Wow, nearly 90 posts this year! 2014 saw some fantastic speaking opportunities, a new deck of cards, a new theory around fun (that I really need to finish soon!).
Posted on December 29, 2014Wow, nearly 90 posts this year! 2014 saw some fantastic speaking opportunities, a new deck of cards, a new theory around fun (that I really need to finish soon!). Massive thanks to all of you, roll on 2015!!! More...
Posted on December 17, 2014I have spoken about mystery and the like in the past and you would be forgiven for thinking that uncertainty sits in a similar space. The difference is that mystery or surprise are designed and deliberate. TL:TR? Defining Uncertainty In this instance I am defining uncertainty as "The lack of certainty. A state of having… More...
Posted on December 10, 2014I just thought as I had not written a post for a few days (researching for a couple of good ones!), I would put up my 7 rules for gamification. Be sure that adding gamification adds benefit for the end users. Extrinsic rewards (points, prizes etc) can engage over short periods such as onboarding /… More...
Posted on December 1, 2014Gamification often takes and claims inspiration from game design. One of my side hobbies is making the occasional game, as well as spending the last seven years reviewing games for my site yars.co.uk. I thought I would just put a few gamification ideas into context based around my personal knowledge of games and game design.… More...
Posted on November 20, 2014This is a question I get asked all the time. Is it gamification if x,y or z. Depending on my mood and their question, I answer a little differently at first but always end the same way. Is it taking something that is not a game and making it more game like in some way?… More...
Posted on November 17, 2014As my mind relaxes from last weeks SAMR analysis for gamification article (which has been my most popular post ever I think!!), I got to thinking - do we need gamification, why does it actually exist? Gamification has been born out of 1 core problem, engagement. People wanted new ways to keep potential users of… More...
Posted on November 12, 2014I love coming up with new models and frameworks, I find them really handy and hope that when I share them that others do as well. However, I am also a great believer in not reinventing the wheel! Recently I happened to see a comment from one of my favourite people on Twitter, Alice Keeler,… More...
Posted on November 10, 2014Recently I have been trying to write a few games, just for fun, with my daughter. There area couple of card games and I am trying to make a single player board game. Making a game with a 7 year old is an interesting experience. I got asked to go into her room as she… More...
Posted on November 3, 2014Many moons ago I wrote about a massive misunderstanding in gamification around game mechanics and what they actually are. There were several lists around that said they were key game mechanics, which turned out to be very little to do with actual mechanics. Fast forward almost 2 years and, well it is getting better, but… More...
Posted on October 31, 2014Fantasy is not the sort of thing that most companies would think of first when they wanted to motivate and engage employees. It sounds a little too un-worky. If I have learned anything over the years though, fantasy is essential if you want people to break out of standard ways of thinking. Fantasy is a… More...
Posted on October 27, 2014Last Friday, I began a little experiment – Batman’s big day out. It was the start of a series of little bits of fun I will be capturing and putting up on social media, following the story of my little LEGO Batman figure. Now, the point is I wanted to have a bit of fun… More...
Posted on October 14, 2014As any regular reader will know, I spend a lot of time gamifying my daughter, in a good way. She has taught me a great deal about what does and doesn't work in the real world. Most recently I was trying to encourage her to read more, so decided to test out my EEEE framework… More...
Posted on October 8, 2014A while back I started to introduce my alternative catch-all to Gamification, that is Game Thinking. Game Thinking takes four common components of game like or games based solutions and puts them under a single banner. Those are Playful Design / Game inspired design, Serious Games, Games and Gamification / Motivational Design (more on that… More...
Posted on October 6, 2014This is a rant - you will find no insight here.. Move along... I've written about criticism in the past, but wanted to bring it up again just for fun. A couple of days ago, I received some criticism. Nothing to major, but for some reason it really set me off! I Am pretty good… More...
Posted on September 30, 2014Recently the following video has been doing the rounds. It shows a great idea to get people to stop at crossings when the red light shows. The idea is that rather than a boring red man stood there you get a real time animation of someone dancing in a booth a little further away. They… More...
Posted on September 29, 2014One of the key things that I consider when looking at anything in gamification is how feedback is going to be handled. For me, feedback is anything that gives a user some understanding of progress and achievement. This can be something as simple as a message that says "You have completed the survey", to a… More...
Posted on September 24, 2014Over the last few months I have seen more and more people in gamification changing their messaging. Rather than speaking about gamification, they have started to speak about loyalty. It makes sense, with gamification you are trying to guide people and engage them with your products, services or whatever - it does seem to follow… More...
