Why do we play games?

It's a complicated question, and at the 2019 Game Developers Conference next month you'll get some new data and findings from game analytics firm Quantic Foundry that might shed some fresh light on the subject.

You'll get it from a promising GDC 2019 Design track, "A Deep Dive into the 12 Motivations: Findings from 400,000+ Gamers", in which Quantic Foundry cofounder Nick Yee will break down the data gathered from a survey of over 400,000 game players.

Yee will take you on a deep dive into each of the 12 motivations in Quantic Foundry's Gamer Motivation Model to 1) describe their psychological underpinnings, 2) identify specific game mechanics/features they are linked to, 3) provide specific game examples along the spectrum of the motivation, and 4) surface idiosyncratic aspects of the motivation (e.g. gamers in China are much more driven by this motivation).

To make the findings actionable in your own work, this talk will present concrete examples of how these 12 motivations are connected to specific game mechanics and exemplified in specific game titles/franchises. Check it out!

For more details on these (and many more!) talks, check out the GDC 2019 Session Scheduler. There you can begin to lay out your GDC 2019, which takes place March 18th through the 22nd at the (newly renovated!) Moscone Center in San Francisco. 

Bring your team to GDC! Register a group of 10 or more and save 10 percent on conference passes. Learn more here.

For more details on GDC 2019 visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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