Andrzej Marczewski

Gamification Expert, author, consultant and designer. I love to write about it, talk about it and bore people to death with it! If you really want to get to know me, check out the About page.

What If I Don’t – A Decision-Making Framework

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Dont What If I Don 8217 t 8211 A Decision Making Framework

I want to discuss one of the decision making frameworks I use day to day. Unlike many, this takes a deliberately negative look at decision making. Rather than a lot of these things that look at “Imagine and manifest, if you want it, it will happen” or “Think of the good things that will happen if you do this now, rather than later”, this flips it and says “What if I don’t do this, what are the consequences and knock on effects”.

As an example of the two different ways of looking at a problem, let’s take my daughter tidying her room. Read More ...

Twitter: Blue Ticks and Overjustification Effect.

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Screenshot 20221106 090152 Twitter Blue Ticks and Overjustification Effect

So. Twitter is a clusterfuck right now isn’t it?

However, it does serve as an interesting example of one of the key issues gamification faces when done badly (99% of the time) – Overjustification Effect. Put simply, this is seen when the reward for doing a task becomes more important than completing the task itself.

I suffered terribly from this when I was a “power user” on Twitter. I was playing the Twitter game, trying to collect followers and likes, needing constant approval and validation. I was part of a leaderboard for my field, I was using power sharing and networking sites and all sorts of things – anything to get more followers and more likes. Read More ...

Episodes 8 & 9 of The Andrzej & Roman Show – Music & NFTs

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21980722 1644830913426 855ab34d20e21 Episodes 8 038 9 of The Andrzej 038 Roman Show 8211 Music 038 NFTs

It’s been a while, but here are two new episodes of the Andrzej & Roman Show.

In Episode 8 Roman surprised me with a discussion about a YouTube video I did called “Learning tasteful gamification from guitar effects”

We talk about what it all means and how it can be a useful metaphor. Check the episode here.

Episode 9 covers a topic that I have been dreading, NFTs! Roman does his best to convince me they are not evil – does he manage??

Enjoy and let us know what you want to hear next! Read More ...

The legacy of Gamification we want to forget

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568059 The legacy of Gamification we want to forget

When those that care talk about gamification, we speak of engagement through play, games, well designed activity loops, game mechanics and elements, narratives and more.

However, even though we’ve been banging that drum for over a decade, it’s still thought of as nothing more than points, badges and leaderboards being used to bribe people into activity.

When you look back at the history of gamification, should we really expect anything else?

Pre 2010, gamification was used by few people. Nick Pelling is often cited as being the first person to officially use the word in writing way back in 2002, using it to describe the process of making non game based interfaces more like games. But if you speak with game designers, such as Richard Bartle, they will tell you the word in some form was used long before that, to literally mean making games out of experiences that were not games previously. Read More ...

The Dangers of Forced Fun

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Forced to play games The Dangers of Forced Fun

We’ve all been there. You go to a meeting or an event and there’s an Ice Breaker. It might be something as simple as “turn to the person on your right and tell them your name”, or it might be something more pointless like Hat Colours. But sometimes it is something even more sinister… a game.

I love games. Always have, always will. However, the games that I like have two key elements. They are made by game designers and they are played voluntarily. Both of these points are critical to my enjoyment of said game. If just one of those is missing, it is highly likely that I am not going to enjoy the game. Read More ...