Posted on September 19, 2014As I rewrite my book, I realise that there are many terms that I have been using that may not be known to non-gamification people. When I started writing it was with the intention of using plain language. Sadly, that is not always possible. So I have started to build a little glossary of terms… More...
Posted on September 16, 2014Another 6 months - another set of Apple tech announcements and pending products. Bigger phones, better software and a Watch (which I will probably speak about soon enough around what this could mean to personal gamification!). They also gave every iTunes user a gift. How awesome is that! Well, as it turns out not very.… More...
Posted on September 11, 2014A spelling mistake, auto-correct and a lack of concentration led me to researching totally the wrong thing recently. I was looking into a blog on Persuasive design, but ended up looking at articles on Pervasive design by mistake! It triggered some ideas and things I had been thinking about a while back, so I ran… More...
Posted on September 4, 2014When I was young, one of my absolute favourite things in the world were arcades! When ever my parents took me on holiday, I would pray that nearby would be an arcade. The lights, the sounds, the smell - everything about an arcade filled me with joy and excitement. Row upon row of cabinets fighting… More...
Posted on September 4, 2014First things first, what do you think of the new blog theme? Playing with the Hueman theme to see how it goes. I have also removed a large number of poppy uppy things! Recently I heard an interesting idea on how to indirectly incentivise employees to do a particular voluntary task. The plan was that… More...
Posted on September 2, 2014In this article I am discussing the iOS version of Godus I love god games, games where you get to influence the development of a world. Sim City, Civilisation and of course Populous we all favourites as I grew up. Now the original designer of Populous, Peter Moleneux, has given us a new vision of… More...
Posted on September 1, 2014A couple of days ago I got nominated for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a viral awareness campaign that has been knocking around the internet for a few weeks now. A person is challenged to pour a bucket of ice water over their… More...
Posted on August 27, 2014UPDATED 27/08/2014 After a few more responses, I have realised I missed off Learning as a type of fun!!! As many of you will have seen by now, I am running a short survey on what people find fun. So far I have had 155 results, for which I am truly grateful! Of course, I… More...
Posted on August 21, 2014I have promised in the past not to write about the dangers of extrinsic rewards anymore. However, can't stand reading about gamification being a failure anymore, when the articles proclaiming this almost always start with "gamification is about awarding points, or physical rewards to people for doing dull tasks". No quoting from Dan Pink or… More...
Posted on August 8, 2014In one of those "D'oh" moments, it occurred to me that management types have been promoting one of the core components of gamification since at least the 80's! We all agree that one of the main aspects that forms good gamification is good goal setting (at least I hope we all do by now). Well… More...
Posted on August 5, 2014The other day, I had the joy of taking my eldest daughter to a theme park (Chessington World of Adventures). We had an amazing time, finished off with a visit to what I thought was a sort of soft play area. It turns out it was way more awesome than that. It was a steam… More...
Posted on July 30, 2014One of the ideas that has always fascinated me is altruism within random groups. The idea that if you do a good deed and others see it, they will also be more likely to do a good deed. I have been testing this idea on my drive into work for a few months now. In… More...
Posted on July 28, 2014I thought that might get your attention. Excuse the contrived use of the 1 in shit there as well, firewalls can be so jumpy about certain words. Now back to my point. Gamification, in far too many cases right now, is indeed shit. I am not saying gamification itself is bad, just a lot of… More...
Posted on July 24, 2014As a gamification designer, it is easy to get hooked up on the intricacies of the system. The feedback mechanics, the game mechanics, the economy and the cleverness of it all. It is also easy to think, "this is going to be great" when you have a new idea and then spend waaay to long… More...
Posted on July 16, 2014When I first started to describe Game Thinking, I talked about gameful design or game inspired design. Part of me was always split about what I really meant. In my mind, these ideas were based on user interface more than anything. So creating menu systems that mirrored ideas seen in games, or creating slightly more… More...
Posted on July 14, 2014Whilst I spin through a really busy time, I wanted to share with you a minor gamification victory with my daughter. Anyone who has read my blog in the past, will know that I have been trying to use gamification around my daughters behaviour for a few years now. Not all (any) attempts have been… More...
Posted on July 8, 2014Flow. A popular concept in gamification, goodness knows I have spoken about it often enough - just last week in fact. It was that article that actually made me realise that there is a distinct misunderstanding of flow as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes it. The image below is how we in gamification tend to view it,… More...
Posted on June 30, 2014I have not mentioned User Types for at least a couple of blog posts - so though it was time to mess with your heads a little. When I first started the user types, there were four intrinsic types (Socialiser, Free Spirit, Achiever, Philanthropist) which represented the four intrinsic motivators I speak about in RAMP… More...
