2 major lessons Apple has just taught us about loyalty

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U2 itunes 2 major lessons Apple has just taught us about loyalty

Another 6 months – another set of Apple tech announcements and pending products. Bigger phones, better software and a Watch (which I will probably speak about soon enough around what this could mean to personal gamification!).

They also gave every iTunes user a gift.

How awesome is that! Well, as it turns out not very. Apple pushed the new U2 album into everyone’s iTunes account forgetting a couple of really important things about people.

  1. They like to have a choice.
  2. They like to have things that are relevant to them.

As nice as they thought they were being, they were actually breaking the trust of their customers – pushing content on them without asking if it was ok first. Read More ...

Gamification: Pervasive User Centric Design

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A spelling mistake, auto-correct and a lack of concentration led me to researching totally the wrong thing recently.  I was looking into a blog on Persuasive design, but ended up looking at articles on Pervasive design by mistake! It triggered some ideas and things I had been thinking about a while back, so I ran with it and am glad I did.

A few years ago, I remember reading about Pervasive Games. The difference between a pervasive game and a “normal” game is that the pervasive game breaks the magic circle and integrates in some way with the players real life and world. You may remember I wrote about the magic circle a while back. This is essentially the barrier between the virtual world and the real world that most games don’t tend to cross. Read More ...

4 gamification lessons from the arcades

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When I was young, one of my absolute favourite things in the world were arcades! When ever my parents took me on holiday, I would pray that nearby would be an arcade. The lights, the sounds, the smell – everything about an arcade filled me with joy and excitement. Row upon row of cabinets fighting for my attention, adorned with intricately designed decals and pumping out sonic blasts of enticing music and sound effects.

Then there were the machines that went a step further, the ones that became a full immersive experience or even a ride! Who can forget the pitching and yawing of the Afterburner cabinet, or the skidding Outrun machine. The game that changed everything for me was the sit down Star Wars cabinet from Atari. First released in 1983, this thing of beauty gave you the chance to be Luke Skywalker piloting his X-Wing battling to destroy the Death Star. I would walk over broken glass in a vat of vinegar to own one of those! Read More ...

Indirect Incentives: Good or Bad in Gamification?

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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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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 ...

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