Happy New Year!
2021 was not a productive year on the blog, after so many years of writing, I needed a break to be honest. I also decided that 2021 was the year to get my mental health sorted a little bit, so made a few changed here and there.
However, it’s 2022 now and I want to get a fresh start on this blogging stuff again. So, expect a bit more activity (don’t expect 1 a week though!)
I’d love to hear what you would like to see more of moving forward though, let me know in the comments or on Twitter (DaveRage)
As is traditional, below you will find my roundup of the year’s blogs. Hope you enjoy and I’ll see you all very soon 🙂
1) The “Is it a now thing, or a later thing?” prioritisation framework – Beat the Post Christmas Slump
Posted on December 29, 2021 
So, Christmas is done and we are now in that no mans land between Christmas and New Year. No one knows what day it is, what they should be doing or what their next meal might consist of – but know that it is in the freezer and is bit sized. The next week or… More…
Posted in Gamification
2) Merry Christmas / Holidays for 2021
Posted on December 24, 2021 
As we hit Christmas, I just wanted to wish you the best of times and hope that the coming months are safe for you all. You will see more of me next year as I finally have more to say about gamification and the world surrounding it. In the mean time, here are a couple… More…
Posted in Gamification, Just for Fun
3) The Importance of Offboarding
Posted on December 14, 2021 
A million years ago (well 2013) I did a talk at my first big conference – Gamification World Congress ’13. I chose to talk about a potential framework for a gamified career path, using a game board, constant feedback loops etc. https://www.gamified.uk/2013/10/21/career-2-0-gwc-talk/ It was a decent talk and the concept was, if I do say… More…
Posted in Loyalty
4) £10 Not Black Friday Gamification Mega Bundle
Posted on November 27, 2021 
£10 Gamification Bundle: Even Ninja Monkeys eBook, Gamification and Solution Design Lenses, Inspiration Cards and Design Toolkit Note: this is a download only, there are no physical copies being sent. You should get a link after purchase to download the items. Gamification and Solution Design Lenses (Normally… More…
Posted in Gamification
5) Gamification and the F word….
Posted on November 22, 2021 
So, in my last post I set the cat amongst the pigeons a little by offering my new definition of gamification. Well, the conversations that followed were superb 🙂 That’s one of the reasons I did it, to start up the conversation again – to get people to step away from the business as usual… More…
Posted in Gamification
6) I was wrong: A definition of gamification that should make sense to everyone!
Posted on November 15, 2021 
I was wrong… for many years in fact. So, here I am again, banging on about definitions. I have been here before, but usually trying to push through the idea of a more academic and “correct” definition of gamification. However, over the years I have realised that this is not much use to most people!… More…
Posted in Gamification
7) The Engagement Channel Model 2.0: Fun, Flow and Engagement
Posted on November 4, 2021 
Fun. A three letter word you won’t hear me mention often when discussing gamification! Why? Well, fun is really subjective. What you find fun, I may not. However, for the purposes of this blog, we will assume I like fun as do you and when I mention fun – it means something you will find… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
8) The Truth About Gamification: The Ugly, the Bad and the Good
Posted on October 13, 2021 
Gamification is a little over 10 years old now, but has much really changed since its wild days of infancy? I remember when I first started getting involved in 2011, it was a time of excitement, learning and playing. There were meetups, webinars, conferences, knowledge sharing and all sorts going in. It was liberal, free… More…
Posted in Gamification
9) New Solution & Gamification Design Lenses Card Deck
Posted on September 20, 2021 
For the first time in a while, I have a sort of new product for you! The Solution & Gamification Design Lenses Card Deck! Basically it is a series of cards that contain questions related to various frameworks I use in my life as a solution designer. They cover ground from the User Type HEXAD,… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Loyalty
10) The Danger of Unbalanced Incentives and Negative Expectations
Posted on September 6, 2021 
I recently saw a news article that certain parts of America were trialling an incentive program to try and encourage more people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The idea was that individuals could earn $100 by getting vaccinated. If you have ever read any of my work, you will probably know that I am not… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
11) Mischief Theatre and the Contract of Play
Posted on August 4, 2021 
The last year or so has been pants to say the least. Personally it has taken a huge toll on my already dubious at times mental health! However, there has been one shining light since the later stages of 2020 – Mischief Movie Night In from Mischief Theatre. Mischief Theatre is a group of very… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
12) Relationships Between HEXAD Types
Posted on June 30, 2021 
It’s been a while since I wrote about the HEXAD user types, but the world does not stand still and I keep seeing them turning up in academic papers – which is amazing, so I thought it time to say a few words on things that have repeatedly come up! I was inspired by a… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
13) Confirmation Bias and How to Embrace Being Wrong – #UX
Posted on May 26, 2021 
When we design anything, be it user experiences, gamified experiences or even just Lego buildings – we become emotionally involved with what we are doing. We invest ourselves in the process and the outcomes of the process. Because of this, it can be very hard for us to accept someone telling us that they think… More…
Posted in Gamification, User Experience
14) 6 rules for surviving and enjoying social media.
