Andrzej Marczewski: Gamification Thought Leader

Put up or Shut up and stop moaning about gamification.

March 21, 2014March 21, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

So, 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 benign form of manipulation in the past. I don’t think anyone within gamification who has any sense will disagree, gamification is manipulative. It is manipulative in the same way as marketing, or parenting. It is manipulative in the same way that society manipulates you on a day to day basis to go to work every day. Our society has been built on the idea that we should all be doing something. For some that is moving paper around. For others it is making the moving of paper more efficient. For very few people is it anything truly meaningful. If we are honest, very few jobs are meaningful. We are not all doctors or nurses or fire-fighters or teachers etc. We work to pay tax, to buy food and because that is what we are told to do. Read More ...

Rules, magic circles and other ways to avoid misfortune

January 21, 2016March 20, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

A 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, they collapse without them. Some rules are explicit and set by the system. These are the ones that you can’t break without hacking or breaking the system. Others are implicit or implied. These are the ones where trouble can sneak in. Read More ...

First considerations of Gamification

April 20, 2014March 19, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

On 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 my answer (though at times, if it is suitable for their needs it will be part of the answer… but that’s another story!).

What I actually say is “Decide WHY you need gamification and WHAT you are actually using it for / on”. That should be the first days of discussion. Too many times you see gamification applied just because it can be applied. Read More ...

The Hero’s Journey of the User

May 15, 2017March 18, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

Player Heros Journey The Hero 8217 s Journey of the User

What 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 by Joseph Campbell in 1949 to show how many myths all followed a very similar structure. In the modern world, it can be seen in stories such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. It can be seen in video games as well, one example being the Zelda games. Read More ...

Points and Badges in Gamification – Not totally evil.

March 17, 2014March 17, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

Pb Points and Badges in Gamification 8211 Not totally evil

Over 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 you see of gamification will have some form of points system and probably badges. They may be called experience points and achievements, or gami-dollars and pictograms – who knows – but they still seem to be there. Read More ...