Rants

Critisism – well a rant really.

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RANT Critisism 8211 well a rant really

This is a rant – you will find no insight here.. Move along…

I’ve written about criticism in the past, but wanted to bring it up again just for fun.

A couple of days ago, I received some criticism. Nothing to major, but for some reason it really set me off!

I Am pretty good with criticism, I grew up with it. From being labelled as stupid by a school that could not be bothered to offer help for dyslexics, to being called lazy by a medical practice that did not wish to diagnose M.E. as it did not exist, I deal with it pretty well. Read More ...

Gamification: Novelty is not enough

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Dancing traffic lights Gamification Novelty is not enough

Recently the following video has been doing the rounds.

It shows a great idea to get people to stop at crossings when the red light shows. The idea is that rather than a boring red man stood there you get a real time animation of someone dancing in a booth a little further away.

They claim that the number of people stopping rose to 81%, which is awesome.

It also hooks into loads of motivations. You have free spirits are engaged as they get to dance their hearts out. Philanthropist types will like that by dancing they are helping reduce accidents. Achievers will want to do the best dance possible, whilst players will want to beat all the other dancers. Socialisers get to watch the show and chat to the people around them also watching. Even disruptors have a chance to be subversive in their actions in the booth! Read More ...

Indirect Incentives: Good or Bad in Gamification?

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Red pill blue pill1 Indirect Incentives Good or Bad in Gamification

First things first, what do you think of the new blog theme? Playing with the Hueman theme to see how it goes. I have also removed a large number of poppy uppy things!

Recently I heard an interesting idea on how to indirectly incentivise employees to do a particular voluntary task. The plan was that every x percent of people who did the task would translate into a charitable donation from the company to a charity voted on by the employees.

My first thought was “great, they finally get that you should stop trying to incentive everything with competitions or gift vouchers!” However, after I thought some more, I began to feel that this was still a bad idea… Read More ...

1 element that makes Godus sticky, but suck as a game

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Concept4 1 element that makes Godus sticky but suck as a game

In this article I am discussing the iOS version of Godus

I love god games, games where you get to influence the development of a world. Sim City, Civilisation and of course Populous we all favourites as I grew up.

Now the original designer of Populous, Peter Moleneux, has given us a new vision of god games in the form of Godus. The story behind the development and the campaigns run to get it started are almost a “how to” of gamification really.

It started in around 2012 with the release of the iOS “game” Curiosity. This had people clicking on squares on a 3D cube to clear layers. All people were told was that the person who cleared the very last square would win a prize of a lifetime! Clearing cubes gave you coins. Coins could be used to buy better tools to clear squares more efficiently. There was also a series of in app purchases (IAPs) that allowed you to get access to these for real money. A few months later a chap called Bryan Hednerson opened the cube and discovered he would not only get a revenue share of a new game called Godus, but he would also be the main god of the game. Read More ...

Just rewarding activity is not gamification: stop it!

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Image Just rewarding activity is not gamification stop it

I have promised in the past not to write about the dangers of extrinsic rewards anymore. However, can’t stand reading about gamification being a failure anymore, when the articles proclaiming this almost always start with “gamification is about awarding points, or physical rewards to people for doing dull tasks”.

No quoting from Dan Pink or Deci and Ryan this time, just facts based on experience.

If you offer a reward, especially a material reward that has value to people, you are setting yourself up for failure. Every time I have seen a ‘gamified’ campaign that offers someone like an iPad as a prize for participation, it has had problems. The worst culprit is when the prize is offered for nothing more than activity (so no actual creativity needed). Read More ...