Posted on April 18, 2021 
1. Don’t believe everything you see or read.Social media has no filter, so anyone can post almost anything and they don’t always post the truth. From politicians to socialites, very often what is put out is tweaked in some ways be it the facts or the flawless texture of a models skin. Be alert to… More…
Posted in Education, Social Media
15) Final Fight and Relative Progress Bars
Posted on April 9, 2021 
Progress bars During lockdown and thanks to our newish dog, I’ve been playing a lot of Xbox in the early mornings. I try to play games when I can, but until recently have not really had time to invest much of my life into them. But, I’ve always maintained that to understand what makes games… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
16) Why “undo” is critical to ludic design
Posted on February 22, 2021 
Ludic, or playful design, involves designing products or experiences through the lens of play. How do you make people feel safe to explore, encourage experimentation and even add some fun? A while back I introduced my Play Framework, so you can find out more there, but essentially it’s all about creating an environment that focuses… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
17) The Engagement Channel Model
Posted on February 9, 2021 
In gamification, you will hear a lot about Flow. I myself have spoken about it many times. In games and gamification, we use it as a way to describe the moment that you get the challenge of a task exactly balanced with the skill of the person involved, leading to a state of absolute focus… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
18) Animal Farm the Game OR How to use games to introduce the classics to new audiences
Posted on January 5, 2021 
Well, happy new year everyone. I wanted to start 2021 off by talking about an incredibly satisfying gaming experience I had over Christmas. Playing Animal Farm on my phone. For those that don’t know, Animal Farm is a very stark book written by George Orwell in the 1940s that uses power struggles between farm animals… More…
Posted in Gamification, Education, Gaming
Leaderboards have been a staple of gaming and gamification for as long as both have existed. From Space Invaders, to baseball, to your gamified CRM system – all have had leaderboards in there somewhere. The reasoning goes “if you are the top, you feel special and if you are at the bottom, you don’t want…
With the news that a hacker group is using gamification to try and get people to engage in DDoS attacks, I got to thinking about what type of user may wish to engage with this. Initially, the Disruptor sprang to mind, more specifically the Destroyer type. They act on the system to disrupt it and normally…
In my last blog, I introduced the concept of Meta-Rules. These were the non-system or inherent rules that actually guide how people play. I spoke about them rather abstractly, describing them in the following way These [meta-rules] rules are beyond what you would consider written or system imposed rules. These are fluid rules that can…
No great insights into gamification in this post, more me revisiting play, toys and games – again. When I need to clear my mind of clutter, I tend to consider the nature of play. That is probably why I write about it so much! I doodle about it on the plane, at night, when I…
The world loves a good aaS. Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, Cloud as a Service. Everything these days seems to be “as a Service”. That means, of course, that Gamification platform providers have started to speak about Gamification as a Service. Now, there is nothing wrong with this, though I do find…
Gamification often uses points, deal with it. They can form a solid backbone to a system, after all, they are just a granular form of tracking and record keeping! My issue today is with a misconception about using experience points in gamification. In games, we know that experience points are used in many titles. In…
Last week was the 5th edition of Gamification World Congress. I have to admit, it was great fun. There were some extremely good talks, I especially enjoyed the parallel stage that had a nice mix of academic and practical talks going on. A couple of highlights for me were Kevin Werbach and Yu Kai Chou. Kevin spoke about…
I’m playing with an AI bot, meet Ninja Monkey Bot. It is a learning bot, with a few pre-programmed answers. Have a play!