Posted on June 27, 2014This is more a thought and possibly even a question to those who know more than me about the Flow concept. I have spoken about Flow in the past and use it as a core principle to engaging long term design. However, recently it occurred to me that long term exposure to extremes in frustration… More...
Posted on June 23, 2014Leaderboards are evil. They create competition in environments that may not benefit from competition. They make more losers than winners and only engage the top 10 players on the board. Right? (out of context quotes ahoy!) Well, yes and no. In reality it is not quite as simple as that. It all comes down to… More...
Posted on June 12, 2014Another talk, another idea. Having just done a really fun talk for KMUK, a new analogy came to mind to illustrate using simple user experience to change behaviours. One of the things we are trying to do to save the planet, is use less water. The way this is often done is offering the user… More...
Posted on June 9, 2014I was thinking how depressing life is recently. Hear me out! We are an evolved species, we can think and act for ourselves. We have reached a point where we no longer have to hunt for food or build our own shelters (unless we choose to or in certain cases of poverty - you know… More...
Posted on June 6, 2014I did a very enjoyable talk at the Knowledge Cafe the other day. The audience was made up of various interested people, varying wildly in age - but with a majority belonging to Knowledge Management. It stood out for me in two ways. The first was the fact it was the first time I had… More...
Posted on May 28, 2014This is a picture of my daughter playing Toca Pet Doctor. What can you see? A child. A tablet. A game. A table. And a dress in the background? What else? Focus. Pure and laser like focus. My daughter is about 2 years old. I got Toca Pet Doctor for her today as a treat.… More...
Posted on May 28, 2014Engagement. A word that is thrown about in gamification with all the abandon of a child dancing and singing to Frozen... The thing is, what exactly are we talking about? What is engagement. As ever, I took to the dictionaries to see what the word on the street is. Looking up engagement is a fruitless… More...
Posted on May 26, 2014Second post in a day, not very SEO clever, I know. I wanted to take a moment to explain my view on User and Player types and their use in gamification. First up, some bullets so you get the idea quickly. What User Types are not; Perfect Applicable to every situation or project The same… More...
Posted on May 26, 2014Wow, what an amazing couple of days. Last week was Gamification World Congress 2014, the biggest Gamification event in Europe and I think in the world with over 600 people. They all came together over 3 days to celebrate the best Gamification has to offer in 3 days packed full of talks (seriously 9 am… More...
Posted on May 20, 2014Most people seem to like surprises and mystery. It also seems that curiosity has the power to drive us to do strange and counter-intuitive things. We like to know what is in the mystery box, what is behind door number 3, what happens after the season finale, what the red "do not press" button actually… More...
Posted on May 15, 2014For me one of the most effective uses of gamification that I see in education (at the moment) is the inclusion of things like onboarding and tutorials. When I was young, games came with manuals that you could knock a donkey out with. They had all the instructions, keyboard overlays, back stories and more! It… More...
Posted on May 13, 2014Hi all. Not got a blog ready yet, but thought I would post a few videos for you. The first is about my User Types. I made it for Victor Manrique's Iversity gamification design course (he has kindly agreed to let me post it here). The others are some little test videos I have been… More...
Posted on May 7, 2014Quite some time ago I released my little design framework. Well as I have been condensing my thoughts and ideas, I decided it was time to make it a little easier, so I came up with GAME. Gather Gather information by asking; What are you gamifying Why are you gamifying it Who are you gamifying… More...
Posted on May 5, 2014And, is it ok? The quickest answer is ease and lack of maturity. It is easy to borrow words from games like quests, missions, achievements, trophies, player and the like. It is easier than finding gamification or more "businessy" alternatives. The reason for this? Gamification has not yet matured enough to have its own set… More...
Posted on April 30, 2014Over the past weeks as I have been re-writing chunks of my book and preparing for various talks, I have been trying to consolidate a lot of my ideas. This has so far lead to four basic frameworks. RAMP, GAME, EEEE and User Types. There is a big infographic at the end of this post… More...
Posted on April 28, 2014As I turned 36 yesterday, I started to reminisce a little about what things have helped define my life. I am not talking about family or friends, but actual things. The first that came to mind was Games, more specifically video games. Now, I am too old to be a millennial - so I of… More...
Posted on April 24, 2014Just out of curiosity, I had a look through some of the historical pages on Wikipedia's Gamification entry. It was an interesting time line of the evolution of our definition of gamification, first added in October 2010 it seems. Take a look. It is interesting to see that it puts emphasis on technology based solution… More...
Posted on April 22, 2014When people talk about gamification, it is pretty certain the word "motivation" will pop up. "We want to engage and motivate our people, gamification is definitely going to be the answer for that!". The trouble here is that gamification is AN answer, not always THE answer. People lack motivation in job for a number of… More...
