Customer Rating:  
Summary: It's perfecting skills.
Comment: There, now you know the theory.
This book has a lot of some interesting material in it. Mainly I enjoyed being pointed to other resources in his notes. As far as a theory of fun, he just says players like to grok the game environment. He then explores responsible game design among other issues with that paradigm in the forefront, taking a very flat look at games.
Maybe if he gave this book a different title I would have liked it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Theory of Obvious
Comment: Like many other books about game development, Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun For Game Design is, implicitly, misleading in its title. There really isn't much about the practice of game design in this book. Instead it is more of a paean to game design by a long-time practitioner. The book is full of anecdotes, jokes, asides, and other errata from the life of a game designer. It's a form of swan song, a 'my life in games, and why I lived it' type of thing.
This isn't necessarily bad, but the potential buyer should be aware of this fact. One certainly wouldn't deduce this fact by reading the gushing praise other game industry veterans have lavished upon the book. Everyone from Will Wright to Scott Miller insists that you must have this book if you want to learn about game design. Perhaps this says more about the integrity of the peer review process than anything else. But I digress.
The primary source of my disappointment with this book is how little it actually conveys regarding the process of game design. Once one discounts the cartoons (which appear on every other page, taking up a full page), the anecdotes, the jokes, the stories about music and children ... there really isn't much content remaining. And what does remain is often either obvious, redundant, or just plain wrong.
In the 'just plain wrong' area, Raph commits many errors. He states that with a book one cannot practice a pattern or run permutations on it (makes me wonder what all those math and programming books I purchased were good for). He states that humans cannot comprehend language that is 'too deeply nested' (which is completely false - any rule of language can be learned with practice).
In the 'obvious' camp, Raph informs us that games are 'puzzles to solve'. The only difference between a game and real life, he posits, is that 'the stakes are lower with games'. A good game is one that conveys 'everything it has to offer before the player stops playing'. And, in a head-smackingly obvious conclusion, Raph asserts that 'the more constraints your game has, the more limited it will be'.
Obviously any critique of anything, be it music, writing, or art, is considerably subjective. My opinion might well differ from yours in many areas. But I think I can safely say that this level of writing is below standard. I cannot imagine, really, what anyone could learn regarding game design from this book ... unless they came at it with no knowledge of what a game is.
And this is what leads me to my conclusion: that this book is intended for children, or for someone with a child's level of understanding of games - essentially, for an outsider. The level of writing, the amateurish cartoons, the dialogue itself, all seem intended for a person who has absolutely no knowledge of what a game is, why people play games, what fun is, what boredom is ... it's instructive in a manner that is entirely facile and pedantic; rather like a pop-up book about the solar system helpfully explaining that when the sun goes away, the sky becomes dark.
Perhaps in some hippie, 70's-culture fashion, this is meant to unlock the child in all of us. But I just found the experience exasperating. I don't expect a person with years of experience in an industry to speak to me about it as if he were cooing to a child. And I expect that, if someone with such experience were to write a book, they would have something important to convey - some information that I could not find elsewhere, or deduce myself. Otherwise, why would I purchase the book?
In the end, this book simply has very little knowledge to convey. Games are puzzles. People enjoy solving puzzles. People become bored with puzzles that they can solve too easily, and frustrated with ones that are too hard. Water is wet. The sky is blue. Et cetera.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspiring and Cleverly Entertaining
Comment: Raph Koster's "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" is a great book for anyone who is either a gamer or even remotely interested in pursuing a job in game design. Koster explains the psychology behind games, and explores how and why they are either entertaining or dull. Koster is short and to the point, and is very clear with his ideas. A comic every other page provides the occasional laugh, and all the jokes are relevant.
After reading this I feel like I have a firm grasp on what makes a game good, and I could make a good game as well. I am a Digital Media student focused on game design, and this book really helped me with providing some advice from a well-established professional. Couldn't recommend this book enough.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking
Comment: While a bit rambling and repetitive, I much enjoyed this book, finding it useful when thinking about games and about making software that feels more like game play. The book explores what makes games fun, why we play games, and how games can serve a larger purpose of learning and growth.
The book is also quite funny with some hilarious one-liners supporting the point he is trying to make. Some of my favorites were: "Basically, our brains are on drugs pretty much all the time" and "We're just tribal monkeys throwing feces at each other in order to own the top of the tree."
Customer Rating:
Summary: A solid book on the subject of game design and "fun."
Comment: This book is by design, targeted towards games designers. This includes, but is not limited to computer/video games, board games, card games, table-top games, and role-playing games (D&D, etc.)
The author does a great job of abstracting common concepts that are fundamental to all games and should be commended for it.
Getting to the very core of and placing a significant emphasis on "fun" is what this book does best.
Academia should also consider this book as a reference/textbook for use on any course that involves games.
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