Recently I was honoured to be asked to be part of a documentary about games, their history, and evolution. One of the questions that I was asked that really got me thinking was “What is the future of gamification?” I am asked this quite often and tend to go with a safe answer. In my view,…
As you may know, the concept of play is very important to me. I feel that it is one of the true keys to engagement in adults, but as I was speaking about recently, adults often have no idea how to play. They have the intrinsic desire to play battered out of them by the…
Hi Guys Recently I had the opportunity to record an interview about gamification for the Product Gamification Summit. This is an online event with free and paid options that contains interviews with about 30 experts in product creation, gamification and monetization. You will get to see favorites of mine like Amy Jo Kim, Nir Eyal, Roman…
Everyone who is involved in gamification has hit this same problem, someone who thinks they are just too busy or important to play games. You are in a meeting, selling gamification like a bad ass and you get hit with a comment like “I don’t like games” or “My employees are busy and important, they won’t…
I thought it would be good to finally show you all the research results from Austrian Institute of Technology and HCI Games Group, Games Institute, University of Waterloo and of course Gamified UK around the User Types and the survey. The link below will take you to a blog written by one of the researchers,…
Hi there you lovely, lovely gamification enthusiasts! First off, I wanted to collate 10 tips for gamification greatness that I published on Twitter not long ago. Keep these in mind and you are destined for great things… probably. Recognise don’t bribe. Challenge don’t patronise. Focus on solving the problem not on forcing fun. Record everything…
As a parent, Free To Play (F2P) games are the joy and bane of my life in equal measure. Kids these days seem to be near impossible to entertain for any length of time. This being the case, video games are like comics were in my day – plentiful and cheap, especially on mobile platforms.…
Yeah I know, a bizarre title for a blog. Anyone who follows me on twitter will know that I am a bit obsessed with finding a decent shave. I have always hated shaving with a passion. My skin always comes out in a rash, it is time-consuming and just a ball ache. I have tried…
Rewards can be very powerful, which is why I have spoken about them so many times! I already wrote about the three keys of rewards (Relevant, In-Time and Meaningful). However, I wanted to just blast out a quick post on the meaningful bit of that! 1 and 2 are essential, 3 is a very big…
There are some questions I am asked more than others. Today I want to give a slightly longer answer to one of them than usual! The question? “What is your favourite gamification element?” My usual answer fluctuates between feedback (which covers anything from verbal to full online economies) or progress, which I have written about…
I am excited to announce that as of today, Gamified UK is officially opening it’s doors as a gamification consultancy. Offering services such as solution design, talks, training and software audits I plan to add more value to the gamification industry by doing what I love. What does this mean for the site? Well, I will…
A question that I am asked quite often, relates to my chosen Twitter name – @daverage. Before we get into that, I want to clear one thing up. It is Dave Rage, not the Excel function, DAverage! Back to the story. Dave has-been with me since university. On one of the first nights in the…
If there is one thing that Pokemon Go has shown me, it’s that nostalgia is a powerful tool in onboarding. The main reason I played it to start with? I used to love Pokemon – just like everyone else I knew. I was around 16 or 17 when it first appeared on the Gameboy in…
Writing about Pokemon Go is almost as popular as actually playing it, so I thought I would join in the trend. TL:TR It’s great fun but needs to have some careful consideration around safety concerns In case you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, let me just set the scene.…
Years ago I read an interview with a musician (whose name escapes me), where he was giving advice to new musicians. There was lots of good stuff, but the one that really stuck with me was this. Save your best songs for the encore, even if you never get the chance to play them. At…
Hi all. Lots of changes on the go at the moment, but one big one is an overhaul of the User Type Test. In collaboration with the Austrian Institute of Technology and HCI Games Group, this new test has been validated and should provide a much more accurate set of results over time. It is…![[News] RNLI creates Minecraft beach survival game to teach water safety to children](https://www.gamified.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/image-100x100.png)
This Summer, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is launching year two of the charity’s Beach Builder Challenge using the interactive video game, Minecraft, which allows children to create and build virtual worlds. The Beach Builder Challenge, available to play from 1 August, has been created by the RNLI to teach children about beach and…
The more I play games, the more I realise just how important having choices that are meaningful, or at least feel meaningful. One of the key features that separates games from other media is that the player is put at the centre of the story and can interact with it, you are not just “along…
A question I get asked a great deal is “Are points, badges and leaderboards enough?” The stock answer from me is usually a resounding “No, you must consider motivation and the needs of the user, think RAMP and more…” In fairness, this is good advice and you should consider intrinsic motivation over extrinsic and the…
