Gamification

An Interview with Karl Kapp

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Week Two 002 445x273 An Interview with Karl Kapp

To continue the interview theme for another week, I present my interview with Karl Kapp. Karl is an eLearning expert, author, researcher and all round fountain of information and understanding!

Can you sum up what you do in a single sentence?

I teach, study, research, write, and educate others about the convergence of learning, technology and pedagogy with a focus on games and gamification.

How did you get involved with learning and helping people understand it better?

I discovered the field of instructional design my first year out of college.  I was working for a company that happened to be an instructional design firm. Working for them changed my life, when I found out what the field was about and how it impacted people through carefully designed learning interventions, I wanted to be a part of it. When I found out about this field, I changed my graduate program of study from Educational Counseling to Instructional Technology and I haven’t looked back. I think the ability to impact learners through instruction is compelling and to do it with methods like games and gamification is even more exciting. Read More ...

An Interview with Kaye Elling lecturer in Computer Games at the University of Bradford

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MG 7905 An Interview with Kaye Elling lecturer in Computer Games at the University of Bradford

Today I am really happy to have an interview with Kaye Elling. Kaye is a  currently a lecturer in Computer Games at the University of Bradford. Kaye has over 12 years industry experience in game design, with titles such as GTA2, Premier Manager and Bratz on portfolio.

Recently she shot to fame after releasing the 51 things every game student should know, which has now grown into the 100 things every game student should know. With all of this game knowledge, I wanted to pick her brain on games, gamification and women in games. Read More ...

Video Tutorial 3 – User Types

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Usertypes mk2 Video Tutorial 3 8211 User Types

Hi all.

I have finally managed to get into gear and record the third of my video tutorials. It is not great quality, I have a new webcam and put it on the wrong settings – live and learn!

This time, I talk about my favorite subject – User Types in gamification.

Hope you enjoy it, I will go into more detail in another tutorial soon. Oh and if you missed the first two, here is the link to all the tutorials 🙂 – Video Tutorials

The Effect of Time on Decision Making

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ID 100127587 The Effect of Time on Decision Making

I am fascinated with decision making and why people make certain decisions. There are loads of great papers out there, some of which I actually understand!

What has really caught my attention is the effect of time constraints on decision making.

Time Constraints in Games

We see this a lot in games, sometimes obvious other times, not so obvious. It is also used to varying degrees. For example. The Walking Dead uses this to great effect during certain conversations. The game asks you to make a decision then given a few choices. Whilst you decide there is a progress meter counting down that will force neutral and probably unwanted response if you don’t choose. Within the context of the game, this forces you to often go with gut instinct over long considered decisions. This gives the feeling of drama and in some cases real dread, with all choices often seeming negative – leaving you to choose which is least bad. In Mario, there is always a timer ticking away at the top of the screen. For the most part, this does not really mean much as it has ample time to complete a map – or so it seems. Yet, after deciding to collect everything on a level, you often find time running out and suddenly it all feels more desperate as you sprint to the finish line!These are obvious examples of time pressure on decision making, you can see a timer and know it will run out at a certain point. Games offer many other types of time constraints, from how you react to people shootin at you, to how you are going to get from one side of a map to the other as you are being chased. These kinds of pressures force fast thinking, reflex action and definitely don’t encourage considered or creative solutions. But, these kinds of moments often feel more “real” and emotional, they have more meaning in that split second. Some people use this to get “gut reaction” decisions in the context of workshops and the like. A popular “game” is 3-12-3 or variations of it. A problem is set and groups of people are set the challenge of solving it. There are then three phases of the brainstorming process, all tightly timed. The first lasts 3 minutes and is used to come up with some ideas. Keeping the initial time tight forces participants to not over think the problem. Next, they have 12 minutes to develop a more concrete idea from the ones pooled in the first phase. Finally, the groups have 3 minutes to present their idea to the other groups. Rules differ, with individuals and pairs and groups doing various things, but the key principle is always the same. The initial idea generation phase has a short time limit. But why would this produce better ideas?

Decision Field Theory – How We Decide

As I say, there is a lot of research on how we make decisions. The most predominant that I found was a piece called Decision Field Theory published by Jerome R. Busemeyer and James T. Townsend in 1993 [1]. In this paper, they discuss how people make decisions, based on available information and time etc. Basically, given a set of choices, your mind filters through all of the information available. Over time the probability of each choice “winning” changes until either time runs out or there is only one choice left in mind. The key thing for me considering time pressure on decision making is that changing the amount of time given for a decision to be made, can dramatically change the outcome. Read More ...

Gamification Examples and Case Studies

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Image004 Gamification Examples and Case Studies

Firstly and apology. This is just a copy of a chapter in my book (Gamification a Simple Introduction). I had meant to post this some time ago, but have been saving it for a day such as today. At the moment I am research a little for my next proper article as well as trying to do the next tutorial video! So, some may find this interesting, others may have already seen it!

Examples and Case Studies

What follows are a few examples of gamification in use in the real world.  There are many, many more – just search Google for gamification case studies! However, these should give you an idea how some of the largest companies in the world are making use of gamification. Read More ...