---
title: Player Psychology
description: Player psychology examines the cognitive and behavioral science behind why people play games. You will understand player motivation profiles, reward structures, cognitive load, and how to design systems that foster long-term engagement and satisfaction.
category: arts-design
subcategory: game-design
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/player-psychology
---

# Player Psychology

Player psychology examines the cognitive and behavioral science behind why people play games. You will understand player motivation profiles, reward structures, cognitive load, and how to design systems that foster long-term engagement and satisfaction.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 1 Courses • 4 Websites

## Websites

### 1. Celia Hodent's Blog

Blog by cognitive psychologist Celia Hodent, former UX director at Epic Games, applying perception, attention, memory and motivation research to game design. Articles cover onboarding, engagement, industry ethics, and what psychology explains about successes like Fortnite.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.celiahodent.com/

**Tags:** game-ux, player-psychology, cognitive-psychology, game-design, player-engagement

### 2. Game Developer

Trade publication, formerly Gamasutra, publishing postmortems, design deep-dives, and technical breakdowns written by working developers. Reading it regularly gives designers concrete accounts of how shipped games solved mechanics, economy, and production problems.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.gamedeveloper.com/

**Tags:** game-design, game-development, postmortems, game-industry

### 3. gdcvault.com

GDC Vault is a comprehensive archive of Game Developers Conference talks, tutorials, and postmortems, featuring video recordings, slides, and notes on game design, mechanics, programming, and production.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://gdcvault.com

**Tags:** websites, arts-design, game-design

### 4. Game Studies

Open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal publishing research on computer games since 2001. Articles apply humanities and social-science methods to game aesthetics, narrative, rules, and player culture, helping readers follow scholarly debates and build rigorous critical analyses of specific games.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://gamestudies.org

**Tags:** game-studies, academic-journal, game-criticism, player-culture, digital-games

## Books

### 1. Getting Gamers

**Author:** Jamie Madigan

Jamie Madigan applies research from psychology and behavioral economics to why people play, buy and keep playing video games: motivation, reward schedules, loss aversion, social identity, and the tactics behind sales and in-game purchases. Grounded in cited studies, written for general readers.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442239999?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, arts-design, game-design

### 2. Reality Is Broken

**Author:** Jane McGonigal

Game designer Jane McGonigal argues that games satisfy core human needs, such as meaningful work, mastery, social connection and purpose, better than everyday life does, and proposes applying game design to education, work and large-scale social problems.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0099540282?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, arts-design, game-design

## Courses

### 1. Psychology of Gaming

Michigan State University course taught by Rabindra Ratan on how people relate to avatars in games, virtual worlds and social media: identification, self-expression, behavioral effects, and how to design avatars without reinforcing gender or racial stereotypes.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/avatar-psychology-for-designers

**Tags:** courses, arts-design, game-design

---

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