Just thought I would share the video of my talk on loyalty and Christmas turkey from Gamification World Congress 2015 0 https://youtu.be/iA906TwIHUU To give some context for the start – Bart Briers had just described me as The King of Gamification! At the end, I also caught him out as the talk was only 12…
Curiosity is something that always interests me. I have written about it in the past, but was drawn to looking at it again recently. There are several theories about what curiosity is and how it works; Curiosity Drive Theory, Optimal Arousal Theory, Incongruity Theory and probably more. They all deal with different aspects of what curiosity…
Today I have been reminded about the importance of Honesty and Transparency when dealing with people. If I ask a question from someone who is in a service industry, what I hope for is an honest and transparent answer. What you often get is a baffling set of half-truths and utter bullshit. I have spoken…
One of the big issues I see in gamification and many young industries is the issue of building a solution for problems that don’t really exist! “We are using a gamified solution to increase engagement”. “Awesome, why?” “Um, because it will increase engagement…” “Cool, but why, what problem have you identified that can only be solved…
I keep seeing articles stating why everyone should learn to code. The same message is aimed at adults and children, pointing to a new type of digital literacy needed to survive in the new world. I myself have known how to do code in one form or another since my dad showed me BASIC at…
One of the privileges I have as a gamification “expert”, is to look at many different solutions This includes getting to look at and review serious games from time to time. Over the last couple of years, i have come up with an unwritten list of things I look for in serious games to judge if…
Another guest post, this time from Roberto Alvarez Bucholska. Leave feedback and show your appreciation – I am sure he would be happy to answer any questions! Business education may sound very formal and boring to many, but there’s no reason why studying an MBA can’t have engaging and fun learning materials. And that’s what…
A question no one has been asking was “What does HEXAD actually stand for?” Well, I thought it was time to make something up to satisfy that question that no one wants the answer to! First off, Hexad just means a group or set of six – that is why it was chosen. I needed…
TL:TR NOW! A question I am often asked is “I am making a new product, when should I start looking at gamification?” That is usually combined with “How much will it cost?” The answer to the second is linked to the first, but the first is much easier to answer! Essentially, if you are considering gamification…
Another guest post for you guys from Sal Deniz. I got chatting to him on twitter about his latest project Termling and how he had used his background in biology to create a great avatar maker for his gamified learning app. It is quite technical and speaks about how he leveraged HTML5 canvas and the…
Well, it has been a long time coming – but Simulation has finally broken free from Serious Games in my Game Thinking “framework”. It will take a while for me to update everything, but I wanted to share the draft entry for simulations in Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play.
So, once again toilets have taught me something, this time about consistency, and I wanted to pass that on to you. It will seem really simple, but it is something that happens on a regular basis and is annoying as hell. Let me tell you a quick story. I was at Heathrow airport, as I…
One of the blockers for gamification is often staff feeling insulted in some way by it. Whether it is because they feel the money could have been better spent, that the concept is beneath them or just that they are resistant to any change at all. It is true that gamification is often used in…
I don’t often post press releases on this site, but I thought this one was worth doing! The serious games industry has a new global news site, the first international medium authored by journalists dedicated to covering serious games — www.seriousgamesindustry.com. Updated daily, the site covers worldwide news, interviews and case studies of companies using serious…
A while back I wrote an article about how you have to balance the reward value of activities against the value to the client, user and effort. The basic idea was that if a user has to work hard to get a reward, it had better be worth something. At the same time, if the…
In gamification, we often talk about rules. They split games from play, fair from foul. However, just because you have rules, does not mean that everyone will feel that the game is fair! This came to mind when I watched my youngest daughter’s reaction to being told she could not take a teddy bear to…
I would like to thank Alisa Odincova for pointing out an error in the references for Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play. “[…] a word like “game” points to a somewhat diffuse “system” of prototype frames, among which some frame-shifts are easy, but others involve more strain” Ludwig Wittgenstein Marczewski, Andrzej (2015-10-12). Even Ninja Monkeys…
When we look at the 5 Ps of gamification, it is very easy to overlook all of the meanings of Progress. Just as a reminder, the 5 Ps are; Purpose, Progress, Proficiency, Pride and People. 5 P’s of gamification
This is a question I get asked all the time. “I love it, but where is the Killer/ Winner type?” The first thing to address here is that Winner and Killer are not interchangeable terms in the world of types. In Bartle’s types, the Killer is a type of player who gets pleasure from domination…
Hi all, busy week last week, but did get time to throw out some words of “wisdom” via memes. I thought I would put them here for easy reference and explain on of them a little better! Engagement is… I think this first one is pretty self-explanatory. Engagement is about people…
I have been pleased to call David Chandross a friend for a couple of years now. We “met” through our shared love of games and gamification over Twitter and Facebook. Since then I have come to know him as a fierce proponent of using games to help people learn and gain a deeper understanding of…
