Why Gamepsych?

Gamepsych is a free publication designed for people involved in game development.

Games, like all art, deal heavily with the human psyche. Good games create enjoyable psychological experiences, and sustain a high level of immersion for the player. As entwined as games and psychology are, serious discussion of the psychology of games is rare and has largely been focused on broad issues of basic design, and less on the specifics.

Gamepsych is written with respect to real empirical research being done in psychology today, and is designed to inform game developers on issues which are relevant to game design. You will not find any reviews of games here, though there may be discussion of certain aspects of specific games. Any opinions that the author offers will be informed by empirical research in order to minimize bias and personal preference unless it is explicitly stated otherwise.

About the Author

My name is David Robinson, and I’ve been making games since 2006. I am a games industry entrepreneur (and mad scientist) with a background in empirical psychological research.

When I first began my research into the psychology of games, there was relatively little written on the subject. Most of what is written today is sequestered away in empirical journals, and is mostly inaccessible to all but social scientists and academics. I strongly believe that data is useless without action, and so my goal with Gamepsych is to make this research more accessible to the people who can use it the most: the developers.

Please know that most of my time is spent developing  games instead of writing about them, so periods between articles may be inconsistent.