Tag Archives: games

Gamification and All-Star Games

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One of the oldest forms of gamification in sports is the all-star game.

All Star Game

Major League Baseball’s All-Star game is the most prestigious, though not the most watched, and dates to 1933. The National Football League began playing all-star games in 1938, although the event didn’t gain blockbuster appeal until the merger between the National and American football leagues and the creation of the Pro Bowl in 1971. Although the Pro Bowl draws more television viewers than any other sports all-star game its future, ironically, is in jeopardy, and I doubt many people will miss it when it’s gone.

But baseball without its All-Star game would be unthinkable. I remember attending the game in Cincinnati in 1970 and it was just as exciting as going to the World Series.

At first glance an all-star game might appear to be a game itself and not the gamification of a game. Isn’t a baseball game a baseball game?

Well, no. It’s outside the system. Even the pre-season exhibition games serve the practical purpose of training the players and letting management select the starting roster. But with the  exception that the winning league gets to be home team for the World Series, there is no practical reason for the All-Star game to exist as far as the integrity of the league goes. Rather the reasons for it are gamification reasons: rewarding the players, engaging the fans, making the sport even more exciting and fun, and of course generating revenue for the owners, the network and the host city.

Even the rules are modified to suit the All-Star game. Pitchers, for instance, can only pitch a maximum of three innings to allow more pitchers to participate. Rule changes in the Pro Bowl have become so pervasive that it’s become a non-violent travesty of a violent sport. Injury concerns aside, all-star games are also better suited to sports that focus on individual action, such as baseball and basketball, rather than a sport like football with its complicated playbook.

The All-Star games for Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association are gamification events that have spawned other gamification events. Gamification upon gamification, by people who probably never heard of the word or watched Gabe Zichermann’s TED talks. Letting fans vote for players, as well as the home-run and slam-dunk contests are all successful examples of increasing fun and fan engagement for events themselves created to increase fun and engagement!

Only 1000 likes?!

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While the professional baseball and basketball all-star games are exciting, well-planned events, conveniently breaking up the season, the Pro Bowl was flawed from the beginning.

Because of injury concerns it has to be played after the Super Bowl, so it is anti-climactic, and the players from the Super Bowl teams aren’t able to participate. While players appreciate the honor of being selected, many don’t want to play, worn down from the brutal season. The league moved the game to Hawaii in 1980 as an incentive that gamification professionals would be proud of. But the top quarterbacks are wealthy enough to buy their own islands. For the 2011-2012 season the league moved the game back to the Mainland, to Miami, the same venue as the Super Bowl, hoping to capitalize on the media and tourist buzz. But the effect instead was to focus attention on injuries, and talk arose of scrapping it.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like the baseball All-Star game, or anyone who does like the Pro Bowl. Yet the Pro Bowl consistently draws higher television ratings, apparently because Americans will watch anything with helmets, except Verdi. This has created an interesting dilemma. What if you are a company, in this case the NFL, with a poorly designed gamification program that is, almost in spite of itself, profitable?

Welcome to the pro bowl!

This is an issue that will become salient as gamification becomes second nature to businesses and organizations. It’s not enough that gamification works. It has to work in the right way. Short-term profit can’t be the only variable. Other measures, such as safety and brand integrity have to be taken into account.

And yes, corporations whose employees play catch in a park or pat each other on the butt before bashing their opponents over possession of an oblong ball do have integrity. They do.

Gamification is Old

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Old lady playing wii!

A lot of people in the gaming universe act as if the world began in 1972, when the gods of Atari released Pong. One can read entire threads on the subject of gaming without finding a reference that pre-dates our infant millennium. Even our own timeline at our offices at GameMaki only goes back two years!

But games aren’t created in a Galactic Quadrant vacuum. Developers of virtual worlds borrow their metaphors from the real world. Castles, kings, quests and almost everything else we encounter in video or digital games references reality, or the imagination of people whose creations, such as zombies. vampires and aliens, first inhabited other creative arts, such as drama, poetry and opera. Pong itself was modeled after ping pong. And a Near-Eastern kid named David wielded the slingshot a lot better than your mother ever will on Angry Birds.

Angry Birds!

So I think it’s disingenuous when game developers complain that gamification borrows their precious game elements and mechanics for commercial purposes. Not because it doesn’t borrow them, but because they have no right to complain. After all, I’m sure a lot of these critics enjoyed the toys and books (and games!) that were derived from Star Wars solely to make money.