Heavy Rain. That was the name of the game that first made me understand that meaningful choices could take a game to new levels of immersiveness. If you have never heard of it, Heavy Rain was a PS3 exclusive in 2010 from game makers Quantic Dream. You played the roles of several people through a…
One of the things I love about coding is the simple logical basis that it is all built on. A lot of it can be boiled down to four simple words: If This Then That. If a condition is met, then do something. There is obviously more to it than that. We have And, Or,…
When I was researching my definition of gamification, I had a few major dilemmas. One of the main ones was the use of Game-Like over Play-Like. Just as a reminder, I define gamification in the following way: The use of game design metaphors to create more game-like and engaging experiences However, it was very nearly:…
Well, this is a first, but I hope you will agree, it is a good first! I was lucky enough to be asked to scan a chapter of a new book that gamification and education expert Scott Herbert was writing. It was all about how he had been making use of my HEXAD in his…
It’s 2016 and what a lot has gone on already! The biggest change is that I am now no longer part of Capgemini. I am now at G2G3 working on gamification – so a dream come true for me! I want to take a moment to thank everyone at Capgemini that supported me over the last…
Just as New Year passes us, I thought I would throw out a free chapter from my book. It is one of my favorites actually, all about loyalty! Free Chapter on Loyalty Now for the tips mentioned in the title :). If you are looking at gamification in 2016, there are a few things you really need…
Ideas come from the funniest of places. Take this Dodecad thing. I had an email conversation with someone who liked my types, but wanted to change some of the names. I was not into the idea (the names took a really long time to work out!), so politely declined. That’s fine, so is the fact…
You may remember in 2013 I tried to establish a code of ethics for gamification. It got a little traction, but ultimately didn’t get much backing. After GWC this year, I realised that I really needed to try again, as ethics has become even more important to people as gamification has grown. To that end,…
One of the things that I noticed at gamification world congress this year, was a few people mentioning Flow in their talks. As most of my readers know by now, I love the idea of Flow, not just as a pure idea of “in the moment balance and being in the zone” but as a…
Well, I am back from the 2015 edition of Gamification World Congress in Barcelona and what an event it was! The organisers put on a slick, deep and incredibly rewarding conference. Day one saw a series of workshops, with me kicking off with Gamification Design Thinking. Feedback was positive and personally I had a great…
As you may have seen by now, I have a new book out! If you had managed to miss that, check it out here 🙂 The purpose of this blog is to give a quick overview of how I got it finished and published in print and ebook formats. This was a project I started…
I talk to people about gamification quite a lot! The conversation usually starts with a little curiosity, then some scepticism and if I have done well, enthusiasm. One thing that happens in probably 9 out of 10 conversations is a little section I like to call “No, it’s not about making games”. You all know…
A while back, I was asked how “Dark Personalities” fit with my Hexad of User Types. At the time, I had no answer – because I had never heard of dark personalities. So, as I always do, I responded with honesty and promised to look into it. I have touched on it with how I…
So, here it is. Writing and publishing the book have broken my brain a little! I am working on two blogs at the moment though. One about publishing a book for under £50 ($80) and the other about dark personalities and disruptors! However, anyone who has been reading for a while will know that when…
So then, it is finally available. Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play is out in paperback and ebook formats from Amazon. Amazon.com have it in stock now.
There are many, many ways to get gamification wrong, but there is one that really sticks out head and shoulders above the rest. The best way to get Gamification wrong is to ask the question “What game mechanics should we include?” before any other questions. Questions like: what is the purpose of this? What is…
Anyone who has read my blog will know that my daughters are an inspiration to me on a regular basis. All of me research into play was initiated by watching them as was my little adventure into fun. Today I wanted to share with you an important lesson – what pure joy actually looks like.…
Here is a little excerpt for the book for you, you know that book that I am still editing but hope to have published in the next 2 weeks…! Whist basing the value of the reward on a user’s personal investment is important, it is also important not to lose sight of why you were…
I was asked a great question the other day. If you could go way back, what would you change? It got me thinking at the time and I have had it in my mind ever since. At the time I said that I would probably change nothing. The truth is that what I have experienced…
I recently discovered a really strange phenomenon called Shipping. This is the creation of fantasy relationships between celebrities that may have been in films together or on TV together. For instance there are a group who call themselves Damie Shippers. They have created a fantasy world where Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson. from Fifty Shades of…
A long time ago, I wrote a short bit on why I wanted to be able to dislike comments on Facebook (and anywhere else for that matter). In my mind (at the time) I was trying to put across the point that we live in a world where we are not allowed to be negative…
