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    The Well-Played Game

    A Player's Philosophy

    Author Bernard De Koven
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    Paperback
    $25.00 US
    | $34.00 CAN
    The MIT Press
    On sale Dec 02, 2025 | 172 Pages | 9780262553988
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    The return of a classic book about games and play that illuminates the relationship between the well-played game and the well-lived life.

    In The Well-Played Game, games guru Bernard De Koven explores the interaction of play and games, offering players—as well as game designers, educators, and scholars—a guide to how games work. De Koven’s classic treatise on how human beings play together, first published in 1978, investigates many issues newly resonant in the era of video and computer games, including social gameplay and player modification. The digital game industry, now moving beyond its emphasis on graphic techniques to focus on player interaction, has much to learn from The Well-Played Game.
    ...this book is a must-read for game designers and game players who may wish to tweak the games they play to make playing more rewarding. I would go even further. Because it is so delightful to read, I recommend it to anyone who likes a thought-provoking, intellectual journal. The writing style is deceptively simple. As you read, you wonder to yourself, 'Can it really be this easy?' But don't kid yourself; this is a book that can be read again and again for new insights each time.

    —Computing Reviews—
    This book is important. If you have not read it, read it. If you already have, browse it and you will almost certainly find small details and aspects of play and games that you already knew but failed to take into account. And, more importantly, please rewrite this book in a different tone, in a different format, make YouTube videos about some of its ideas, create web comics about them, share the stories with your students, use its anecdotes in your own work. That is the way that classics are supposed to be dealt with.
    —Gonzalo Frasca, Game Studies—
    Bernard De Koven was a leading game designer and theorist of fun. He was a codirector of the New Games Foundation, a founder of the Games Preserve, the author of the game studies classic The Well-Played Game: A Player's Philosophy (MIT Press), Junkyard Sports, and A Playful Path, and creator of the website deepfun.com.
    Bernard De Koven View titles by Bernard De Koven
    Foreword vii
    New Preface xv
    Original Preface Invitation to the Game xxi
    Descriptions xxiii
    1 Searching for the Well-Played Game 1
    2 Guidelines 7
    3 The Play Community 11
    4 Keeping It Going 17
    5 Changing the Game 39
    6 Ending the Game 59
    7 Encore 89
    8 People, Places, Things 105
    9 Playing for Keeps 117
    10 Playing to Win vs. Having to Win 129
    11 Completion 137
    Appendix A Million Ways to Play Marbles, at Least 145
    additional book photo

    About

    The return of a classic book about games and play that illuminates the relationship between the well-played game and the well-lived life.

    In The Well-Played Game, games guru Bernard De Koven explores the interaction of play and games, offering players—as well as game designers, educators, and scholars—a guide to how games work. De Koven’s classic treatise on how human beings play together, first published in 1978, investigates many issues newly resonant in the era of video and computer games, including social gameplay and player modification. The digital game industry, now moving beyond its emphasis on graphic techniques to focus on player interaction, has much to learn from The Well-Played Game.

    Reviews

    ...this book is a must-read for game designers and game players who may wish to tweak the games they play to make playing more rewarding. I would go even further. Because it is so delightful to read, I recommend it to anyone who likes a thought-provoking, intellectual journal. The writing style is deceptively simple. As you read, you wonder to yourself, 'Can it really be this easy?' But don't kid yourself; this is a book that can be read again and again for new insights each time.

    —Computing Reviews—
    This book is important. If you have not read it, read it. If you already have, browse it and you will almost certainly find small details and aspects of play and games that you already knew but failed to take into account. And, more importantly, please rewrite this book in a different tone, in a different format, make YouTube videos about some of its ideas, create web comics about them, share the stories with your students, use its anecdotes in your own work. That is the way that classics are supposed to be dealt with.
    —Gonzalo Frasca, Game Studies—

    Author

    Bernard De Koven was a leading game designer and theorist of fun. He was a codirector of the New Games Foundation, a founder of the Games Preserve, the author of the game studies classic The Well-Played Game: A Player's Philosophy (MIT Press), Junkyard Sports, and A Playful Path, and creator of the website deepfun.com.
    Bernard De Koven View titles by Bernard De Koven

    Table of Contents

    Foreword vii
    New Preface xv
    Original Preface Invitation to the Game xxi
    Descriptions xxiii
    1 Searching for the Well-Played Game 1
    2 Guidelines 7
    3 The Play Community 11
    4 Keeping It Going 17
    5 Changing the Game 39
    6 Ending the Game 59
    7 Encore 89
    8 People, Places, Things 105
    9 Playing for Keeps 117
    10 Playing to Win vs. Having to Win 129
    11 Completion 137
    Appendix A Million Ways to Play Marbles, at Least 145

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    additional book photo

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