Getting Into Gamification

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Gamification bundle Getting Into Gamification

[purchase_link id=”6616″ style=”plain” color=”” text=”Buy the Bundle” direct=”true”]A question that is often asked, is “How do I get into Gamification?”

First off, don’t go my route – it was long and painful!

However, there are things I did that will help you to get into it all and get a great understanding of what gamification is all about.

  1. Get a book on gamification. I, of course, recommend my one,
    • Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play, but there are others you should check out.
    • For the Win by Kevin Werbach. This book accompanies his online course, which I will mention in a bit, but it is one of the most practical approaches to gamification design I have seen.
    • eXPlore Like A Pirate. If you are in education, I recommend Michael Matera’s great practical book.
    • On the Education note, I also recommend everything by Karl Kapp
  2. Take Kevin Werbach’s Gamification MOOC over at Coursera. It is old now but will give you a great foundation.
  3. Read a few game design books, my personal recommendations are
  4. Check out a few gamification and game design related blogs
  5. One or two other books / things to read
    • Hooked by Nir Eyal is a great introduction to some of the psychology you may need to understand in gamification.
    • Nudge from Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein is another great look at the psychology we use.
    • Self Determination Theory by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan is also extremely important to know about.
  6. Search ReasearchGate for new research on gamification
  7. Listen to the Professor Game podcast for great insights from experts.
  8. Do a search on Twitter for gamification related posts and ideas of who to follow.
  9. Talk to any experts you find. Many are more than happy to offer advice.
  10. Try things, take your time and experiment as much as you can, then tell people about it. It’s no good being an expert and just expecting people to know about it through osmosis.

I hope this helps a little.

Also, I have a special offer bundle of my Gamification Design Toolkit and printable Gamification Inspiration Cards at the moment, £15 for both (rather than £9.99 each). Get it now! Read More ...

Gamification Design Toolkit + Inspiration Card (Download) just £17

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Gamification bundle Gamification Design Toolkit Inspiration Card Download just 17

Hey there you lovely people.

The downloadable version of my cards has been very popular, so I am now officially bundling them in with the Gamification Tool Kit for £17 (rather than £20 for the two)

The downloadable version includes an 8 to an A4 page formatted set of the cards as well as all of the cards as individual PNG files (52 cards).

Now, as this essentially does me out of repeat purchases of lots of cards for people’s workshops, the price is a little higher than I would normally do, well I say high, the same as buying a single deck of the printed cards (without postage!!)) Read More ...

Learning From Games: Onboarding and Mario

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Mario 1 1 Learning From Games Onboarding and Mario

I’ve probably mentioned this in the past, but Super Mario (for me) has one of the best on-boarding experiences of any game I’ve ever played.

But let’s start at the beginning.

What’s On-boarding?

On-boarding, in this context, is the way the game introduces the player to the rules of play. It is how the game teaches you what to do, without having to rely on pages and pages of text in a manual.

Mario, designed by games design genius Shigeru Miyamoto, was one of the first games I played where the instructions consisted of only the most basic information (what button to press to do what). Read More ...

User Types HEXAD: What Links Philanthropists to Socialisers

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Hexad Evolution 2 User Types HEXAD What Links Philanthropists to Socialisers

A new paper looking to validate the User Types HEXAD Survey has just been released from the HCI Games Group (Games Institute, and Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo). You can find it here Empirical validation of the Gamification User Types Hexad scale in English and Spanish or free… http://hcigames.com/download/empirical-validation-hexad-scale/

One of the findings is something that has been noted before and is not a surprise to me, but something I realise I have never explained. The finding is that the Philanthropist and Socialiser types are very closely linked when you look into them. Read More ...

Books, Music, Advice, Return to Quality Content and Stuff

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Cover banner Books Music Advice Return to Quality Content and Stuff

Hi all.

So, I wanted to give a bit of a life update as the site has been lacking in what I would consider “quality content”. I have had to take a bit of a step back recently for various reasons. I have been writing here about gamification for since 2011 on an almost weekly basis. At some stage, you run out of ideas! I also have just finished the new book, so needed to distract myself away from gamification a little.

As such, I have been doing more music-related content on YouTube.  Every year I try to challenge myself with something new. This year it was to start doing more around guitar, a passion of mine for the past 25 years. This saw me starting up the YouTube channel and just this week releasing some music on Spotify, iTunes and Google Play. Read More ...