Over the summer, the NHS lead programme Change4Life, ran a great campaign aimed at getting kids to do a little bit of excercise. It was called “10 Minute Shake Up” and was done in partnership with Disney. For starters this is a great idea and one that I whole heartedly support. But the idea was…
I am a huge advocate of the benefit of games. They are amazing and I would quite happily argue with anyone shouting about games and violence, or games being bad for kids. I am also not against T.V. My youngest has amazing shape recognition, counting and even spelling and maths abilities – at three -…
Welcome to my first post holiday blog. Lots going on, not least of which I have now got a draft of my book! You can register your interest in buying it here -> Sign up for notifications about Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play. I am looking at ways to apply a discount for people…
I have said it before, if you are going to use rewards, you have to get it right. Whilst there are arguments about the value and / or damage of rewards in gamified systems, they are still being used and I feel they are of value. One of the keys to getting the use of rewards…
Ok, this has been bugging me for years. In Gamification, there are many things you hear again and again. It’s not about games, points are bad, intrinsic motivation is king. There are more, but the one I have an issue is a quote from that most famous of nannies (and most irresponsible in my mind)…
Recently there has been some conversation in the Gamification Hub and other areas about the difference between things like bribes, incentives and so on. It is actually an interesting and very relevant question in gamification circles as they all get mentioned from time to time, so I thought I would tackle it a little here.…
So a big bit of news in the consulting world is that Accenture has got rid of its annual performance reviews and rankings. This has had some level of fanfare as innovative and exciting. They of course are not alone. Deloitte is looking at doing the same thing and as the article says about 6%…
For some strange reason I have become obsessed with making memes recently! It may just be I have a couple of apps on the phone that make it easy now. Whatever the reasons, I thought I would share my last week or so of memes here with you guys. Also, I have not had a…
Not long ago I wrote about my daughters school and their usage of certificates to incentivise reading. The idea is that if a child reads a certain amount each half term, they can get a bronze, silver or gold certificate. As you may remember, I have spent a lot of time trying to encourage my…
A little free section from the new book 😉 Virtual economies are not as common an addition to a gamified system, but I wanted to include a little bit about them. Virtual economies can be based entirely in the virtual world, or can break that barrier and have some effect on the real world, depending…
As you may have noticed, for the first time in over a year – there is no blog this week. The reason is two fold. 1. I have been insanely busy! 2. My spare time has been spent finally finishing up my second – as yet untitled – book! So, instead of a blog, here…
For the first time that I can remember, someone has asked a question about a little “hidden” feature of the User Types Hexad. Two secrets actually. Take a look at it now, what is odd?User Types HexadI love symmetry – it is a quirk of mine. I hate how…
Recently my wife pre-ordered a book from Amazon. She put her order in the day after pre-orders opened and chose super-saver delivery. Her understandable assumption was that if she pre-ordered, then the book would at least be dispatched on the day of release. She knew she would have to wait a few days for delivery,…
Hi all. A little self promotional, but it does have a gamification twist! I just published short story on WhatPad that some of you may enjoy. If I get a decent response, I will probably write some more around the concept. Below is short segment and a link to the full story. You do have…
One of the things that my daughters school like to do is give certificates to students for various achievements. Below are two that she has had over the last few months. Which one do you think she was happiest to get?Gold Award for reading 25 times in a term
Anyone who follows me on Twitter has, by now, noticed I have been sharing a load of stuff from Google Photos. For those who don’t know, this is a free service from Google that allows you to basically upload an unlimited number of photos (if you are happy with their “high quality” setting) and store…
There is a lot of noise about Generation Y or Millennial’s, those born after 1982. They are seen as some kind of strange new evolution of the species, the saviours of our universe. One of the key things that is spoken about when they are mentioned is that they grew up with computers in their…
I always like to try and simplify concepts to help me explain them to people, hence I keep creating acronym based frameworks!! (RAMP, EEEE, GAME etc.). Well, my latest is five essential P’s that gamification projects have to have to stand a chance of any success. The scary thing is, that in many projects I have seen,…
Last year, Dutch Driver asked a question in the Gamification Hub Facebook group. Mario Yu-kai et al. were discussing the mobile game phenomenon, Flappy Bird, yesterday and Andrzej commented that the game destroyed our concept of “flow”…this has me thinking that frustration might also have “flow”. What do others say? Dutch Driver 6 February 2014 What…
Many years ago I was looking at starting up a self defence class (I was teaching JuJitsu at the time). This document was based on conversations with people who had been attacked and reading up on the topic at the time. I never did anything with it, but now that I have daughters, it is…
