motivation

Don’t Love Games? Step Away From the Gamification

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New dice Don 8217 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 ...

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Gamification: Seamless Integration

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1378640 lips 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 ...

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Gamification Check-lists for Implementation

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1280927 ticked checkbox 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 ...

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Gamification gone bad

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1269461 colored puzzle 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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Gamification: Why Aren’t Badges Enough?

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Gamification Gamification Why Aren 8217 t Badges Enough

Recently I wrote a piece about the fact there was more to gamification than just trophies, but I never really explained why. A few people have asked, so I thought I would have a go at explaining.

Just Because You Build It, Doesn’t Mean They Will Come

The first reason is simple, but one that I never really thought of until I started using them on my site. For trophies and the like to actually start to work – you need the people you wish to keep engaged to actually be registered with you. When you are in a company and are using it on an intranet, that is simple, as they all have to be registered to use it. However, when you are trying to use it on your website or blog, it is not quite the same. Very few people will register just for the chance to earn badges on your site! So here it goes back to the same old thing, content. If the content is good and there is some reason to join (comments, ability to add reviews, competitions etc.) then you can use badges to help to keep people engaged. On Yet Another Review Site I use them to encourage a little competitions between the editors and the reviewers. Experience points, badges and public monthly leader boards are all used to help encourage them to do more on the site. Read More ...

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