The relationship between games and gamification is no different from the relationship between many creative and commercial endeavors, such as novelizations of blockbuster films or the reprinting of filmed books. Ken Kesey was appalled when Signet put a picture of Jack Nicholson on the cover of his novel One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest. It was a film element artificially plastered on to literature. But so what? It happens all the time.

So why are so many game developers crying foul? Because they see their craft cheapened by a superficial application of their tools. (Although it’s hard for me to think of anything more superficial than serially stealing cars in a gamified Los Angeles or playing “Love in an Elevator” on a gamified guitar .) Of course gamification often suffers from being superficial, poorly designed or exploitive. But this is true of games, of toys, of sculpture, of fashion – of everything.

But the main problem is that these developers mistakenly believe that because the digital world is new, the metaphors and components in their toolkit are also new. But gamification is not a patch (I won’t say badge!) grafted on to real games, but a creative process consonant with games, as old as games, if not older.

Back then it just wasn’t played out in the digital world. And it wasn’t called “gamification.”

The Greeks called it “pathos.” Suffering, experience.

If there’s a better level-up than the twelve labors of Hercules, I’d like to know.

2011 for GameMaki.

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As the year comes to a close, I thought it would be cool to look back at GameMaki‘s happenings over the year. It started with a …

Concept (Jan – Feb 2011)
At the turn of the year, I informed the team (who was then, still working on FameMark, our gamified dating site) our acquisition of Lifegamed.com from Fernando, a client who is also now a dear friend. Lifegamed was a platform where anyone could make a game out of daily tasks. For e.g. a dad could start a game for his kids to receive points for completing a task, and perhaps earn a virtual item that can be used in a simulated fight online on the same platform with another sibling. The big idea was to make life a game, so it would be more interesting and fun.


Lifegamed … back in late 2010.

We wanted it because (1) We like the potential of gamification in motivating people to do things (2) We loved how disruptive and scalable the platform can be. At that point though, Lifegamed lacked a clear business model and more importantly, a clear problem and a solution. The dad, in the earlier example, had to first create a game, before he creates the tasks, pre-assigns points for specific tasks, and defines the unit of the points (e.g. cookies). These painful steps undermine the vision of making life more fun with all the hassle. Fundamentally, the branding wasn’t quite ideal (past-tense of ‘lifegame’).

The team sat down, brainstormed for days on tackling the mentioned issues, before we carve out a new branding, new vision, new business models and new features. We scrapped the entire Lifegamed for reconstruction. GameMaki was born, and we officially pivoted from FameMark (we’ll be back).

Beta (March 2011)
GameMaki debuted in SXSW on 11th March 2011 as a web app with just two features: (1) Create and (2) Claim a challenge. You type a challenge, choose a category and off you go. Someone would then claim the challenge by just clicking “Claim me!” – Simple in, Simple out. The idea was to create a MVP worth a second glance.

Conceptualized in Jan, developed in Feb, rolled out in March and guided by the vision to help people discover great activities through game mechanics. We were pretty satisfied with the godspeed.

We got featured on VentureBeat (after an interview with Anthony Ha, who was nice). It also synced to New York Times. More crucially though, SXSW was very helpful to validate the market – some brands, agencies were interested to create their own challenge-based whitelabel game, but I had to inform them we lacked that meat. Gamification was a big theme in SXSW and many companies were exploring how they could ride on this bandwagon.


Fernando and I in action at SXSW.

Refining the app (April – Oct 2011)
Armed with some feedbacks from the Bay Area as well as SXSW, it was back to the drawing board. We toiled, sweated, and re-iterated over the next six months with our early adopter partners such as Standing Sushi Bar, Ascendas and SMU Prinsep Hostel. There were some pilot ‘partners’ (who really were uninterested but were just too nice to reject us) that cost us much time/effort. We had since learned to work only with the right people. All in all, it wasn’t always easy to find adventurous adopters in SG, but they do exist!

We kicked off our iPhone app development in October after spending two months learning the basics, while the web app underwent continuous changes based on feedback. We corrected some wrong assumptions (e.g. we didn’t think challenges need to be accepted before being claimed – not true), and we glorified the right ones (e.g. users do care about getting badges!). Sure, six months is a long time for any product to be improved, but we were adamant that we do not want to ‘cock up’ with a product nobody would use. I should also add that this was a fresh new concept with no successful competitor to refer to. Backend wise, we firmed it up with a lot more structure, implemented Lucene search engine and added analytic features. Admittedly, the dev team kept knocking onto walls figuring iOS, and we finally caved in and hired an external consultant to pair program (great idea btw).

