Reddit reviews Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound (New Directions in Media)

"A Theory of Fun" is literally based on my readings in psychology and cog sci, including a dose of evo psych. Bear in mind many of the claims of evo psych aren't really well validated or are overblown (but the same is true for most of psych these days!).

You might also like the Scott Rigby book based on SDT:

https://www.amazon.com/Glued-Games-Video-Spellbound-Directions/dp/0313362246

Scott has several articles out there for free, and some presentations as well.

Game designer Jason VandenBerghe has been doing presentations for years on applying the OCEAN model of personality to game mechanics and game system preferences. Google for his name or The DarkLorde.

Nicole Lazzaro is another source of psych-based stuff.

I have a copy of the cards; they're not super helpful and are pretty massively overpriced imo. The book doesn't handle player psychology in a very rigorous way (and there's only one chapter on it) but I'm probably a lot more picky about that than most people.

I haven't read it yet but Glued to Games looks pretty good coming from authors with a bit more experience in psychology. Their work is on the motivational aspect of game playing: why people play games and how some games satisfy their intrinsic needs better than others. The basic argument is that "fun" or "engagement" are outcomes of need satisfaction.

Other than that though I think there's not much work applying psychology to game design directly. A Theory of Fun is based on pop-psych and (in my opinion) a questionable understanding of cognitive science, but it's a fun read at least.

In terms of blogs this one is good:www.psychologyofgames.com although it's mostly focused on phenomena around games (sales, reception, player attitudes) rather than the act of playing itself. This blog reviews recent academic literature in psychology (and a few other fields) related to games.

If you're really interested you'd probably be best served picking up an introductory psych textbook (I like Gleitman's) and picking out the sections that are most relevant to what you're interested in. I could give you more specific topics or books to look into if you have a particular part of player psychology you're interested in.

I'd say it's a pretty complex set of conditions that need to be met, ranging from game DNA, the technical scope, cost of the project, and the market viability/RoI (unless you have a grant or are making an art game).

Recently, I've really gotten into Scott Rigby's work because he seems to be on to a testable idea surrounding the DNA, but I also pull from Jesse Schell and others--I just prefer Rigby because he's testing the ideas, not just arguing for them. Using his framework, I can place features into different categories before writing up actual design specs, so before the feature's nuts and bolts even exist, I know where it fits into the machine ("This aids in the competency part", "This aids in the autonomy part", etc.)

The technical scope and cost go roughly hand-in-hand after you've got the DNA and design specs going on, but you can do things in stages. Make a prototype with programmer art, the most essential features, and test it. If that does well, pull from the plan and add more based on cost. Test again, etc. Build up the team as you need. If something isn't playtesting well, figure out if its worth it to double down or scrap. And if you're scrapping something central to the DNA, then figure out if you can replace it with a functionally similar feature or scrap the game.

The market viability and RoI can be more or less important depending on the type of game. If it's something like Jason Rohrer's Gravitation, then your scope and technical cost is smaller, and you might have a grant, so there's less risk to sell. If you're making a F2P mobile game, you're at the exact opposite--business is much more at the forefront and really has to be for a financially successful game. AAA are less extreme vs. F2P, although there's high investment which certainly puts the pressure on, but the business model isn't there as much. An Indie PC, crowd-funded darling focuses much more on the developer/community relations and how the community, when treated as investors, have a voice in development, like any other investors would. So there's complex constraints there too (the public may not understand a decision at first or might disagree with you, do you explain and try to win them over or listen to the sway of the crowd?)

As you mentioned, there's also platform concerns that will change the design. A mobile phone experience is different than a tablet experience. The market's on those platforms react differently to different products. I wouldn't make a game with features that indie PC gamers would love on mobile because the market just isn't there. Likewise, I wouldn't make a console game on mobile phones, because that mistakes what people want out of mobile phone experiences over a long period of time. Other features, like VR, come with huge unknowns because we're just starting to work in that space.

Finally, I would say, "Make something you would like." and "Make something you can sleep with at night." If you want to make something like Smash, do it, but put your own spin, since you can't make Smash (unless you work at Nintendo). If you work in F2P, make something you would like to play, not just something you think will make money. And, paradoxically, realize that sometimes you aren't the consumer (AAA and mobile F2P come to mind), and in those cases, playtest and listen to the people more than your gut.

"Glued to Games" was recommended at the last GDC I attended (2014). Amazon Link. It's still on my list of books to read though. Also, as mentioned in another post, "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" is a great read.

First we have to agree on our definition of Presence.
This is how I learned about it.
I listened to this talk: (Jesse Schell The Pleasure Revolution)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkUgCiHuH8

Here he mentions a book called Glued to Games:
http://www.amazon.com/Glued-Games-Video-Spellbound-Directions/dp/0313362246
My definition is going to come from this book.

Presence:
Being able to ask yourself, "Do you feel the world around you, is that world interacting with you? Is it affecting your decisions?"
IE. Demo recommendation:
CyberSpace, turn that demo on while standing up and tell me you don't lose your balance.
Ask yourself while your in the demo, Do I have to force myself to believe that it isn't real. If you do, you are experiencing presence. If your being affected by the experience and falling over then you are experience presence. Either way, I think that's a pretty simple way to prove it to yourself.

I can give you a link to a nice talk that gives a lot of insights on this topic:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020570/

It's not about "how to win" it is "what to think about".

You need a problem space that players understand and that is still complex. Chess with its perfect information is also a good example.

And regarding "what is fun?"

Yeah sure, most of the stuff I'm talking about is the fun that emerges from having a game that proves the players strategic and tactical skills with a system he can learn and improve to interact with. This fulfills two big desires why we play games: Growth and agency.

See: https://www.amazon.com/Glued-Games-Video-Spellbound-Directions/dp/0313362246/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511216242&sr=8-1&keywords=glued+to+games