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Gamification: you got to play to win
A lovely chat with some new friends brought about an interesting thought. Can you really write games or gamify things if you don't play games?
I have rambled at length about my views on gamification. I have explained what I think the basics of game theory boil down to. A task with some kind of reward or incentive offered for completion.
Should we be talking about Rewardification and Gamification?
I have written a little about Gamification. I love the concept and have just been doing a little bit of it on my website - www.yars.co.uk. I have implemented very simple ideas like Achievements and Experience points for participation. I talk to many people about such things and they often come back with the same comments. Where is the game in that? Is that not just
Whilst Innovation may not be Dead, where is the Courage in the Games Industry?
People often ask where the innovation has gone in the games industry. I have been guilty of it on the past. In fact, this article was going to be titled with that exact question.
However, the more I drafted the piece and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that innovation is still alive and kicking in our industry, albeit sometimes quietly. What is missing now is courage.
When I first really got into games, everything seemed innovative. People were really beginning to understand what games could be. This was back in the Days of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.
If anyone can set up a website and review games, is the traditional games press doomed?
The Internet is saturated with sites and blogs that publish games news and reviews at a phenomenal rate. Within seconds of press releases being sent out, they appear on the Internet in a dozen different ways. Technologies such as Twitter and Facebook allow us to release snippets of information without even needing to write a full article. Games reviews get published on the Internet days, weeks or sometimes months before the traditional printed press have a chance to release theirs.
I spoke to one very unhappy staff writer recently, who was complaining that he needed to have reviews written for a magazine that was to be published in 2 months time. He could not convince his editor that it would be pointless releasing reviews of games 2 whole months after everybody else.