Raph Koster's "Theory of Fun" Keynote

Alice of Wonderland has a rough transcription of Raph Koster's Keynote from Game Developers' Conference 2005. Raph wrote the book "A Theory of Fun". The speech is a really interesting read, even if you are not into gaming. In fact it might be more interesting for the non-gamer.

A visit to Raph Koster's Website turns up a PDF of the original speech from 2003, complete with illustrations.

Here are a few select quotes from the transcription:

. . .Building those patterns is necessary for our survival. If you don't have a pattern library, you are going to die. You won't be able to tell an apple from Draino. Fun is the feedback the brain gives while successfully absorbing a pattern. We need to absorb patterns, otherwise we die. So the brain HAS to give positive feedback to you for learning stuff. We tend to think of fun as being frivolous. The stuff that doesn't matter. And this is the serious games cheer line: I'm' here to tell you that fun is not only not frivolous but fundamental to human nature and required for survival. Therefore what we do is saving the human race from extinction. . .

. . .This is an interesting and subtle lesson to teach; the fact is as adults, as we build a large library of chunks, we get lazy. "I don't need any more chunks, I have enough to survive now". Then we get Alzheimer’s and die. Seeking out new information, hidden behind bricks, books, people, is actually pretty important. There's interesting work in early stage Alzheimer patients … learning a new language or playing videogames both retard the onset. . .

There was also a reference to Blink, which was already on my list of books to read.