Posted on April 17, 2014Gamification is a hot topic right now. Gartner even has it at the top of its hype cycle right now. But, what is it and has it taken off in the world of Knowledge Management? Wikipedia defines gamification as; the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving… More...
Posted on April 16, 2014As many of you know, I recently took exception to a particular definition of gamification that was doing the rounds. However, the positive effect was to make me think about what it really means and also started to make me wonder what other people think of it. So, I asked them - I did a… More...
Posted on April 14, 2014Whilst I am away for a few days, I though I would fill the gap with a quick post for you all. A few gamification tips. Define your goal, you can't expect anything to work if you have no reason to use it. Extrinsic rewards like points and badges are useful for short term engagement… More...
Posted on April 9, 2014This is a question many ask me - including myself! The answer is complicated I suppose, but worth mentioning here. Many feel that gamification is nothing more than an invention of consultants hell bent on making money from corporations who want to control their employees. In some instances this may even be true! The fact… More...
Posted on April 8, 2014Updated September 2015! As you know, over the weekend I picked a fight with Gartner over their redefinition of gamification.http://blogs.gartner.com/brian_burke/2014/04/04/gartner-redefines-gamification/ and https://gamified.uk/2014/04/05/a-response-to-gartners-new-definition-of-gamification/ The conversation turned to a bit of a bun fight, so I have now stepped away a little. However, it got me thinking about my own definition and why I use it and… More...
Posted on April 7, 2014One of the most popular uses of enterprise gamification is to create competition. I don't mean in the form of marketing campaigns, I am talking about internal competitions between employees. Sales leader-boards, fitness competitions, who is best at social etc. The idea is to drive employees to want to be better than the others. Being… More...
Posted on April 5, 2014On April the 4th, Brian Burke, via his blog announced that Gartner had changed its definition of gamification. It would be; “the use of game mechanics and experience design to digitally engage and motivate people to achieve their goals” http://blogs.gartner.com/brian_burke/2014/04/04/gartner-redefines-gamification/ At first I chuckled. This was very similar to the definition I use in my… More...
Posted on April 3, 2014Most people like to win. There is something deep down inside all of us who love to be the winner, to experience the rush that comes with beating something. It may be a game, it may be winning at sport, it may be collecting all the Pokemon. Whatever it is, you get a huge feeling… More...
Posted on March 31, 2014I will state now, I am not claiming to be an expert on habits, however - I wanted to share some thoughts on how gamification can help with habit building. There are several habit or behaviour models out there. My two favourites are Nir Eyal's Hook model and BJ Fogg's Behaviour Model. For the sake… More...
Posted on March 28, 2014So, two weeks and I have maintained a blog per working day. Yay me. The question is, why? Why have I suddenly gone from one blog per week to one per day. I don't need the coverage or the readers - they have all been more than happy with one per week. I certainly don't… More...
Posted on March 27, 2014The fourth video in my series of tutorials (finally!!) This one is just a short (10 minute) look at points and badges in gamified systems and how to make some use of them. Not all that different from my Points and Badges: Not Totally Evil blog post, but also talks about balancing and best use… More...
Posted on March 26, 2014A slightly cheating post today. Here are the mechanics and ideas that I have been using when supporting certain user types. I wanted to present them in a non usertype specific way. So instead of Player, here you see "Short term engagement, Activity". This should help people see a little more clearly how to support… More...
Posted on March 25, 2014Yesterday I posted a tweet that got a few nice retweets. Is there a middle ground where game designers and #gamification designers can meet and create amazing things? Surely yes! — Andrzej Marczewski (@daverage) March 24, 2014 It is no secret that I would love to get the games industry to become more involved in… More...
Posted on March 24, 2014Using gamification on my kids is nothing new. I have openly written about my failure as a gamifier when it came to my eldest daughters reward chart! However, now I am trying a little experiment, one that is nice and low tech and involved no points or badges! On our fridge we now have this… More...
Posted on March 21, 2014So, for my final post of the week (as I seem to have subconsciously challenged myself to blog all week), I want to throw a curve ball out there. If I am honest it is a brain dump and a rant. So strap in and enjoy the ride. I have talked about gamification being a… More...
Posted on March 20, 2014A while back I wrote a piece called Rules Rule, but Shouldn't Rule Everything. The upshot of the article was that you have to have rules for things to work, but you also have to understand the rules to be able to bend and break them when needed. Rules are really important in gamified systems,… More...
