engagement

Mary Poppins was full of crap

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MP151 Mary Poppins was full of crap

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) , Mary Poppins:

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and ‘snap’, the job’s a game.

This is where I cry “Bullshit!”

At the point she is singing this, she is trying to convince the miserable children she is looking after to do some tidying. Rather than creating a game of the chore, she uses magic to make stuff fly around and put themselves away. Read More ...

Engagement – What are we talking about?

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10309649 10153344097952619 1236186563670714891 n Engagement 8211 What are we talking about

Engagement. A word that is thrown about in gamification with all the abandon of a child dancing and singing to Frozen…

The thing is, what exactly are we talking about? What is engagement.

As ever, I took to the dictionaries to see what the word on the street is. Looking up engagement is a fruitless task as you get such gems as

A formal agreement to get married

And

The action of engaging or being engaged

However, looking up engage is a far more satisfying experience.

[with object] Occupy or attract (someone’s interest or attention) Read More ...

Thin Layer vs Deep Level Gamification

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Thin vs deep gamification 1 Thin Layer vs Deep Level Gamification

With it nearly being Christmas, I thought I would put out one more blog post before the traditional years round up!

This time I want to look at a concept I have been talking about for a while, but have never really explained properly. Thin Layer and Deep Level gamification.

Thin Layer Gamification

This covers things that are added to the “top” of a system. Points, badges, game like interface components. This type is less about engagement as it is about entertainment, but has its place as I explained last week. Read More ...

Teams and Competitive play.

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Cod blackopsii Teams and Competitive play

Last week there was no post from me. The reason was that I was working on rebuilding my games review site (www.yetanotherreviewsite.co.uk). Take a look, you may like it!!

Anyway, it got me thinking, as I looked over the games we have reviewed over the years. What do people like playing? Obviously the answer is – All sorts! However, it made me consider the nature of competition in games and especially gamificaiton.

The general rule of thumb is competition between people is bad mojo for gamification. It leads to bad feeling, lack of engagement, people at the bottom of leaderboards feeling less important than those at the top etc.  However, we keep using it – even though we know all of this! Often this is because we know that it will cater to at least some of the people (for instance I am using Captain Up leaderboards etc for gamifying this site).  I know it won’t appeal to everyone, but with luck it will amuse some. Read More ...

Game Mechanics in Gamification

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Gamified like motivators and supporters Game Mechanics in Gamification

This is a long post for me, so get a cup of tea now!

One of the main things that I have found whilst research and writing about Gamification, is that the terms and the language we use don’t always seem to fit what were actually doing. As gamification matures, so to should the language that we use to discuss it. One term that seems to get particularly abused, which we have borrowed from game design, is Game Mechanics. This all came from various discussions I had been having with people in the games industry.  All of them told me that they felt that most people in gamification are getting this (and more) wrong. Read More ...