Game Development Strategy Guide author Cheryl Platz was honored to debut her new talk, “Modern Motivators of Play,” as the kickoff to her book tour at McCaw Hall during the inauguaral SLICE (Seattle Loves Indie Creators Expo) conference on August 27, 2025. Cheryl’s talk expands on the Motivators of Play introduced in Chapter 1 of her book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, and covers some context that didn’t fit in the book.
Talk Summary
In the first portion of the talk, we cover more of the detail behind some of the many motivational frameworks that inform the Motivators of Play – there are decades of scholarship that wouldn’t fit in the book, so only a few key references made it into the book and in limited detail.
The talk then separates the motivators into 2 categories: the classic motivators (Fun, Mastery, Competition, Immersion, Meditation, and Comfort) and 3 modern motivators (Self-Expression, Companionship, and Education) which were unlocked by the broad availability of cheaper devices, more powerful computing, and broadband internet access. The three modern motivators are Self-Expression, Companionship, and Education.
In the last portion of the talk, we explore why this matters by dispelling old stereotypes about player behavior with data, focusing on a wide-ranging study of player behavior conducted by Fandom – the Fandom Inside Gaming study in 2024 revealed that of self-reported gaming motivators, motivators tied to comfort, meditation, and self-expression were at the top of the list while competition was near the very bottom. And from a social perspective, players are twice as interested in collaboration and cooperation than they are competition.
So this begs the question: why is the industry making so many competitive games? As the talk closes, the audience is issued a challenge. It appears the industry may be out of sync with growing player trends, and this may be because the folks most in power in many gaming companies were raised under extremely different conditions compared to those making gaming decisions these days. How might you support additional or alternate motivators of play in your game?
Follow-up Insights
Cheryl was delighted by the conversations that came out of the talk during networking periods afterwards. For example:
- What benefit would a largely mastery-driven single player experience get from layering in a narrative design element? (Answer: you might attract players looking for immersion, which was a much higher motivator of play in the Inside Gaming study.)
- What might a fully cooperative superhero game look like where competition isn’t a mechanic? Marvel Rivals… without the rivals?)
Free Resources and Next Steps
The slides from Wednesday’s talk are available below for personal reference only; all rights reserved (permission is not granted to re-present). Cheryl has longer versions of this talk available as a keynote or featured talk; if you’d like to book a stop on her book tour for this topic or another topic in her book please complete this inquiry form. And of course, if you want to pick up The Game Development Strategy Guide, pre-orders are available now and the book releases worldwide on September 16, 2025 – use the pre-order link in the header or the link at the bottom of this post.
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