Tag Archives: gamify

The Economist Levels Down

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As a longtime reader of the Economist I was disappointed by the November 16th blog entry anonymously posted under the nom de plume “Schumpter.”

More Than Just a Game: Video Games are Behind the Latest Fad in Management dismisses For the Win by Kevin Werback and Dan Hunter and, by extension, the growing field of gamification.

Werbach is a professor at the prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, whose catalog offers courses neither on Phrenology, Mesmerism or Beanie Babies. So it’s surprising they would suddenly be teaching fads. Wharton and the Economist are both pillars of the business establishment.  One of them must be wobbling.

Our anonymous writer states:

“Video games now have the dubious honour of having inspired their own management craze. Called “gamification”, it aims to take principles from video games and apply them to serious tasks.”

But one of the principles of video games is role-playing, and hiding behind a dead economist (Joseph Schumpterer 1883 – 1950) is more than halfway to having an avatar. Does the Economist not know it is employing gamification at the same time it is deriding it?

Does gamification merit the hype that has quickly surrounded it? The idea is only a couple of years old, but it has already spawned a host of breathless conferences, crowded seminars and (inevitably) TED talks.

Our writer fills his text with loaded terms: “fad”, “dubious honour”, “management gurus”, “hype”, “breathless conferences”. He even manages to put down TED!

But it gets worse:

Some video-game designers are opposed to the idea on principle, arguing that gamification is really a cover for cynically exploiting human psychology for profit.

I thought the term for cynically exploiting human psychology for profit was “Capitalism”? And since when did the Economist have any problem with that?

Level-headed management types, meanwhile, say that many of the aspects of gamification that do work are merely old ideas in trendy new clothes.

So our guys are “gurus,” while their guys are “level-headed.” Foolish me for thinking all management types were anything other than, well, management types. As for gamification appropriating old ideas, Werbach and Hunter admit as much, and I myself have written that gamification started in the Book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve leveled down for eating the apple.

What is new is the ability of digital technology and social media to make gamification rigorous and pervasive. We had time before clocks, but clocks made time rigorous and pervasive.

The problem is that, after the authors have finished instructing their readers in what not to do, the concept of gamification is left looking somewhat threadbare.

But Wharton isn’t a vocational school. I no more expect to learn how to create a gamification platform by taking Professor Werbach’s Coursera Gamification course, (which drew over 80,000 participants) or by reading For the Win, than I expect to learn how to become an economist by reading the Economist.

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.

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Photo credit to endlesspicdump.com.

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Points, badges, levels, leaderboards, rewards – this is gamification, a term that describes competivizing tasks and events in a fun way. And I just earned a Dictionary Ninja badge for using a word even uglier than “gamification.”

Gamification has always been with us, from boy scout badges and karate belts to lotteries and charity challenges. But social media has taken it to a new level, pun intended. Some people think this is the tsunami of the future, others that it’s just the latest fad. Supporters point to brain research; after all, we’re hardwired to seek rewards, while cynics claim it’s just a gimmick.

What gamification is not.
What gamification is not. Credit to marketoonist.com.

The trouble with describing gamification is that it’s both profound and superficial. It’s whatever you want it to be. To early proponents and evangelists like Gabe Zichermann, gamification is the cheat code that makes life more fun. He even coined the term “funware,” while to skeptics like Ian Bogost, it’s “exploitationware.”

But what gamification isn’t is temporary. It’s important and it’s here to stay. I say that with confidence because gamification had been with us since God gamified the Garden of Eden. Eat the apple, game over.

Scout badges

But like music or film gamification is a creative force that’s large enough to contain the best and worst humanity has to offer, from the evil manipulation of the Hitler Youth to the developmental aspirations of the Girl Scouts. And now that we have social networks larger than countries and enough processing power to assign a value to how well you slept last night or how long you brushed your teeth, gamification will no longer be something we have to go out into the world to find. Like music and film, which have evolved from aristocratic theaters to egalitarian smart phones, gamification will illuminate our lives wherever we are, whether we want it to or not.

I just wish we had a cooler name for it.

Gamification? Bullshit? Oh, no way!

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Gamification 101
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The concept of gamification has been been thrusted under the limelight recently as more and more applications jump on the bandwagon. This has led to many people complaining of badge fatigue as it becomes more apparent that gamification is seemingly … just badges and nothing else.

But is that really what gamification is all about?

Gamification is not just about implementing incentive systems. It’s a lot deeper than that. It requires a clear understanding of human motivations. What makes human beings get up and do things? How do human beings like to engage one another? Why do human beings feel inclined to propel themselves further up the progress chart? (The sense of accomplishment and learning something new.)

Gamification is not a one size fits all strategy. The game mechanics one incorporates into a product or service has to be tailored specifically to your user base.

That is not to say that gamification is a strategy that can work on its own. Beneath it all, you should already have a solid core product. The core product – even with the gamification features stripped off – should inherently provide value to your users. Otherwise, it will just be fluff without any substance.

Life is a game. Just the worst game ever.

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Image courtesy from Mr. Foggs Log

In the process of developing a product, we often look back and question why we do what we do. Likewise, there are times when you take a step back in life and ask “What’s the point?”

We had a casual team meeting some time ago and everyone shared what life means to each of us. There are different responses such as “I believe that life is leaving behind a legacy”, “life is about responsibilities” and “life is love.”

Despite the different answers that we had, the team agreed on one point: life is a game.

We created GameMaki because we felt it was so easy to be complacent with our current (mundane?) lifestyles, that we don’t seek out new things to do and excite ourselves. Sometimes all you need is just a little push of motivation.

Activities are called challenges in GameMaki – what may be a routine activity for some may be a challenge to others. Challenges may also be grouped into mini-games (or Makis). We believe everyday life can be just as fun and enjoyable as playing virtual games. Earning virtual and/or tangible rewards in completing challenges is a bonus. But to us, the best reward is the sense of accomplishment from completing the challenge itself.

With GameMaki, you are encouraged to share and discover cool, meaningful challenges with your friends. We want to build up communities that get people to do things together. It can be something as easy as checking out a new Italian restaurant, or something as extreme as going skydiving. Each of these challenges will be meaningful to their own community.

Not too long ago, we asked the Twittersphere whether they agreed with our belief. We received a few interesting answers and one of which is:

“If life’s a game, no one sat down and explained the rules and objectives to me beforehand. How do I know when I win?” by @MonsieurJPL

How about you? What does life mean to you?