Richard Lemarchand’s talk Attention, Not Immersion was an absolute blast.  In it, he proposes the addition of a new game design lens: that of attention. He begins by decrying the idea of immersion as the ultimate goal of games.  Instead, Lemarchand argues that we should talking about attention; specifically, how attention is gained and then held. [...]

I found Scott Rigby’s talk on intrinsic and extrinsic player motivations one of the most interesting and usable things I got out of GDC.  In it, Rigby talks about maintaining sustained engagement, the continuum of motivation, how extrinsic rewards can fuel intrinsic motivation, and what specifically can make extrinsic rewards thwarting to sustained engagement and [...]