No really a gamification related post today, the it could pertain to the gamification community! It happens to us all at some point. Someone says something, you see something, read something, hear something – whatever – but it shakes the foundations of something you knew in your hear was correct. Until you discovered this new…
I have to admit, I have always loved text adventures and choose your own adventures. From Lancelot on the Amstrad PCW8512, to 80 Days from Inkle Studios. The way text base adventures make you imagine the world you are in, for me, is priceless! Now, rather than write a standard blog post on this, I…
One of my on-going side projects on the site is to find out more about what people find “fun”. This does not directly relate to the motivation related content on RAMP or the User Types though. It is all based on a simple question – “What do you find fun?” This is by no means…
This is a total cop-out of an article. However, I would love to hear your versions! It all came about when listening to an advert for a kids show called the Dinosaur Train, where there is a song that teaches A-Z using the names of Dinosaurs! On a side note, I will be speaking at…
I was reading an old article, on the Telegraph website, that had Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves explaining how comedy works. It was actually much more interesting that I had expected and offers valuable insights into how to apply gamification in a more engaging way. Whilst it is true that we all find different things…
Sometimes you come across stuff that you really wish you had come up with, but it is so good that shareing it is much better than trying to develop your own version! One such idea is that of MINDSPACE. In 2010 the British Government commisioned research into influencing behaviour through policy. What they produced was…
Well, the scales have shouted at me again and it is time to get in shape. I have let myself go over the last few years and my body is beginning to tell me off as well! I used to run, but always hated it. For a while I was trying to use Zombies Run!…
I wanted to add a short post just highlighting 7 things that I repeatedly see people doing wrong when they are making or considering making serious / educational games. This is by no means an exhaustive list though – I just like the idea of 7 deadly sins 😀 Assume because you think it is…
One of the really obvious things that has come out of looking into play and fun, is how resistant us grown ups are to letting go and doing things that seem, on the surface of it, to be of no value. A framework for creating play-like systems Unleash your creativity with Story Cubes Introducing Lusory…
Here is something that many who know me or know of me would be surprised to hear. Gamification is not always the answer! There, I said it. Often gamification is just a concept people have heard of and know may be of use. In these cases they will ask if it can be used as…
Emergence in Games 
If you follow me on Twitter, it is unlikely that you will have missed the fact that I love a toy called Rory’s Story Cubes.[caption align=”aligncenter” width=”500
Separating Games from Play and using it All of this research into play and talking about play has been for a reason. I wanted to try and open up the idea of making more play-like experiences rather than more game-like experiences. I was trying to introduce some of the basics that separate games and play.…
As I have been researching play, there is a term or really a word and concept that has been hard to ignore. Ludic. It comes up a lot in papers and articles about play. It comes from the Latin for play and is defined as; Showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness. Let me set the scene.…
Something that I see quite often is people making a simple but important mistake. They reward the behaviours that lead to quantity rather than quality. Let me explain. When you build a gamified campaign or activity, you need to consider what quality participation looks like. If for instance you want to create some buzz around…
A worrying trend I have noticed in gamification is people talking about making addicting experiences or applications. You hear phrases like “Addiction loops” and “Habit forming”. I am pretty sure that their intentions are good, 90% of the time. They are describing experiences that people will want to come back to again and again. The…
Continuing my investigations into play, I wanted to talk about a few things my kids have been teaching me about just letting go and giving in to the fantasy and the lack of imaginative boundaries that real play demands. It is not as easy as it would first seem either. There are lots of views…
I am still in the process of researching fun – but it has been really interesting so far. If you have no taken my quick survey – please do, it will really help me!! – Fun Survey The thing that is abundantly clear is that fun is purely subjective, what one person finds fun -…
Lately I have been thinking about play a lot. This is probably because of watching my children growing up and seeing how play changes into games as they develop. I have written about play before and it does form part of my general Game Thinking framework, but it is lumped with toys and games -…
A few days ago on the awesome Facebook group Gamification Hub – I posed the following question. Andrzej Marczewski If the word gamification was banned from all usage – what would you replace it with. I’d go with “game thinking” personally. What followed was a fantastic conversation that I felt deserved to be shared. This…
Sometimes, even the best people need to be pointed in the right direction. Signpost next actions to help smooth early stages of a journey. Use “just in time” cues to help users who are stuck. Whilst autonomy and agency are vital for deep engagement, sometimes too much freedom can be a bad thing. Whilst gamification…
Another day another framework. This time I can’t really lay claim to it though. This is my interpretation of Design Thinking – a very well know framework! I have mixed it with a few well know lenses for innovation – again, nothing new. It is presented here just as an aid for those who may…
