A lovely chat with some new friends brought about an interesting thought. Can you really write games or gamify things if you don't play games?
I have rambled at length about my views on gamification. I have explained what I think the basics of game theory boil down to. A task with some kind of reward or incentive offered for completion.
I have written a little about Gamification. I love the concept and have just been doing a little bit of it on my website - www.yars.co.uk. I have implemented very simple ideas like Achievements and Experience points for participation. I talk to many people about such things and they often come back with the same comments. Where is the game in that? Is that not just
When I was a school, we had a simple merit / demerit system to help improve behaviour.
Each child in the school was a member of a house (I was Owls), and good deeds or work earned you merit points, bad behaviour earned demerits for the house total.
At the end of each term, the merits were added up for each house, then the demerits subtracted and the house with the most merits won the house cup – yes, a bit like Harry Potter.
Some classes had weekly or monthly prizes for the child with the most merits as well.
Let me just start by saying, I am not an expert in the subject of gamification nor am I trying to be. These ramblings are just my opinion.
This opinion is based on the following experience. 10 years in the IT industry, a life time of playing games, running a games review website, writing about and reviewing games for 5 years, teaching martial arts and working in the education sector for a few years helping to develop learning materials.
People learn and develop in different ways, but one thing has become clear over the last few decades of education. Fun makes learning easier. Just look at how your children are taught their ABC’s. We all were taught the song. Some of us were shown flash cards – C is for Cat.