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The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design
Making a successful video game is hard. Even games that are well-received at launch may fail to engage players in the long term due to issues with the user experience (UX) that they are delivering. That's why makers of successful video games like Fortnite and Assassin's Creed invest both time and money perfecting their UX strategy. These top video game creators know that a bad user experience can ruin the prospects for any game, regardless of its budget, scope, or ambition.
The game UX accounts for the whole experience players have with a video game, from first hearing about it to navigating menus and progressing in the game. UX as a discipline offers guidelines to assist developers in creating the optimal experience they want to deliver, including shipping higher quality games (whether indie, triple-A or "serious" games) and meeting business goals -- all while staying true to design vision and artistic intent.
At its core, UX is about understanding the gamer's brain: understanding human capabilities and limitations to anticipate how a game will be perceived, the emotions it will elicit, how players will interact with it, and how engaging the experience will be. This book is designed to equip readers of all levels, from student to professional, with cognitive science knowledge and user experience guidelines and methodologies. These insights will help readers identify the ingredients for successful and engaging video games, empowering them to develop their own unique game recipe more efficiently, while providing a better experience for their audience.
"The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design"
Is written by Celia Hodent -- a UX expert with a PhD in psychology who has been working in the entertainment industry for over 10 years, including at prominent companies such as Epic Games (Fortnite), Ubisoft, and LucasArts.
Major themes explored in this book:
Provides an overview of how the brain learns and processes information by distilling research findings from cognitive science and psychology research in a very accessible way. Topics covered include: "neuromyths", perception, memory, attention, motivation, emotion, and learning. Includes numerous examples from released games of how scientific knowledge translates into game design, and how to use a UX framework in game development. Describes how UX can guide developers to improve the usability and the level of engagement a game provides to its target audience by using cognitive psychology knowledge, implementing human-computer interaction principles, and applying the scientific method (user research). Provides a practical definition of UX specifically applied to games, with a unique framework. Defines the most relevant pillars for good usability (ease of use) and good "engage-ability" (the ability of the game to be fun and engaging), translated into a practical checklist. Covers design thinking, game user research, game analytics, and UX strategy at both a project and studio level. This book is a practical tool that any professional game developer or student can use right away and includes the most complete overview of UX in games existing today.
The game UX accounts for the whole experience players have with a video game, from first hearing about it to navigating menus and progressing in the game. UX as a discipline offers guidelines to assist developers in creating the optimal experience they want to deliver, including shipping higher quality games (whether indie, triple-A or "serious" games) and meeting business goals -- all while staying true to design vision and artistic intent.
At its core, UX is about understanding the gamer's brain: understanding human capabilities and limitations to anticipate how a game will be perceived, the emotions it will elicit, how players will interact with it, and how engaging the experience will be. This book is designed to equip readers of all levels, from student to professional, with cognitive science knowledge and user experience guidelines and methodologies. These insights will help readers identify the ingredients for successful and engaging video games, empowering them to develop their own unique game recipe more efficiently, while providing a better experience for their audience.
"The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design"
Is written by Celia Hodent -- a UX expert with a PhD in psychology who has been working in the entertainment industry for over 10 years, including at prominent companies such as Epic Games (Fortnite), Ubisoft, and LucasArts.
Major themes explored in this book:
Provides an overview of how the brain learns and processes information by distilling research findings from cognitive science and psychology research in a very accessible way. Topics covered include: "neuromyths", perception, memory, attention, motivation, emotion, and learning. Includes numerous examples from released games of how scientific knowledge translates into game design, and how to use a UX framework in game development. Describes how UX can guide developers to improve the usability and the level of engagement a game provides to its target audience by using cognitive psychology knowledge, implementing human-computer interaction principles, and applying the scientific method (user research). Provides a practical definition of UX specifically applied to games, with a unique framework. Defines the most relevant pillars for good usability (ease of use) and good "engage-ability" (the ability of the game to be fun and engaging), translated into a practical checklist. Covers design thinking, game user research, game analytics, and UX strategy at both a project and studio level. This book is a practical tool that any professional game developer or student can use right away and includes the most complete overview of UX in games existing today.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published August 17, 2017
107 people are currently reading
1038 people want to read
About the author
Celia Hodent
7 books23 followersCelia Hodent, PhD is an expert in game UX (user experience) and cognitive psychology. She is a consultant, speaker, and acclaimed author of The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can Impact Video Game Design & The Psychology of Video Games.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 9, 2019
The problems that I have with this book pertain mainly to the writing and its formatting. The content is valuable and comprehensive. It's a fantastic crash course in psychology and UX.
However, the writing is tedious and without color. I'm not sure who the target audience is; the book could certainly pass as course literature. But for the practitioner or someone who wants to learn and practice what the book teaches, it leaves something to be desired.
I'm not sure what the hell happened with the formatting of the book — crazy long walls of text, with little to no pauses. There are things covered that add nothing to the overall aim of the book. There's also an enormous amount of repetition; the book treats me like I'm dumb and smart at the same time, which isn't a good thing.