As I read more and more about what makes a game a game, it becomes more and more clear where things with gamification can and do go wrong. I am not trying to say that gamification and games are the same thing, they are not, but they do share similar qualities. At their core, games…
Now, before you get excited – this is nothing to do with chocolate! Easter eggs in this case refer to hidden surprises and extras (just like an Easter egg hunt when you were a kid). They are aimed at people who like to explore (Free Spirits) as they reward people for just looking around and…
There has always been this common thought that if you have to work harder for something or you have to wait for it, the reward will be all the greater in your mind. Now for the most part. that is absolutely true. The anticipation of some sort of reward 1 is a massive trigger for…
To go alone with the recent update to my User Types pages, I thought it would be nice to give you a list of mechanics, elements and ideas that can be used to support each type. These are by no means all there are, but these are the ones that I chose to include with…
Now that I have redone the User Types, I wanted to run a small series of how elements from games can be used with gamification. If you remember, I look at Game Thinking rather than just gamification as a singular path to solutions. Games handle complex problems and ideas in a fantastic way. They can…
To finish off my little look at the sub-types from my User Types, I want to take a new look at the Player User Type. I have done a deep dive on this before, but I wanted to simplify it a little. Essentially the Player is motivated by rewards, plain and simple. They will do…
I was recently contacted by the guys from CaptainUp (www.captainup.com). For those that don’t know, this is a free / affordable platform for gamifying websites and until recently I had been using it for about 2 years. Then I stopped and they were interested to know why. The main reason was how intrusive it was…
I love superheroes, I make no apology for that! A while back I did a post that compared my User Types to various superheroes and super-villains.User Types Superhero ArchetypesI thought it would be fun to do the same thing for the Disruptor sub-types. It has caused me some issues…
As time passes and I learn more, I often re-evaluate my past blogs and ideas – none more-so than my User Types! Now, don’t panic, I am not about to release version 3 – the User Types Dodecagon. The purpose of this post is to just clarify my current thinking around the disruptor type, based…
Well, here we are in 2015 and I thought I would start with a heavy post, so strap in! In gamification there is often a lot of mention of things like “Neuroscience”, “Neurochemistry”, “Neurotransmitters” or “Brain Chemistry”. In particular you will hear people speak about neurotransmitters such as Dopamine. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit signals…
Well, Happy New Year everyone. 2014 was a good year for gamification, but 2015 is where we will come of age I feel. Below are a couple of top 10’s for my blog. The first is based on page views for blogs just posted in 2014. The second is based on comments for blogs in…
As many of you know, I recently took exception to a particular definition of gamification that was doing the rounds. However, the positive effect was to make me think about what it really means and also started to make me wonder what other people think of it. So, I asked them – I did a…
I love coming up with new models and frameworks, I find them really handy and hope that when I share them that others do as well. However, I am also a great believer in not reinventing the wheel! Recently I happened to see a comment from one of my favourite people on Twitter, Alice Keeler,…
Flow. A popular concept in gamification, goodness knows I have spoken about it often enough – just last week in fact. It was that article that actually made me realise that there is a distinct misunderstanding of flow as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes it. The image below is how we in gamification tend to view it,…
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…
Over the past weeks as I have been re-writing chunks of my book and preparing for various talks, I have been trying to consolidate a lot of my ideas. This has so far lead to four basic frameworks. RAMP, GAME, EEEE and User Types. There is a big infographic at the end of this post…
As I rewrite my book, I realise that there are many terms that I have been using that may not be known to non-gamification people. When I started writing it was with the intention of using plain language. Sadly, that is not always possible. So I have started to build a little glossary of terms…
Quite some time ago I released my little design framework. Well as I have been condensing my thoughts and ideas, I decided it was time to make it a little easier, so I came up with GAME. Gather Gather information by asking; What are you gamifying Why are you gamifying it Who are you gamifying…
On April the 4th, Brian Burke, via his blog announced that Gartner had changed its definition of gamification. It would be; “the use of game mechanics and experience design to digitally engage and motivate people to achieve their goals” http://blogs.gartner.com/brian_burke/2014/04/04/gartner-redefines-gamification/ At first I chuckled. This was very similar to the definition I use in my…
Leaderboards are evil. They create competition in environments that may not benefit from competition. They make more losers than winners and only engage the top 10 players on the board. Right? (out of context quotes ahoy!) Well, yes and no. In reality it is not quite as simple as that. It all comes down to…
As a gamification designer, it is easy to get hooked up on the intricacies of the system. The feedback mechanics, the game mechanics, the economy and the cleverness of it all. It is also easy to think, “this is going to be great” when you have a new idea and then spend waaay to long…