Education

What Is The Opposite of Play?

by
Play or not 1 1 What Is The Opposite of Play

Play is a fundamental human need that brings joy, creativity, and learning to our lives. Play can also help us cope with stress, improve our mental health, and enhance our social skills. But what happens when we don’t play enough? What is the opposite of play, and how does it affect us?

Some might think that the opposite of play is work, but that’s not necessarily true. Work can be playful, engaging, and meaningful if it aligns with our values, interests, and strengths. Work can also provide us with a sense of purpose, achievement, and belonging. However, work can also be boring, stressful, and unfulfilling if it doesn’t match our needs, preferences, and goals. Work can also take over our lives and leave us with little time or energy for play. Read More ...

What Is the Opposite of Engagement?

by
Disengaged 2 What Is the Opposite of Engagement

In gamification, we talk about engagement a lot! After all, the whole point of gamification is to engage people and get them to do more of something!

But what is the opposite of engagement and why is it important to know this?

Firstly, let’s get our definition of engagement. I like to use the one offered by Macey and Schneider in 2008, which whilst focused on employee engagement, I think fits generally for many gamification purposes.

Employee engagement is “a desirable condition that has an organizational purpose and connotes involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort, and energy”. In other words, engagement is when employees are fully invested in their work and feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Read More ...

Gamification, RAMP and Christmas

by
5rghnbteplg Gamification RAMP and Christmas

Christmas is almost on us and it feels like a great reminder (again) about the dangers of Over Justification Effect!

Whatever your beliefs, it is easy to get wrapped up in one aspect of Christmas – getting presents. It seems that to some it is a right for surviving another year, their reward for not going postal, a pat on the back for being a decent human.

However, those are the extrinsic rewards that hook us into Christmas. They are not the real meaning of Christmas. Consider it from a RAMP perspective. Read More ...

The Dangers of Forced Fun

by
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 ...

Learning Tasteful Gamification from Guitar

by
Maxresdefault Learning Tasteful Gamification from Guitar

In today’s blog, I’ve recorded a video 😀

I’m merging my two passions, gamification and guitar! Guitarists often have effects pedals. These change the sound of the guitar, adding enhancements like echo, distortion, swooshing swirly stuff and more – much like how we use game-like elements to enhance an experience. And, just like gamification, when you add effects to your guitar tone, you need to be tasteful, contextual and often subtle!

Enjoy the over worked analogy and let me know what you think 😀 Read More ...