The RAMP to Fun

RAMP to Fun The RAMP to Fun

A while back I started talking about FUN again. In that post I mentioned the RAMP to Fun, but never actually posted it! So here it is in full PowerPoint diagram glory 😀

This is obviously based on my RAMP, but also on some research I did a long time ago on what people find fun.

The idea is that you need to include elements, mechanics and concepts that people will find fun – even if these do not look fun to you on the surface. As they all hook into core intrinsic motivators – some will find them fun! The more you can link together and embed – in a way that is sympathetic and sensible to the design, the better. Read More ...

What’s Your Biggest Gamification Challenge? (And Episode 3 of the podcast is out)

Gennfqfvw48 What 8217 s Your Biggest Gamification Challenge And Episode 3 of the podcast is out

I wanted to ask you guys what you feel your biggest challenge in gamification is? For me, it is getting folks to take gamification as an industry seriously. There are many reasons for this, a lot of which we dive into in the latest Andrzej & Roman Show (Yeah shameless plug)!

Whatever the reason for this may be, it is imperative that you overcome it quickly. I’ve told this story many times, but it is worth repeating. I once sat in a meeting where less than 5 minutes into the presentation, the client just stopped me and said “I hate everything you have said so far. We don’t play games, we are too busy” Read More ...

The Dark HEXAD – Star Wars has inspired a new HEXAD!

Dark hexad The Dark HEXAD 8211 Star Wars has inspired a new HEXAD

I was having a think about the User Type HEXAD and it occurred to me that I have never considered Star Wars and how that might fit the HEXAD! You know, as you do 😀

As I did so, I was reminded of the fact that when I started building the user types, I used to split based on whether they interacted with people or a system AND if they acted on people or the system – I.E. imposed themselves on them rather than working within them.  This got me thinking about light and dark side HEXAD types. If you have seen my DODECAD you will know that there are actually 12 types in my overall taxonomy – but I really like this idea of a Dark HEXAD! Read More ...

The Gamified UK Value Pack for ONLY £9.99

Collage The Gamified UK Value Pack for ONLY 9 99

Act Fast and Get Over £50 Worth of Gamification Content and Tools for ONLY £9.99! Become a Gamification Pro with the Ninja Monkeys Unicorn Edition eBook and Other Premium Content Included in This Bundle. Don’t Miss Out on This Incredible Offer – Start Building Your Gamified Solutions Toda

This bundle includes all of my premium content.  Even Ninja Monkeys Unicorn Edition eBook (which contains some content, not in the normal retail versions), Gamification and Solution Design Lenses, Inspiration Cards and my Gamification Framework Design Toolkit Read More ...

I was wrong: A definition of gamification that should make sense to everyone!

Gamification 2022 taller I was wrong A definition of gamification that should make sense to everyone

I was wrong… for many years in fact. So, here I am again, banging on about definitions. I have been here before, but usually trying to push through the idea of a more academic and “correct” definition of gamification. However, over the years I have realised that this is not much use to most people! I have banged my head against more tables and brick walls that I would care to mention trying to get people to understand “no, it’s not about games…. Well it could be… urm…”

This comes down to the fact that in the non-academic world, the word gamification, or gamify sits in a series of words that essentially mean to become more of something, or to become it!

Take the word beautify as an example. The Oxford dictionary defines that simply as  “make beautiful”. Whilst we are thinking of the word simply, it also defines simplify as “make simple”.

So, it stands to reason that the layperson would look at the word gamify and assume it means “make gameful” or just “make game-like” (as gameful isn’t really in common language still). And, as we are looking at this from the layperson perspective – I’m throwing in the word game as well, not just game-like!

If we go on to define the noun version of beautify,  beautification, we would use something like  “the process of making something more beautiful”. We don’t see anyone defining it as “the process of using elements of beauty in non-beauty contexts”!

In the same way, the definition of gamification should be “the process of making something a game or more game-like”.

And this is where the issue lies for most people, especially those outside of the academic world. The definition of a word is pretty direct and simple, it does what it says. It doesn’t contain caveats or descriptions of what is not included, it is just what the word is, means or does.

You can add the how and the why, but that might change in different contexts. For instance, we could talk about the beautification of urban areas.

Beautification of urban areas: the process of making urban areas more beautiful to improve the aesthetic qualities for those who live there by adding parks and green land.

In the same way, you could say

Gamification of learning materials: the process of making learning materials into a game or  more game-like to improve users experience, participation and completion rates by using the materials in a scenario-based simulations, with deep gameplay as well as progress markers such as points and badges”

The point of all of this nonsense is that my big takeaway after 10 years of trying to explain gamification is that most people just assume the word is defined the same way other words that end in “ify” and “ification” are, not caveated and twisted to exclude the main item they think it refers to! They don’t care that strictly speaking it should not include full games and points and badges are too simple to be part of it and…  blah blah blah.

So from now on, accepting that I have spent 10 years probably hammering home something considered wrong to the majority of non-experts in the world, I am using the following…

“Gamify (verb): make a game or game-like”

“Gamification (noun): the process of making something a game or game-like”

I use “something” here rather than ” an experience, service, system, UI, turnip etc” because I am trying to keep it as simple as clients want it to be. We can add context and methods after they understand this.

What game-like may contain could be up for discussion, but as far as most clients are concerned, it absolutely covers everything from adding points and a leaderboard all the way up to making a full game – so it should mean that to us as practitioners if we ever want to get over the massive speed bump which is still the word Gamification!

Don’t get me wrong, from an academic perspective and from a practitioner to practitioner perspective there are still 50 shades of gamification and game based solution design to talk about. However, we are in the business of solving problems, not creating them because we feel that serious games and gamification are different and should not be spoken about in the same breath, or that we should correct the prospective client for their lack of understanding!