60s & 70's.

Overall I didn't enjoy it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.