GDC talk: Revisiting Fun

My GDC 2024 talk Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of a Theory of Fun is now posted here. [Edit: GDC has posted the video up for free on the GDCVault.]

Once again, I had a lot of fun drawing cartoon heads of lots of people who feature in the talk.

The talk really is a direct sequel to the one from a decade ago, Ten Years Later. Unlike last time, there is no updated edition just yet, though I was asked by lots of people if there was!

Since the original book came out, it has gone from being controversial, to being dogma to rebel against, to being “obvious” according to many. It’s available in nine languages, and continues to sell just about as well as it did when it first came out.

The talk mostly covers objections and concerns people have had with the original book, a discussion of some of the newer science and ways in which is updates or makes obsolete parts of the original, and a hefty section on how to apply the principles in the book in a practical way. This latter one draws heavily on the recent article on the NYT game Connections, but also on several other talks I have given in the last decade or so.

Someday, I’ll get around to the three sequels I have planned out in my head!