While listening at the gameconference: Digra2011 at ‘thinkdesignplay‘ I heard many negative reactions on the topic; “gamification’, I agree very much on what is said in this article on the Gamification Research Network
Yet the term still stirs hot debate. On one side, game designers and scholars despise the whole notion as an “inadvertent con” (Margaret Robertson). On the other side, proponents counter that gamification already ‘delivers’ (in terms of numbers), yet is still in its infancy. Hence it would be premature to call foul on something so young, with no time to learn from failure and sort wheat from chaff. So who’s right, who’s wrong?
Read the full article: A Quick Buck by Copy and Paste
(check this slideshare on gamefication)
I’ll be honest- I am a cseolt nerd. I try to stay up with the entire tech industry and what is coming out. I have played video games since I can remember. I will agree with the books idea that no matter what is being designed, it has to be fun to be successful. In elementary school, Number Muncher was all about math and solving simple equations quickly. Being able to get to a certain level allowed bragging rights until someone did a little bit better and the competition was on all over again.That is where I really came to enjoy reading about the concept of SAPS.•Status- People love leveling up to not only track their progress but to also let everyone else know where they stand•Access- If someone is able to access a sale, get to the front of the line, or get exclusive offers, they will eat it up and do what it takes to keep that access.•Power- Allowing readers of a page to moderate comments, giving a good employee some authority over their department, even with World of Warcraft; positions are offered to the better players and that creates a massive competition.•Stuff- It is deemed as the least important. It can be a strong incentive, but it needs to be used with caution. Users will start expecting “stuff” and when they don’t get “stuff,” they won’t be happy.When I was working at a gym back in Ohio, We had leaderboards for status on strength, attendance, miles ran, etc… I really love the idea of have a group of status points for beginners to keep them from feeling overwhelmed with “catching up.” That will definitely be a method that I employ. Access was simple there. You could pay for a class if you weren’t a member, if you were a member, the class is free. Members that wanted to add all you can tan to their membership got priority over others if there was a line for tanning.The part of the book about coding lost me. I’m a user, not a designer. I have no real desire to know how to make my own stuff work. That could be just me being unfamiliar with the concept, but I don’t have the patience to learn something that having one character off will make the entire thing not work.The concept of gamification isn’t an extremely new one, but applying concepts of games to situations that wouldn’t typically ask for that, and making the effort to create engagement in the workplace is something that can be HUGE in wellness programs. It will be fun to apply some of these concepts in the future.