GAME DESIGN & GAMIFICATION

A LOOK AT THE INTERSECTION OF

DESIGN & PLAY

GAMIFICATION: NEW

WORD, OLD CONCEPT

• Education (Quest to Learn school, NYC)

• Fitness/ healthy living (Nike+, Jawbone’s UP)

• Human resources (Work.com)

• Digital indexing (National Library of Finland’s Digitalkoot)

Gamification is now being applied to many aspects of business

and social life, including:

Screen cap from Work.com

MARKETING, SCHMARKETING

“…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, where bullshit

already reigns anyway.” – Ian Bogost, “Gamification is Bullshit,” Ian Bogost - videogame

theory, criticism, design (August 8, 2011)

“Exploitationware captures gamifiers' real intentions: a grifter's

game, pursued to capitalize on a cultural moment, through

services about which they have questionable expertise, to bring

about results meant to last only long enough to pad their bank

accounts before the next bullshit trend comes along.” (Ian

Bogost, 2011)

Gamification = Explotationware?

REALITY IS BROKEN

• Games produce fiero, a deep emotional rush, and flow, focused, enjoyable concentration*

• Gaming for good: examples include Folding@home, which uses spare PS3 computing power to fold proteins (which helps cancer research)*

“Game design isn’t just a technological craft.

It’s a twenty-first-century way of thinking and

leading. And game playing isn’t just a

pastime. It’s a twenty-first-century way of

working together to accomplish real change.”

– Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make

Us Better and how they can Change the World, (New York, Penguin

Press, 2011)

* (McGonigal, 2011)

SO, WHY GAME DESIGN?

Imagine designing knowledge media that:

• “Activated extreme positive emotions*” (gameplay is the emotional opposite of depression)

• “Immersed users on an epic scale*”

• Allowed users to collaborate and engage with each other, and create something new (and possible wonderful)

What is your opinion of gamification and game design?

Is it just a marketing gimmick, or do you think there is

real potential for improving designs?

Can you think of instances in your life that incorporate

gamification or game design?

“Rather than trying to make applications look

superficially like entertainment or games, we need to

think more deeply and less literally about the underlying

characteristics of play that make it enticing.” - David

Siegel, “The Role of Enticing Design in Usability,” Interactions 19.4 (2012)

* (McGonigal, 2011)