motivation

The Original Gamified Social Networks – History Teaches us about Gamificaiton

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1215912 73521777 The Original Gamified Social Networks 8211 History Teaches us about Gamificaiton

Seeing the news that Badgeville was to gamify social networks got me thinking about the old days. Social networks are nothing new. Back in “the day”, we all used to use forums (and bulletin boards before that) and chat rooms to be social online. Forums tended to focus on specific topics, with chat rooms just a real time free for all. What got me thinking though was realising that a lot of these used to include elements of Gamification, forums especially.

There was this stuff called kudos or Kama. When you said something of interest or that was helpful, users could reward you with these – a bit like when someone likes you on Facebook or +1 ‘s you on Google+. Kama and time served would also very often go towards some sort of rank on the forum. Higher rank and Kama signified a user you could trust and who was useful or interesting on the forums. Read More ...

Playfulness, Seriousness and Gamification

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1197684 36768950 Playfulness Seriousness and Gamification

People want gamification to mean certain things to them. They want to take the word and try to bend into whatever they think will sell their next big idea to someone. This tends to lead to people arguing about what it actually is and what constitutes a gamified product. Two such ideas seem to be Playful design and Serious games. Some think that they are gamification, others that they have no place near the word. Personally, I think we should stop trying so hard to define a made up word and just start learning what we can from the people who use it! Read More ...

Gamification The Next Generation: Introduce, Engage, Retain

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Gamification Gamification The Next Generation Introduce Engage Retain

The stages of brand engagement

I have been thinking about the stages that a person goes through when becoming “involved” with brands or any system that is being gamified. I may be wrong, there may be more too it. However, as I see it there are three distinct phases. Introduction to the brand (or whatever). Engagement with the brand. Finally retention / loyalty to the brand.

Within gamification, many people talk about the introduction phase, as I see it. Rewards, badges, points and the like. These all help introduce people to the gamified system. For a short period of time, rewards can entertain people and introduce them to certain concepts to do with the brand. We know that this works, but has a short shelf-life if used in solitude. However when trying to nurture brand loyalty, you are not interested in short periods of time. Read More ...

GSummit,Bubbles, Badges and the Future

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1381916 89731304 GSummit Bubbles Badges and the Future

I have been catching up on the events of GSummit over the weekend. I was very heartened to hear so many people talking about moving beyond badges and xp systems. They were looking for the next phase of engagement. You just need to look at FourSquare recently ditching its gamified elements to see that we are hitting the first big dip in user interest in this kind of thing.

However, there were still quite a few talking about promoting engagement with the use of simple badging / xp systems. I must admit, at first I was a little confused. Then I realised that I was totally missing the context that these ideas were being discussed in. Read More ...

Gamification: Why Badges can be Bad – Really Bad

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487145 79884958 Gamification Why Badges can be Bad 8211 Really Bad

Last week I got to go to the Digital Shoreditch Play event. It was a wonderful day, listening to games developers, designers, experts and Gamification gurus all with amazing tales to tell from the coal face of the industry.

The audience there were of similar calibre , most being experts in their respective fields. It was talking to a few of these people that really got me thinking. You see, within certain circles, Gamification is almost a swear word. After a little digging I discovered what the real issue was. You see I thought it was some kind of clique that was in place. “Games are ours, business can’t have them”. But actually it was more than that. It was born of a deeper understanding of the psychology of what is know as “extrinsic rewards for intrinsic motivation”. Their objection was not to the use of gamification, but to the generalized poorly conceived usage that is being used and promoted by many. Read More ...