However, the writing is tedious and without color. I'm not sure who the target audience is; the book could certainly pass as course literature. But for the practitioner or someone who wants to learn and practice what the book teaches, it leaves something to be desired.
I'm not sure what the hell happened with the formatting of the book — crazy long walls of text, with little to no pauses. There are things covered that add nothing to the overall aim of the book. There's also an enormous amount of repetition; the book treats me like I'm dumb and smart at the same time, which isn't a good thing.
September 18, 2020
Good intro to UX and application of neuroscience to game design, user testing, and technology.
I found some parts a bit longer than needed, detailing textb0ok examples of topics, only to review the game-specific examples afterward. I can see how this might be useful for someone completely new to the topic, but those with some background may be better skimming these parts.
I found the section at the end talking about the maturity of organizations' adoption of UX methodology to be super useful.
I found some parts a bit longer than needed, detailing textb0ok examples of topics, only to review the game-specific examples afterward. I can see how this might be useful for someone completely new to the topic, but those with some background may be better skimming these parts.
I found the section at the end talking about the maturity of organizations' adoption of UX methodology to be super useful.
September 20, 2023
Conçu comme un manuel scolaire, il est néanmoins très intéressant sur la compréhension des comportements humain et sur les points d'attention qu'il faut avoir en tête entant que concepteur
March 19, 2024
Super dense but lots of cool stuff in here, some of which is above my pay grade. Formatting was very awkward and makes it kind of difficult to use as reference — it's like it has all the heaviness of a textbook with none of the ease of use.
May 11, 2018
The Gamer’s Brain is a very good essay to understand how the brain works and to use its limitation to create better game experience. The author creates a perfect summary about brain’s characteristics and how to apply them in the game. The second part is dedicated more specifically to UX and how that works. This is a perfect book for students and developers that want to know more about this discipline, but the are some ripetitive phrases (I know that is for a better retention in memory, but I don’t like the repetitiveness).
December 11, 2018
I picked this up after hearing the author twice on the Psychology of Video Games podcast. Based on my own experience as an HCI masters student, I believe it to be a solid intro to UX for people in the game industry. The author clearly understands both the UX and game development perspectives.
February 24, 2020
Great reading for both professionals and enthusiasts of UX, particularly in video games. As someone who starts the journey in UX design, I've learnt a lot from Celia's book and I will recommend it for sure for the others.
April 3, 2021
What I find so interesting about this book is how an author with expertise in UX in games didn't seem to apply it to a different medium.
This book is a (mostly) comprehensive overview of a lot of useful information if you haven't encountered it in other places (although I'd recommend reading some of the books the author cites by Kahneman, Norman, and others before this one even though they're not directly related to games).
This book reads like a textbook in its density and the way information is laid out, which is to say that:
- there are a lot of citations in parentheses (it's important to attribute, but there are more reader-friendly ways of doing when your primary audience is not academia)
- each section is very discrete and self-contained, but flow from one section to another can feel like a disconnected jump so it's up to the reader to figure out how it all comes together
You have to be motivated to learning about the subject matter (likely because you plan to apply it), like a student forced to study from a textbook, otherwise I cannot recommend this book to you. The author acknowledges that the target audience are devs and students, but even so, that more motivated group of readers could be better served by UX choices that present information in more compelling and digestible ways.
Beyond UX of books, I felt like there were some other misses...
The most detailed examples are drawn from a very limited set of games; I wish the author had branched out into more genres, particularly since the book seemed a bit light on how the particular characteristics of the target audience of a game affects UX/design decisions. Anyone who plays a wide variety of game genres would know that typical UI and other UX decisions for a genre might be shared across many games in that genre and very different from another genre, but this book doesn't discuss why genre conventions are so sticky within a genre and distinct across genres.
It feels like there is a missed opportunity to talk about how business models in gaming and UX relate to each other more directly -- there's a little bit about in the analytics section, but it's very brief and indirect about that relationship.
Some sections went super deep and technical (maybe too deep and technical), some sections felt very superficial, just skimming the surface of a topic. That might have to do with the limits of only/primarily drawing on the author's personal industry experience for some aspects, or generally not having as much to say (or as many academic research papers to cite) on the topic.
That said - not a waste of time for me to read it. I would have gotten more out of it had I not done a lot of related reading in school, both in terms of books and academic papers (many cited author names were familiar to me). Some of the psychological principles that were good to be reminded of included the Weber-Fechner bias (biased perception of changes in intensity), intermittent rewards, importance of meaning, and loss aversion (the last 3 because they are so powerful, the first one because I never remember the name for that phenomenon!).
This book is a (mostly) comprehensive overview of a lot of useful information if you haven't encountered it in other places (although I'd recommend reading some of the books the author cites by Kahneman, Norman, and others before this one even though they're not directly related to games).
This book reads like a textbook in its density and the way information is laid out, which is to say that:
- there are a lot of citations in parentheses (it's important to attribute, but there are more reader-friendly ways of doing when your primary audience is not academia)
- each section is very discrete and self-contained, but flow from one section to another can feel like a disconnected jump so it's up to the reader to figure out how it all comes together
You have to be motivated to learning about the subject matter (likely because you plan to apply it), like a student forced to study from a textbook, otherwise I cannot recommend this book to you. The author acknowledges that the target audience are devs and students, but even so, that more motivated group of readers could be better served by UX choices that present information in more compelling and digestible ways.
