Gamification: Rules Rule, but Shouldn’t Rule Everything.

Rules rule Gamification Rules Rule but Shouldn 8217 t Rule Everything

Everything has rules. Life works because of rules. Rules have many names and forms. Laws of physics, algebra, logic, frameworks, instructions and more. Without rules you have chaos. That said, some scientists think even chaos has rules.

In games, rules are vital. However free and open a game may seem, there will be a deep set rules that cannot be broken. Be it the size of the map or the way physics work in the game. Minecraft is a good example. Seemingly you can do anything. However, you have to follow rules and instructions to gain that freedom. You have to mine and craft and create – all within the rules of the world around you. Read More ...

Don’t Love Games? Step Away From the Gamification

Games. I love them. Board games, card games, video games and anything else you can put the word games after. I play them, I write about them, I think about them, I dream about them and from time to time I even try my hand at making them (http://www.fuzzyd.co.uk/robbers). So what does this have to do with such a business orientated subject as Gamification. One needs to be a savy expert to be able to speak on such highbrow topics – not a games loving lout?

Well Mr suit, that’s where I think you are dead wrong. Jesse Schell in his excellent “The Art of Games Design: A Book of Lenses” asks a simple question. “Do I love my Project”. He goes on to state “If the creators of a game do not love it, the game will surely fail”. So I ask you. If you do not love games, dream about them and want to play them all day every day – how can you talk about gamification with any conviction, let alone make decisions about it’s implementation or design? As horrible as the name may be, gamification contains a key word. Gam(e). Whether you like it or not, implementing gamification is implementing at least some elements that come from games. Read More ...

Gamification: Seamless Integration

Continuing on from last week’s headline grabbing “The Death of Gamification” post, I want to talk about another aspect of gamification that should be kept simple.

Integration.

In many cases, gamification is meant to add some kind of layer of engagement to a process and possibly even fun. What it is not meant to do is add extra effort for the end user. With that in mind, how you integrate it into your tasks or processes is critical.

If a user thinks that it is too much effort to play the game, they just won’t play. It should all be as seamless as possible. Read More ...

Gamification Check-lists for Implementation

Now that you have all read my little eBook (sorry, could resist the plug) or have at least read my previous blogs, you should have an understanding of what Gamification is and why you may want it.

You will also have recently seen my post Gamification Gone Bad, which shows you a few pitfalls. The next step is to actually start to gamify stuff. First, I thought I would make you do some work and ask you a few questions.

First Phase

1. What is the exact task or process you want to gamify?

It’s all well and good saying “I want to gamify X, Y or Z”. The trouble is, what part of it do you want to gamify? If it is a single task, that’s fairly easy. If you are looking at a process as a whole, then it gets a little trickier. Most likely it is just one or two tasks that you wish to gamify to improve the engagement or motivation needed to achieve those tasks. Read More ...

Gamification gone bad

To move on I want to look at how you can easily get Gamification very wrong. When it goes bad, it goes really bad. What you think makes something entertaining and engaging can actually have the exact opposite effect. This is especially true with online learning materials, or e-learning.

Just because you add pretty graphics and you’ve added some animations doesn’t mean you’ve created a good gamified piece of e-learning. If what you’ve added actually makes it harder to complete the e-learning module then you failed. Read More ...

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