Gamification: WTF?!?

Prof. Kevin Werbach

werbach@wharton.upenn.edu

Gamification: Practical Advice from Game Developers

The Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania

October 3, 2011

Games are Big

•  97% of kids 12-17 play videogames (Pew 2008)

•  Games industry: $66 billion worldwide (DFC 2011), or double Hollywood box office revenues –  Online sales to surpass retail in 2013

•  Social games: $1.25 billion (Inside Network 2011)

•  Virtual goods: $7.3 billion globally (In-Stat 2010), over $2 billion U.S. (Inside Network 2011)

Gamification is Big… or is it?

“Gartner Group projects [gamification] will account for 50% of all innovation in the world’s biggest enterprises by 2015….” http://gamification.co/2011/09/20/a-teachable-moment/

“By 2015, more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes.” http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1629214

“Gamification is marketing bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless wasteland of big business….” http://www.bogost.com/blog/gamification_is_bullshit.shtml

Welcome to the grey, hopeless wasteland!

Gamification is Not:

•  Actual games –  Although the line is blurry!

•  (Just) points, badges, and leaderboards

•  Anything that uses a game mechanic

•  Limited to marketing, or to business

Gamification is…

The use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts.

Time to Get

Serious

Fill in the Blank:

•  Gamification is a form of _________________

Fill in the Blank:

•  Gamification is a form of _________________

Loyalty program

Fill in the Blank:

•  Gamification is a form of _________________

Loyalty program

Game development

Fill in the Blank:

•  Gamification is a form of _________________

Loyalty program

Game development

Motivational design

•  In which case, we should listen more to the:

Loyalty program

Game development

Motivational design

Marketing practice

Game designers

Psychologists

And Now, the Main Event!

•  Moderator: Chris Grant (Joystiq)

•  Jesper Juhl (NYU)

•  Eric Goldberg (Crossover Technologies)

•  Margaret Wallace (Playmatics)

•  Ethan Mollick (Wharton MGMT)

•  Frank Lee (Drexel)