Beyond UX of books, I felt like there were some other misses...
The most detailed examples are drawn from a very limited set of games; I wish the author had branched out into more genres, particularly since the book seemed a bit light on how the particular characteristics of the target audience of a game affects UX/design decisions. Anyone who plays a wide variety of game genres would know that typical UI and other UX decisions for a genre might be shared across many games in that genre and very different from another genre, but this book doesn't discuss why genre conventions are so sticky within a genre and distinct across genres.
It feels like there is a missed opportunity to talk about how business models in gaming and UX relate to each other more directly -- there's a little bit about in the analytics section, but it's very brief and indirect about that relationship.
Some sections went super deep and technical (maybe too deep and technical), some sections felt very superficial, just skimming the surface of a topic. That might have to do with the limits of only/primarily drawing on the author's personal industry experience for some aspects, or generally not having as much to say (or as many academic research papers to cite) on the topic.
That said - not a waste of time for me to read it. I would have gotten more out of it had I not done a lot of related reading in school, both in terms of books and academic papers (many cited author names were familiar to me). Some of the psychological principles that were good to be reminded of included the Weber-Fechner bias (biased perception of changes in intensity), intermittent rewards, importance of meaning, and loss aversion (the last 3 because they are so powerful, the first one because I never remember the name for that phenomenon!).
July 3, 2022
Probably one of the most helpful books you'll read for game UX. Celia knows what she's doing and it shows in the level of detail put into the book. The structure, the flow, even the repetition of certain lessons, all work towards a coherent whole. There are a few chapters in the middle right at the end of the first part of the book that felt like they could've been shorter or written more concisely, but I could just blame that feeling to my own distracted brain too.
The second part of the book could've used a few more practical examples of how and where certain techniques are used, how they look like in practical application in certain games, and I'd have loved to see more of the development process showcased, but these are minor wishes that can potentially be addressed live digitally too (which would be obviously a better thing considering how fast the industry chances)
All in all, a really helpful piece of literature that you definitely need a pen and paper for so you can write down all the ideas that it has to offer and which you will no doubt also get yourself while reading.
The second part of the book could've used a few more practical examples of how and where certain techniques are used, how they look like in practical application in certain games, and I'd have loved to see more of the development process showcased, but these are minor wishes that can potentially be addressed live digitally too (which would be obviously a better thing considering how fast the industry chances)
All in all, a really helpful piece of literature that you definitely need a pen and paper for so you can write down all the ideas that it has to offer and which you will no doubt also get yourself while reading.
August 5, 2019
Celia's book is an amazing introduction to how we, humans, function and how to apply this knowledge to video games.
Most of game developers still believe that pure instinct is going to help them make great user experiences, and games in general. It will take them a very long time to understand that science is a much faster way to better games.
There is a lot to get through in this book but concepts unknown from game developers are explained simply and reused all along your read.
This is a must read to anyone taking the role of entertainer seriously. Highly recommended.
Most of game developers still believe that pure instinct is going to help them make great user experiences, and games in general. It will take them a very long time to understand that science is a much faster way to better games.
There is a lot to get through in this book but concepts unknown from game developers are explained simply and reused all along your read.
This is a must read to anyone taking the role of entertainer seriously. Highly recommended.
March 28, 2025
Никому не советую эту книгу.
Гейм-дизайнерам можно прочитать любую книгу по гейм-дизайну. Например, Designing Games, там будут описаны те же самые принципы в дизайне в целом.
Если вы не знакомы с принципами дизайна, то найдёте в книге новую информацию. Но подача мне показалась переусложнённой отсылками.
Гейм-дизайнерам можно прочитать любую книгу по гейм-дизайну. Например, Designing Games, там будут описаны те же самые принципы в дизайне в целом.
Если вы не знакомы с принципами дизайна, то найдёте в книге новую информацию. Но подача мне показалась переусложнённой отсылками.
December 4, 2021
Amazing, amazing book, not only for those interested in games, but also to any UX professional or simply curious about how the mind works. Everything about this book has been enlightening and inspiring, literally I was more productive each time I read a new paragraph
February 23, 2023
Fantastic book that goes quite deep into the current world of video game user experience design. Hodent presents the full scope of the field as well as the latest data and research into our brains to create video games that don't conflict with how our brains operate.
September 23, 2019
Really great book for game designers, project managers and of course all interested in UX. Lot of smart insights, enormous amounts of knowledge.
September 4, 2020
A clear textbook for all the game devs!
October 20, 2020
It is a very good book for students and a solid book to refresh basic ideas for professionals.
December 17, 2021
Another great book by Celia Hodent.
May 15, 2022
Хорошая книга, must read для любого начинающего свой путь в игровой индустрии. Процент «воды» незначительный, процентов 15%.
March 13, 2025
Very good informative book about human psychology and how to use this to make a good game. Hard to read sometimes cause of long and repeating texts.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews