OR

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Game Thinking: Innovate smarter & drive deep engagement with design techniques from hit games by [Amy Jo Kim, Scott Kim, Raph Koster]

Follow the Author

Amy Jo Kim

Game Thinking: Innovate smarter & drive deep engagement with design techniques from hit games Kindle Edition

by Amy Jo Kim (Author), Scott Kim (Illustrator), Raph Koster (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 105 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

$7.95 with discounted Audible membership

Paperback

"Please retry"

$39.95

$39.21

$19.74

Kindle
$0.00 Read with Kindle Unlimited to also enjoy access to over 4 million more titles $9.99 to buy
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your 3-Month Audible trial
Paperback
$39.95

Other options from $19.74

12 Used from $19.74

12 New from $39.21

How are market leading products born?

Successful innovations may end up reaching a mainstream audience—but they never start off that way. That’s the paradox of innovation, most entrepreneurs fail to embrace: the typical people in your market are not the same ones you need to woo when bringing your idea to life.

Instead find the “superfans” hidden in your audience: Those willing to take risk and put up with a messy or incomplete solution in order to start solving the problem your product will eliminate in the future. Show your idea to these people. See what they make of it. What do they love about it? Where does it seem to go in the wrong direction? Allowing these early fans to “play” with your idea gives you fast and accurate answers to your most pressing questions long before your product is designed and built.

Game Thinking supercharges your progress

That’s where Game Thinking comes in. In this groundbreaking book, Amy Jo Kim lays out a step-by-step system for accelerating innovation, and crafting products that people love...and keep loving. The secret? Develop “impossible to put down” products by using techniques that the fast-moving games industry employs when making games that glue millions of players to their screens.

During her time working on genre-defining games like The Sims, Rock Band, and Ultima Online, Amy Jo learned that customers stick with products that help them get better at something they care about, like playing an instrument or leading a team. Amy Jo then used her insights from the game world to help hundreds of companies like Netflix, Disney, The New York Times, Ubisoft and Happify innovate faster and smarter.

Learn from the (game) masters

Building on the principles of lean/agile design and design thinking, Game Thinking covers four powerful strategies you can use to create your next hit product:

Build a product that fits how people actually behave, using insights from your high-need Superfans
Keep customers engaged and moving forward with a coherent and compelling customer journey
Rapidly improve your product concept by testing and tuning the core experience
Expand the core experience into a full product by following the Game Thinking roadmap

Get your hands on Game Thinking, and start innovating faster and smarter today.

Print length

215 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

May 31, 2018
File size

28527 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download

Yu-kai Chou
717
Kindle Edition
$7.77
Wlad Marhulets
222
Kindle Edition
$9.99
Don L. Daglow
115
Kindle Edition
$9.99
Jesse Schell
415
Kindle Edition
$56.49
Raph Koster
558
Kindle Edition
$24.22
Robert Nystrom
1,338
Kindle Edition
$24.95

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07CZFMV7H
Publisher ‏ : ‎ gamethinking.io; 2nd edition (May 31, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 31, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 28527 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 215 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #456,642 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #258 in Industrial & Product Design
- #1,487 in Business Development & Entrepreneurship eBooks
- #45,694 in Business & Money (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 105 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Amy Jo Kim

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Named by Fortune as one of the top 10 influential women in games, Amy Jo Kim is a social

game designer, community architect, and startup coach. Her design credits include Rock

Band, The Sims, eBay, Netflix, Covet Fashion, nytimes.com, Ultima Online, Happify and

Pley. She pioneered the idea of applying game design to digital services, and is known for

her book, Community Building on the Web (Peachpit, 2000). She holds a PhD in Behavioral

Neuroscience from the University of Washington and a BA in Experimental Psychology.

Amy Jo is passionate about helping entrepreneurs innovate faster and smarter; she teaches

Game Thinking at Stanford University and is an adjunct professor of Game Design at the

USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

105 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all customer images

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Sharon

Strategic techniques and great roadmap!!!

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

Great resource that keeps you moving in the right direction!

Helpful

jillian povall

Need engagement? Follow this roadmap!

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

I love how the author does a fantastic job of creating a path for a deep and rich engagement. She incorporates many examples, worksheets, and references to clearly explain tried and tested approaches to achieve the engagement every successful product needs.

I recommend reading this book and working through all of the supplemental content once you have that first concept of a new product or something that really frustrates you about an existing product.

The author does a great job of explaining, but there is also a glossary and index in the back. I also highly recommend the digital copy so that you can quickly click on links to worksheets, references, etc.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Ricardo Costa Reis

Great book!

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

Clearly lays out how to truly gamify your project without falling into the common trap of "just adding points, badges, and levels."

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Jean

Great insights into product design

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2018

Verified Purchase

I love the insights in this book. It's very easy to add things like badges and streaks to an app to try and "gamify" it, but that often feels forced. This book talks about how you need to follow a path of mastery instead of cheap tricks, and then gives you a template to create that journey.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Phoenix SUN

I get inspired by this book a lot

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2018

Verified Purchase

One of my teachers always told me, actionable is the most important thing when you teach others. And this is a book full of actionable and practice-oriented guides. I recommend anyone who is interested in innovation, lean startup, gamification, design thinking, and product design to read this book.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Vina R.

Changed the way I thought about UX Research

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2019

Verified Purchase

Great read (or listen). Extremely pragmatic and immediately applicable for professionals. I learned so much from this book and recommend it to any product team.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Barry OReilly

Packed with insightful tactics for innovation

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2018

Verified Purchase

Let's of great design techniques to drive better engagement, retention and growth for products. Super helpful and actionable.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Max

Takes ideas from lots of other sources, mostly uncredited

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2019

Verified Purchase

As I was flipping through, most of the ideas seem to be pulled from other pop-UX books, often with ambiguous or absent sourcing. The core innovation suggested in the book, "The Mastery Path" is interesting, but so much time is spent rehashing other people's material that it's hardly worth it.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Japan M Shah

Basic guide on Game/ Design Thinking

Reviewed in India on May 18, 2022

Verified Purchase

The book is well organised in the flow of contents.
The book is good for an individual planning to start up a venture
The examples are limited to very few companies, which could have been better.

Adrian Galea

Excellent framework to think about games

Reviewed in Spain on October 13, 2020

Verified Purchase

The book provides a framework for someone who wants to build a game or wants to think like a game developer. It lacks exciting case study narrative, so its highly recommended for someone actively building something, less entertaining for someone casually informing themselves on the subject.
Its hard to find well explained guidance on this subject matter - so this is a must-have for people approaching game design for the first time

Mr T.

Actionable insight and very engaging

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book and the techniques it guides you through are exactly what I needed at this point in my new tool development. It led me through the process in such a clear and usable way and really helped me gain clarity in the ideas in my head and get them out into an actionable plan. 1 week from starting reading I already have people lined up to try out my (existing) MVP and I am very confident they are the right people to be doing that; but also very sure that those who were not a good match are not of concern. Their time will come later!

And that is just about the learning process! It has also generated so many gamification ideas that I look forward to exploring and implementing when I get to that stage.

Thank you for this book! It will be a life changer for me and those who buy my product.

Dilla

Only read 2nd half

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

The most interesting parts are the second half of the book. I almost gave up and I’m glad I did not.

Gareth Edge

A framework for startup success

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2019

Verified Purchase

Nicely systemised for startups/product developers, based on the world of game design. The synergies are unmistakable and I’m already putting the principles into action with my own startup.

OR

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the Author

Game Thinking: Innovate smarter & drive deep engagement with design techniques from hit games Kindle Edition

How are market leading products born?

Game Thinking supercharges your progress

Learn from the (game) masters

Get your hands on Game Thinking, and start innovating faster and smarter today.

Customers who read this book also read

Product details

Videos

About the author

Amy Jo Kim