Posted on March 19, 2014On thing I am asked more than any question when it comes to gamification, is how do I get started. What is the first thing I should do. The answer they are hoping for normally is something like "Download this great framework and slap it on your product - job done". However, this is never… More...
Posted on March 18, 2014What follows is a little bit of fun, but one that may help you take another look at how you are planning your user journey in gamified systems. In storytelling and therefore in games there is a structure that is well known and well used called the Hero's Journey or Monomyth. It was first described… More...
Posted on March 17, 2014Over the last few days, the conversation about the use of points and badges has come up several times with several different people. The stock answer in gamification these days is that points and badges are bad gamification. They are meaningless and we should be looking at intrinsic motivation more - yet almost every implementation… More...
Posted on March 10, 2014Many moons ago, I wrote a piece on Feedback Loops a system used in games to help balance or unbalance a system. Whilst I was designing the boards for my gamification inspiration cards I started playing around with the idea of activity loops. These are essentially the same idea as feedback loops, but rather than balancing… More...
Posted on March 4, 2014One of the day to day activities that I gamify in my life, is driving. More specifically, driving economically. Best of all, you don't need to have some expensive gamified car (like the leaf) or any apps. My car, like most now, has an on-board computer. I have this set to always show me my… More...
Posted on March 3, 2014Introduction | About the cards | Want to buy a deck? | More ways to play Introduction I don’t know what it is, but I love cards. I think it stems from my parents, who were avid Bridge players. We always had several decks Bridge cards lying around. I like how they feel in your hand, how they smell, how they… More...
Posted on February 24, 2014I thought I would dig into some of the User Types a little more deeply from time to time. This week I would like to look at Free Spirits - as they have been causing a little confusion for some. These types are looking for autonomy and some form of freedom, both of "movement" and… More...
Posted on February 19, 2014One of the questions I get asked all the time is, "What if people just don't want to play your game? How do you engage them?". The answer comes in two parts, both as important as each other. One you may not like, but you have to accept it! The first is, make sure you… More...
Posted on February 19, 2014What follows is the abstract fro a Bachelor Thesis by Raphael Schönen A while back he interviewed me and a few other gamification experts to help with his theses. If you want to find out more, please contact him at raphael.schoenen@web.de This bachelor thesis is an initial scientific attempt to determine the relevance and implications of Gamification… More...
Posted on February 3, 2014Whenever I speak to people in the circles within which I hang out, one of the things I keep hearing is story and narrative. "You have to tell your story", "What is the narrative?", what is the companies story". To be honest it drives me a little nuts, but that's by the by. The fact… More...
Posted on January 27, 2014First things first, thanks to everyone who has completed the User Types 2.0 survey. If you have not done so, please take a few minutes to fill it in. I am trying to make this one a little more scientific so that the results can be used to help us all build better systems!. Check… More...
Posted on January 23, 2014The UK’s first meeting dedicated to gamification has been announced for March 26-27th in London. Leading international gamification experts are due to speak at the first ever Enterprise Gamification Europe, a two-day event dedicated to helping marketing and digital professionals marketers and apply gamification to help improve their business modelling in the ever-changing, completive and… More...
Posted on January 20, 2014First off, can I ask you all to go and take my new User Types test? I really want to test it out. Let me know if you think to results are fair or way off. Ping me on twitter (@daverage) and thanks! This week I wanted to outline my process of problem solving. This… More...
Posted on January 15, 2014I don't often post press releases here, but this one excites me! Razer is a company that has produced gaming peripherals for years now. Used by pros and casual gamers alike, they always produce distinctive and interesting kit. So when they announced they were going to release a fitness like band, I had to find… More...
Posted on January 13, 2014The more I consider motivation, the more I realise it is one of those things we in gamification use as a catch-all. It's a bit like how we treat the term "game mechanics" and, well, gamification! Generally speaking, you will hear the terms intrinsic and extrinsic when motivation is spoken about. You will hear Deci… More...
Posted on January 6, 2014Happy New Year everyone. I was going to start the year with a little article on how I problem solve, but an opportunity arose to write about something that I have been wanting to write about for a while! When extrinsic rewards go bad A couple of nights ago, I was bombarded with notices about… More...
Posted on January 1, 2014Happy 2014 everyone! Just a quick post to show you all what the top 10 pages and articles have been on my blog in the past 12 months. It fills me with joy just how popular the User Types have been! Marczewski's User Types Marczewski's User Types and Nicole Lazzaro's 4 Keys 2 Fun Game… More...
![[Updated] Defining fun - some research results](https://www.gamified.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Fun-Types-27082014-100x100.png)
![[Updated] What gamification is to me - My definition](https://www.gamified.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gamification-definition-100x100.jpg)
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