There were other refreshing changes for the team. In August, we moved our office from an out-of-town industrial area in Toa Payoh, to the heart of Singapore – a beautiful shophouse at Chinatown. In the same month however, we also lost a bunch of people – tech guys Steve and Alex, and super interns Spencer, Jingxian, (and later) Fauzi and Linhui. But we also gained Minghui who did some amazing animations for us (pretty darn good for a business development guy, I must say!). We now have nice size of five. lovely five!


The team with TV news presenter Tung Soo Hua – we were featured in the local news in April 2011.

The Final Quarter (Oct – Dec 2011)
Saving the best for last, the final three months represent the most defining moments for the entire team.

We were caught out cold by an investor who retracted on an investment agreement that was ‘concluded’ half a year ago. Thank God I applied for credit cards from at least three different banks earlier, because we would later relied so heavily on balance transfer from all three banks. (At one point, it did feel like we are going to exhaust all banks in Singapore!). I could not stop blaming my naivety, and undertaking loans (a slightly obscene amount) believing that deal could tickle in anyway.

The same investor defaulted on his payments to the his office which we were using, and we had to pacify the landlord. Another company who also shared the office space, quite disappointingly, did not agree to keeping this office together and sharing the cost. We could not pay the bills and the PUB uncle came and threatened to cut electricity/water supply. We were advised to move out by some friends, an unfeasible plan IMO as this ain’t like moving peanuts. I decided we would gamble and hang on. It was a fight to quickly find alternative investments, secure quick revenue from external projects or from our own product, and to also juggle with development of GameMaki. All these, while ensuring the team remained united with minimal morale loss.

For two co-founders whose first job is being a, well, co-founder out of college with little savings, it was a bitter pill to swallow especially when we had to source for personal loans for the company. I flirted with depression because of the enormous guilt for the mess and letting down the team. Gratefully, we have a team who willingly bit the bullet and took pay cuts to ensure survivability. Resilience was also displayed when we switched momentarily to being a service company for external projects – from coaching, animations and offshoring work. We even met a loan shark who needed a website! (Okay, I exaggerated. He was more like a marketer for legalized moneylenders).

All this hassle and trouble meant we could barely focus on GameMaki for the final quarter (slowing down our progress tremendously), but there are positivities: Tough times establish true men (and women) of valor in the company, and we all reaffirmed our faith and belief in GameMaki.

Brenda became a co-founder in the company after we witnessed her dedications. (Jesslyn was offered too, but she declined our humble offer due to personal reasons). In myself, I have learnt a good lesson in risk management, certainly an unforgettable one.


Post Angel’s Gate.

Today, I’m happy to share that we are up and running again, with a potential investment deal closing soon which promises a new lease of life for us working with some really smart and fantastic folks (this is record-breaking time for closing a deal afaik). We also scored our first commissioned project utilizing GameMaki‘s API, while we continue to work on increasing our pool of partners from brands, F&B merchants, institutions, corporations and charities. Our beta iPhone app is on track to be launched in early Feb, and we have some fun ideas on integrations with Twitter (watch out for it!). I’m also grateful to veterans like Eddie Chau (Brandtology) whose words of wisdom to me rang in my ears again and again: “Survive first, Fight later”.

We found true friends who stood by us. Special shoutouts to Jimmy from iAxil who continuously supported us and paid for some of my coffee (and beer), and Clement who offered me a personal loan from his pockets (which I politely declined but yes bro, I remembered that :)) To other friends like Melissa and Anne, you have been wonderful too in your encouragements. I also thank the inDividuals who made things Difficult and almost Destructive; because without you, this journey wouldn’t be a story. Oh yes, I should add this – I still have a lot of respect and gratitude for the same investor who couldn’t fulfill the deal. He believed in us at a time when no one else did, and his passions for entrepreneurship are undeniable. I pray he would resolve his problems soon :)

In the last two months, we received a surprise positive review from MakeUseOf (without any interview :), while we also participated in Angel’s Gate (which was fun!). My mouth got duct-taped re. the show, but I could whisper we did our best and we are proud of our efforts. I heard from Jimmy a story of a founder who sold off his screen protector to buy lunch, and also how the company had to ration for lunch at $2 each for everyone who went without pay. I’m glad we didn’t have to do this – so yes, we count ourselves blessed. Even though my two bank advice slips (pinned on my board) show balances enough for two Starbucks latte grande sized, at least I had my piggy coin bank! We would probably be a damned good service company if we wanted to be one, but making products remained a key passion for everyone, and for now I’m just relieved we did not fall into that comfy trap (yet). Our new investor joked I could start a site comparing cheapest rates/fees for personal loans and balance transfers, since I have these data all in my head (sure…. but I hope no one ever had to visit it).

