Learning From Games: Battlefield 1, RAMP, User Types and Awesome Gaming

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Gamified battlefiled1 Learning From Games Battlefield 1 RAMP User Types and Awesome Gaming

Over Christmas, I started to play Battlefield 1, a game that I was especially looking forward to given my love of the series. I’ve not had as much time to play video games as I would have liked over the last 12 months, so I’ve been making the most of this opportunity. I may even review it for my old and neglected games review site http://yetanotherreviewsite.co.uk!

Anyway, back on topic. I’ve always loved the series because of how good the multiplayer experience is. Back when Battlefield 1942 first came out it broke the mould by not even bothering with a single player game, a brave and clever move as it turned out. It also put a much tighter focus on teamwork with its “Conquest” mode. This saw teams holding key strategic points on the map for as long as possible. Achieving this required good balance of character classes and a level of teamwork beyond just rushing off and killing things. Read More ...

2016 Roundup

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2016 2016 Roundup

It’s that time of year again! The end of year round up. Quite a lot of blogs this year, though a little slower at the end 😉

It has been a mixed year for me. It was my first full year of working in gamification, for better or worse! I’m very happy where I am though so all good. I’ve spoken about everything from the future to how I shave since the start of the year.

A massive highlight was getting the Contribution to the Industry award at Gamification World Congress, which was a huge honour! Read More ...

Leaderboards: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

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Leaderboard Leaderboards The Good The Bad and The Ugly

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 to be there so are motivated to improve”.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? Instant engagement. DO well, feel special. Do badly, be motivated to do better. In some cases, this is can be the case. In sports, it is a way of knowing where a team is in the league and how many points they need to improve by. In space invaders it was a way to create a more social or even personal challenge in the game, helping to create that “one more go” feeling. If I have one more go, I know I can be better than AAA or myself. Read More ...

The Mercenary User Type

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Mercenary 1481724604 The Mercenary User Type

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 for not very nice reasons! However, there was an issue. Disruptors are self-motivated, they are not there for reward as much as recognition or just plain mastery and enjoyment. So using points and prizes to coerce a disruptor behaviour actually sits more in line with the Consumer type in the Player section of the Hexad. Read More ...

Exploring the Meta-Rules of Play

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Meta rules Exploring the Meta Rules of Play

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 change moment by moment. These are the rules that define how play unfolds. These are the unspoken rules that children manage to communicate to each other when they are playing, where the situation is constantly changing, but they always seem to be able to adapt to the changes without fuss Read More ...