Niet, GameMaki isn’t successful yet, but I think it is fair to summarize this year as a micro-success in a nutshell. In fact, without this saga, we probably would not be forced to find revenue and charge via our own products. There were many challenges thrown in our path, and we claimed them wholeheartedly along the way with all our might and fight. I’m proud of the team for what we have been through, and it has been a real honor to serve beside each and everyone one of you – Minghui, Jesslyn, Brenda and of course my buddy who recently became a proud father, Damon. The main takeaway of 2011: Don’t sweat the small stuff. On hindsight, it wasn’t too difficult for us – because we chose to think otherwise. Life is a game, you just gotta learn make fun out of it (; #shamelessplug


Our first DnD ever at Singapore Flyer, June 24th with alumnus, partners and friends. (The team size is really just 5). This event was entirely funded by an insurance claim for my delayed flight back from Austin to Singapore :))

Merry X’mas and have a great 2012! Remember to also thank the very people who have made a difference to you and your life!

 

* Edit 20th Dec 2011* I missed out on sharing our plans going forward in 2012. We will continue to focus on our vision of making the real life a lot more fun through GameMaki –  a social app that lets anyone start real world challenges (and games out of challenges) to be claimed for points and rewards. The key objective in the next two months is to ensure a natural experience with minimal user education in GameMaki’s web app and iPhone app. Currently, we are helping our client to develop their gamified social network via GameMaki’s API and we are pretty excited about it too (;

Let’s keep it simple – ‘Maki’ are now just called ‘Games’.

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We’ve always adhered strictly to the KISS mantra – ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’.

To us, ‘keeping it simple’ meant a fuss-free and clean (yet powerful) interface, keeping it as intuitive as possible, cutting back on features and leaving only what people need.

We know that unnecessary complexity only leads to confusion and frustration and hey, we want to keep you as happy as possible!

But all this while, we’ve completely overlooked something … which we only realized just a matter of weeks ago.

“WHAT THE HECK IS A ‘MAKI’?!”

Oops, our bad.

Well, here’s where we’d launch into our long grandmother’s story about how ‘Maki’ is a Japanese rice roll which contains loads of juicy fresh ingredients. And challenges on GameMaki are like fresh ingredients dished out daily by our loyal users. So, grouping challenges is like making a deliciously juicy ‘Maki’. (Not to mention how it ties in so nicely with our name, ‘GameMaki’!)

At this point, we’d receive two distinct responses. It’ll either be (1) a look of realization and an exclamation of “Wow, that’s so creative!” or (2) a look of complete bewilderment and “Wow, that’s … umm, abstract.”

So from now on, let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we?

‘Maki’ will no longer be called ‘Maki’. They’re just games. And games on GameMaki are a group of challenges. So, it’s time to go play away!

No more fancy schmancy names for us. They’re counter-intuitive.

Po-po-po-poker face! Po-po-po-poker face!

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All right, girls and boys. Today, we’re going to be talking about Poker.

No, wait … wait. Don’t run away! We’re definitely not promoting gambling here. (Well, we didn’t say you’ve got to play with money!)

Rather, we think it’s a great game for you to play with your friends anytime, anywhere. Just whip out a deck of cards and you’re good to go. No fuss, no heavy boards or bulky game pieces to carry around. And well, if you’re seeking some extra thrill – you can always use a bag of peanuts as currency. (;

Presenting … the Online Poker Maki.

The Online Poker Maki

With this Maki, Poker is no longer just a card game. If Poker was tricky before, it’s become even more challenging. Instead of merely winning, we’re now challenging you to achieve really specific things – like win 4 games in a row (whoa!), or play poker for 6 straight hours of Poker (remember to have your meals and use the bathroom, please!).

Well, just remember that winning is not always everything – but it’s the experience of picking up a new game that’s fun!

So, what the heck is Poker?
Poker is a game of bluff where the aim is to win all the bets accumulated after each round. This is achieved by having the best hand of cards or making others stop playing and ‘fold’ their cards. The interesting question is how to make people ‘fold’? It is all about understanding how your opponents play. This means that the round or bluff starts with the first bets, and that is what makes the game so exciting and intellectual. A person may seem conservative but you never know if he is preparing for a big bluff. Texas hold’em is the most popular version of poker.

Check out this guide to get the low-down on what this game is all about.

Disclaimer: This Maki feature and blog post is done in conjunction with our partner, Online Poker. And yes, this is completely legit. (: