Gamification of Driving

It has been a while since the last post ...

Returning back to the main theme of the latest posts, gamification, here is a field with high potential to apply the concept of gamification: driving, from the driving lessons to the behaviors of licensed drivers.

Who will care about this? Obviously, those concerned with driving teaching, the driving schools, and also insurance companies. This is where concepts like UBI (Usage-based Insurance) or PAYD (Pay as You Drive) can cross paths with gamification.

As found in Wikipedia, "gamification of the data encourages good driver behavior by comparison with other drivers".

And there is already a platform to do this: Himex. And some insurance companies are using it.

This platform needs additional hardware in the vehicle to gather data about drivers' behaviors. Then, by applying gamification techniques, the platform can give the driver (the player) feedback about how she or he is driving by looking to the journeys made in a virtual map.

The video below is a presentation of the Himex UBI Platform:

The aproach to gather the players data (using external devices) is one the four approaches to monitor and collect the data in a gamified system (see this older post):

Using some external device: in this kind of gamified systems, a smartphone or another specific device or gadget is used to keep track of what the player is does in a given activity context. The device synchronizes with a website to upload the collected data and the player is rewarded with the usual points and badges, compare with other players or share achievements with friends. The best cited example of this kind of systems is Nike+. By using a smartphone, a specific watch, an iPod or other Nike devices, players can track sports activities like running. Similar examples, using their own devices, are Fitbit and Zamzee, the last one targeting a younger audience. Another interesting and funny example is HAPPIfork, an electronic fork that monitors eating habits.

Gartner Hype Cycle 2014: Gamification on the Through of Disillusionment

Gartner recently released their 2014 Hype Cycle for emerging technologies. Gamification is mentioned, as in the previous editions of 2013, 2012 and 2011 (gamification was not in the 2010 edition). 

Gamification in the 2014 Gartner Hype Cycle

See A Brief History of Gamification: Part VI- The Predictions, to watch the evolution of gamification in the hype cycle since 2011.

Evolution of Gamification in the Gartner Hype Cycle

As expected, gamification is now on the "Through of Disillusionment", with a prediction to reach the "Plateau of Productivity" in two to five years. As Mario Herger puts, this is not a "bad thing":

Here [the "Through of Disillusionment"] we have realized that it is ‘just a technology’ with good qualities which has promising opportunities but turned out not the be the solution for everything. Technologies in this state are often regarded with a lot of criticism (‘’see, told you that it wouldn’t work”) until the real proper application is found and it fights its way back up the slope of enlightenment onwards to a plateau of productivity.

So, gamification seems to be on its journey to become an effective technology. It is expected that in two years it might be in the "Slope of Enlightenment".

See also Gartner Hype Cycle: Gamification and Big Data in 2012 and 2013.

EuProf: Uma Solução para Professores

Está em fase de lançamento e pré-registo, a plataforma EuProf, uma nova plataforma web, centrada no professor e para o professor, em português.

Porque o professor é um profissional especial e existe para além da instituição onde leciona hoje.

Porque precisa focar-se no importante, ensinar, suportado por uma infraestrutura sólida que suporte a sua atividade complexa.

A plataforma assenta em quatro pilares fundamentais:

• Preparar e Organizar

• Gerir o dia a dia

• Analisar e Avaliar

• Reaproveitar
  

 

O pré registo, com acesso a condições especiais, pode ser feito até 31 de agosto. Para já, está apenas disponível o site associado à plataforma. A plataforma em si está prevista para ser lançada em setembro.

Ver também: https://www.facebook.com/euprof

(declaração de interesses: sou consultor e parceiro do projeto)

Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2013

A bit late but now fully available: Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2013 are now online and can be used as Open Resources under CC-Licence.

The 4th PLE Conference focused on the theme of “Learning and Diversity in the Cities of the Future”, among others addressing the issue of smart cities, one of the key research priorities worldwide and the strategic direction of Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin.

Papers on "PLE and Gamification":

Using Gamification to Improve Participation in 
a Social Learning Environment


Jorge Simões, Rebeca Redondo, Ana Vilas, Ademar Aguiar

Gamifying Quantified Self Approaches for Learning:
 An Experiment with the Live Interest Meter


Benedikt S. Morschheuser, Verónica Rivera-Pelayo, Athanasios Mazarakis, Valentin Zacharias

Decentralized badges in educational contexts: the
 integration of Open Badges in SAPO Campus


Carlos Santos, Luís Pedro, Sara Almeida & Mónica Aresta

Social badges dynamics in institutional supported
 platforms


Carlos Santos, Luís Pedro, Sara Almeida, Mónica Aresta

New Book: Rethinking Gamification

A message sent by Sebastian Deterding to the Gamification Research Network:

The Gamification Lab and the Hybrid Publishing Lab of Leuphana University just released a nice Creative Commons-licensed edited collection of contributions that are “Rethinking Gamification“. The PDF is freely available online, the print version will follow soon.

About

Gamification marks a major change to everyday life. It describes the permeation of economic, political, and social contexts by game-elements such as awards, rule structures, and interfaces that are inspired by video games. Sometimes the term is reduced to the implementation of points, badges, and leaderboards as incentives and motivations to be productive. Sometimes it is envisioned as a universal remedy to deeply transform society toward more humane and playful ends. Despite its use by corporations to manage brand communities and personnel, however, gamification is more than just a marketing buzzword. States are beginning to use it as a new tool for governing populations more effectively. It promises to fix what is wrong with reality by making every single one of us fitter, happier, and healthier. Indeed, it seems like all of society is up for being transformed into one massive game.The contributions in this book offer a candid assessment of the gamification hype. They trace back the historical roots of the phenomenon and explore novel design practices and methods. They critically discuss its social implications and even present artistic tactics for resistance. It is time to rethink gamification!

Contents

Introduction

Resetting Behaviour

• Niklas Schrape: Gamification and Governmentality
• Paolo Ruffino: From Engagement to Life, or: How to Do Things with Gamification?
• Maxwell Foxman: How to Win Foursquare: Body and Space in a Gamified World
• Joost Raessens: The Ludification of Culture

Replaying History

• Mathias Fuchs: Predigital Precursors of Gamification
• Felix Raczkowski: Making Points the Point: Towards a History of Ideas of Gamification

Reframing Context

• Fabrizio Poltronieri: Communicology, Apparatus, and Post-History: Vilém Flusser’s Concepts Applied to Videogames and Gamification
• Thibault Philippette: Gamification: Rethinking ‘Playing the Game’ with Jacques Henriot
• Gabriele Ferri: To Play Against: Describing Competition in Gamification

Reclaiming Opposition

• Daphne Dragona: Counter-Gamification: Emerging Tactics and Practices Against the Rule of Numbers
• Matthew Tiessen: Gamed Agencies: Affectively Modulating our Screen and App-Driven Digital Futures

Remodelling Design

• Sonia Fizek: Why Fun Matters: In Search of Emergent Playful Experiences
• Scott Nicholson: Exploring the Endgame of GamificationSebastian Deterding: Eudaimonic Design, or: Six Invitations to Rethink Gamification

 

 

Slides "From Games to Gamification"

Slides of the lecture held in June 18, 2014, in a session of student projects presentation of the course Computer Games Development of the MSc in Informatics and Computing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto.

Palestra MIEIC Junho 2014 from Jorge Simões

A Brief History of Gamification: Part VII - The Definitions (Again and Again)

The debate about what the definition for gamification should be is far from being over. After the definition from Brian Burke and Gartner  (see A Brief History of Gamification: Part V - The Definitions (Again) ), more definitions saw the light of day:

Andrzej Marczewski publish in his blog the post Defining gamification – what do people really think? where he presents an "average definition" for gamification: creating more game-like experiences in non game contexts. He points that this definition "does not include anything about why or how, just what it is". His proposal results from an average of a list of other definitions (some from  gamification gurus), looking at the most common concepts present. He concludes by saying "we are all trying to make more engaging experiences for people using ideas that games have been using forever".

A different approach is proposed by Rajat Paharia, the founder of Bunchball, in A New Day for Gamification, or Is It? For him, gamification is motivating people through data. He comments on Burke's definition stressing that it could be enhanced with less emphasis on game language, avoiding the use of terms like "players". For Paharia, gamification is not about games and not about play. He even quotes Brian Burke about gamification not being about fun. In short, Rajat Paharia's view of gamification is very enterprise and business related and gamification is more than that.

Finally, and recently, Kevin Werbach, the man behind the well-known MOOC on gamification, has a paper ((Re)Defining Gamification: A Process Approach) discussing and explaining his new definition: the process of making activities more game-like. The main change here is the notion of gamification as a process. In Werbach's view, his definition "creates a better fit between academic and practitioner perspectives". Most definitions rely on the use of game elements, in what he calls the elemental definitions, Using game elements in non-game contexts is not the same as transforming that context into something more game-like. To do that, a process is needed. The process can transform the activities to be more or less game-like. Therefore, the frontier between gamified and non-gamified settings is wider. He points that in education, the fact that a point system is used (the grades), it is  not possible to say that school activities (e.g. examinations) are gamified. At least, it means that education is a good non-game context that can be gamified as others mentioned (e.g. Lee and Hammer's Gamification in Education: What, How, Why Bother?). Werbach's definition is also aligned with the "average" definition from Marczewski.

Could the new Kevin Werbach's definition replace the widely used definition from Deterding et al., the use of game design elements in non-game contexts?

Some final remarks about what is gamification:

• It is not the same as games, but it is about games. If it is not about games, why call it gamification in the first place? If it is about games, the users of gamified applications can be called players, to highlight the idea, but this is probably not very important.

• Is is not clearly just about digital engagement. Is is about engagement, regardless of the medium, with a digital or non-digital approach. But digital tools can be very helpful.

• It is not about play, but it must feel as play, and it must be fun (how to define fun, anyway?). The importance of fun is the reason of the concept's name, the fun part of games, that lead to gamification.

• Data plays a central role in a gamification process because it drives the relation between the gamified application and the players. Again, digital tools can be very helpful.

• And it has a clear purpose: motivate people to change their behaviors and feelings about something that is not a game and is perceived as boring, unchallenging or without value. Making the thing (some activity in a non-game context) more game-like, by using what games have that can be used outside games, can engage people and motivate them to act properly regarding the thing's objectives.

All these definitions make their contributions: Burke with the focus on motivation and engagement as the purpose of gamification, Paharia with the focus on data and Werbach and Marczewski with the focus on the process of creating game-like experiences.

See also these other posts about the history of gamification:

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin
A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name
A Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions
A Brief History of Gamification: Part IV - The Evolution
A Brief History of Gamification: Part V - The Definitions (Again)
A Brief History of Gamification: Part VI - The Predictions

What is Gamification? A Short Whiteboard Video, Posted by Karl Kapp

A video with a definition for gamification, the origin of gamification and some predictions by Karl Kapp (published in this post). The definition is applied to learning and instruction and is based on the same ideas of the latest Karl Kapp's book on the subject (see this other post). The differences between gamification, learning games and simulations are also presented.

The video includes also Kapp's notions of structural gamification and content gamification:

• Structural gamification: the application of game elements to propel a learner through content with no alterations or changes to that content, only the structure around the content. 

• Content gamification: the application of game elements, game mechanics and game thinking to alter content to make the content more game like.
  

See also these posts about the history of gamification:

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin
A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name
A Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions
A Brief History of Gamification: Part IV - The Evolution
A Brief History of Gamification: Part V - The Definitions (Again)
A Brief History of Gamification: Part VI - The Predictions
 

A Brief History of Gamification: Part VI - The Predictions

Since gamification, as a new buzzword and a popular term in digital media, hit the mainstream, several advisory and research companies, consulting firms and others start to draw some forecasts about the future of gamification. Most of them use the concept in marketing and enterprise perspective and state how gamification will impact business.

Gartner

Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company, stated that

• In 2014 most companies will have at least one gamified application.

• In 2014, a gamified service for consumer goods marketing and customer retention will become as important as Facebook, eBay or Amazon, and more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application.

• By 2014, 80% of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives primarily due to poor design;

• By 2015, more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes (in Gartner Gamification Report 2011);

• In 2015, 70% of the world’s largest enterprises will be using gamification (in Gartner Gamification Report 2011).

Since 2011, Gartner added gamification to its “hype cycle for emergent technologies”, pointing for a period of 5 to 10 years for mainstream adoption. Before 2011, gamification was not yet part of the cycle (see the 2010 Hype Cycle).

Gartner uses hype cycles to track technology adoption: after the “peak of inflated expectaions” pe- riod, technologies will fall into the “trough of disillusionment”. Then, they will start evolving to the “slope of enlightenment” and some of them will reach the “plateau of productivity”. By 2013, gamification was at the “peak of inflated expectations”.

"We think it is still on track (...) In our 2013 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, we place gamification at the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’. We continue to believe it will move into the ‘Trough of Disillusionment’ in 2014." (Brian Burke, Gartner's research vice president).

M2 Research

In 2011, M2 forecast that the gamification market would reach $242 million by the end of 2012 and that he global market for gamification apps and services will grow to $2.8 billion by 2016.

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank predicts the market size of gamification to $4.2-5.3 billion within the enterprise space only (source).


Markets and Markets

M&M, a market research company and consulting firm, predicted that the gamification market is estimated to grow from $ 421.3 million in 2013 to $5.502 billion in 2018.

IEEE

The IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, said last February, that their members anticipate that 85 percent of our lives will have an integrated concept of gaming in the next six years. While video games are seen mainly for their entertainment value in today’s society, industries like healthcare, business and education will be integrating gaming elements into standard tasks and activities, making us all gamers (source).

They did not say how they get this insight from their members.


Pew Research Center and Elon University

A May 2012 Pew Research Center and Elon University survey of more than 1,000 Internet experts and users showed that they were about evenly split on gamification’s future: 53% believed it would become widespread with some limits, while 42% said it would not transform into a larger trend except in specific situations (source). 

The experts answered the question: Will the use of gamification, game mechanics, feedback loops, and rewards to spur interaction and boost engagement, buy-in, loyalty, fun, and/or learning continue to gain ground and be implemented in many new ways in people’s digital lives between now and 2020? (source)

Other predictions for 2014:

No longer just hype, gamification will emerge as a powerful engagement tool to increase customer loyalty and conversions. Major global corporations from Oracle to American Express are already diving head first into gamification, with Oracle gamifying their annual Open World conference in late 2013, and American Express betting big on gamification for customer engagement and employee compliance. Businesses are understanding that gamification is much more than “PBL” points-badges-leaderboards, and instead a powerful program which requires nurturing over time to continue increasing relevant and high-value user behavior, and ultimately long-term engagement (source).

Concerning education and e-learning, there are also some forecasts: Gamification is all set to pick up speed in 2014. The concepts of Game-based Learning (GBL) and Gamification will gain acceptance as valid learning strategies.

The report The Future of Gamification from the Pew Research Center and Elon University also stated that some scholars and educators, too, have become interested in harnessing the potential of gaming mechanics and sensibilities as tools for advancing learning. A “serious gaming” movement has arisen to apply gaming techniques to such realms as military and corporate and first-responder training programs, civilization and environmental ecology simulations, K-12 educational programs on subjects like math and history and the sciences, news events and public policy campaigns, problem-solving strategies in the natural sciences, and even physical exercise programs. 

The Horizon Report 2014 - Higher Education Edition points to a two to three years time-to-adoption horizon for the adoption of gamification in the higher education field: While a growing number of educational institutions and programs are experimenting with game-play, there has also been increased attention surrounding gamification — the integration of gaming elements, mechanics, and frameworks into non-game situations and scenarios. Businesses have embraced gamification as a way to design incentive programs that engage employees through rewards, leader boards, and badges, often with a mobile component. Although more nascent than in military or industry settings, the gamification of education is gaining support among educators who recognize that effectively designed games can stimulate large gains in productivity and creativity among learners."

Accurate or not, these predictions brought new highlights for gamification that become a new trend, not only in business, but in many other areas, like education and training. We are in the middle of 2014. Let's wait and see if the 2014 forecasts are accurate.

To end, some stats from 2013.


This is the sixth post of the series A Brief History of Gamification. See also,

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin
A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name
A Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions
A Brief History of Gamification: Part IV - The Evolution
A Brief History of Gamification: Part V - The Definitions (Again)

Comments are welcomed!

Statistics for the 2014 Coursera Gamification MOOC

Professor Kevin Werbach released a video with some statistics for the 2014 edition of his Coursera Gamification MOOC that ended in April. These courses were already mentioned before in this blog (A Brief History of Gamification: Part IV - The Evolution):

Also with an increasing number of scholars and professionals becoming interested in the concept, along with the general public, the online learning platform Coursera launched in August 2012, a MOOC on gamification, lectured by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor from the University of Pennsylvania. The course had more than 80.000 registered students with further editions in 2013 (with 66.000 students) and January 2014 (with 78.000 registrations). After the first edition of the course, Werbach co-authored the book For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business.

The video seems to be only available for those who registered in the course. Here are some of the main statistics:

A big number of registrations but only a small percentage actually concluded the courses successfully. Still, a great number (around 4500 students).

And the final remarks:

"Gamification is still a new field and MOOCs are still a new form of learning."

CHI PLAY 2014: Call for Participation

CHI PLAY is a new international and interdisciplinary conference (by ACM SIGCHI) for researchers and professionals across all areas of play, games and human-computer interaction (HCI). We call this area "player-computer interaction". 

The goal of the conference is to highlight and foster discussion of current high quality research in games and HCI as foundations for the future of digital play. To the end, the conference will feature streams that blend academic research and games with research papers, interactive demos, and industry case studies.

CHI PLAY grew out of the increasing work around games and play emerging from the ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) as well as smaller conferences such as Fun and Games and Gamification. CHI PLAY is sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI).

Important Dates (Submission Deadlines):

• May 18, 2014: Full papers (talks/demos/videos) and workshops
• June 26, 2014 Student competition, courses and tutorials, panels, doctoral consortium, industry case studies and works-in-progress

Themes:

• Game Interaction
• Novel Game Control
• Novel Implementation Techniques that Affect Player Experience
• Evaluation of Feedback and Display Technologies for Games
• Gamification
• Neurogaming
• Persuasive Games
• Games for Health, Learning and Change
• Exertion Games
• Player Experience
• Virtual and Augmented Reality Games
• Games User Research
• Game Evaluation Methods
• Psychology of Players and Games
• Player Typologies
• Accessible and Inclusive Game Design
• Novel Game Mechanics Impacting Player Experience
• Casual Game Design Studies
• Social Game Experiences
• Serious Games
• Alternate Reality GamesTools for Game Creation
• Developer Experiences and Studies of Developers
• Industry Case Studies

EUTIC - European and interdisciplinary research network on issues and uses of information and communication technologies is pleased to announce its X Symposium - The role of ICT in the design of informational and cognitive processes, to be held in October 22-24, 2014, at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal. 

Themes:

• Scenarios for digital learning;

• Information and communication science and technology;

• Political and institutional communication;

• Publishing and dissemination of information;

• Culture promotion and heritage preservation;

• Management and organisational strategies in the professional world;  

• Employment and social inclusion;

• Environmental protection and nature conservation.

Important Dates:

• Call for papers - 7th March 2014 (extended to 12th May 2014)
• EUTIC 2014 LISBON - 22, 23, 24th October 2014

 

CSEDU 2015: Call for Papers

CSEDU 2015, the International Conference on Computer Supported Education, aims at becoming a yearly meeting place for presenting and discussing new educational environments, best practices and case studies on innovative technology-based learning strategies, institutional policies on computer supported education including open and distance education, using computers. In particular, the Web is currently a preferred medium for distance learning and the learning practice in this context is usually referred to as e-learning. CSEDU 2014 is expected to give an overview of the state of the art as well as upcoming trends, and to promote discussion about the pedagogical potential of new learning and educational technologies in the academic and corporate world.

Conference Areas:

• Information Technologies Supporting Learning 
• Learning/Teaching Methodologies and Assessment 
• Social Context and Learning Environments 
• Domain Applications and Case Studies 
• Ubiquitous Learning

Upcoming Deadlines:

• Regular Paper Submission: December 16, 2014
• Regular Paper Authors Notification: March 11, 2015
• Regular Paper Camera Ready and Registration: March 25, 2015

Vote for the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2014

Vote for the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2014 until Friday 26 September 2014. The list will be revealed on Monday, 29 September 2014. It is possible to vote through the c4lpt website or by tweeting to @C4LPT. Voters much choose 10 tools for learning.

My vote in 2013 and my vote for 2014:

Small differences regarding the choices in 2013. I still vote for Classdojo, the only gamified tool in my list.

Last year's list is available at The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2013 (#1 Twitter, #2 Google Drive, #3 Youtube). 

A Brief History of Gamification: Part V - The Definitions (Again)

This is not exactly history (yet) but the discussion about the recent proposal for a gamification definition proposed by Brian Burke, a research analyst at Gartner, brings new issues that will help to understand the concept of gamification and, therefore, will probably be part of its history.

This is what Brian Burke and Gartner propose:

Gamification is “the use of game mechanics and experience design to digitally engage and motivate people to achieve their goals”

They care to explain in detail the components of their proposal:

• Game mechanics describes the use of elements such as points, badges and leaderboards that are common to many games.

• Experience design describes the journey players take with elements such as game play, play space and story line.

• Gamification is a method to digitally engage, rather than personally engage, meaning that players interact with computers, smartphones, wearable monitors or other digital devices, rather than engaging with a person.

• The goal of gamification is to motivate people to change behaviors or develop skills, or to drive innovation.

• Gamification focuses on enabling players to achieve their goals. When organizational goals are aligned with player goals, the organization achieves its goals as a consequence of players achieving their goals.

Concerning game elements, not much to say. The examples given are the usual game elements found in gamified applications. Calling them game mechanics or game elements is another issue. I prefer the term "game elements". "Mechanics", in my view, are related to the rules that govern the use of the elements, how are they related and how they can motivate people to achieve their goals.

Experience design is, to my knowledge, a new term in the gamification universe. I believe it is related to the player journey (see this post). In the explanation there is a connection to play, which is a central component in gamification.

A major issue concerning the definition, that raises most of the discussion, is about "digitally engage". In this definition, gamification can only be applied in a digital context. That is not the view of many gamification researchers and practitioners (or gamification gurus). In fact, the concept can be used in any context, digital or non-digital. Digital technologies can help by providing the platforms to assist the implementation of the concept in a non-digital context, but that is not mandatory. See this post about the different application contexts of gamification.

The last part of the definition, motivate people to achieve their goals, is interesting since it focus on the players (the people with goals to be achieved) and not on the organizational goals (that must be aligned with the players' goals). But, in many situations, the target users of a gamified application, may not have such clear goals. In these cases, the gamified application tries to change the players behaviors, to achieve certain goals, that are useful for them but that they are not aware of (or concerned about). Therefore, the goals are set by the organization, and the gamified application tries to motivate the players to reach those goals, that must be clear for the players and that must be, ultimately, the players' own goals. This is particular relevant in educational contexts.

To summarize, this new definition and the discussion about it shows that there is still work to be done to clarify what is meant by gamification. It is now clear that is not the same of games or serious games or simulations or game-based learning (as it was initially confused). But the Burke/Gartner definition reveals that we must look deeper into the contexts where gamification can be applied and to the tools that can be used.

The most common definition, and widely used in the academia, is still "the use of game design elements in non-game contexts". Simple and straightforward. My own definition adds a second part:

the use of game design elements in non-game contexts, to drive game like engagement in order to promote desired behaviours.

It points to the goals of gamification, an engagement like the one people experience with games, as a way to promote some desired behaviors in the target users of the gamified application (that can be digital or non-digital).

Concerning the discussion about the Burke/Gartner definition, see this posts and discussions

Gartner Redefines Gamification: What Do You Think?

A response to Gartner’s new definition of gamification

What gamification is to me – My definition

Gartner is Soooooo Wrong about Gamification…

How #Gartner got Gamification Wrong


This is the fifth post of the series A Brief History of Gamification. See also,

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin

A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name

A Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions

A Brief History of Gamification: Part IV - The Evolution

A Brief History of Gamification: Part IV - The Evolution

This is the fourth post on The Brief History of Gamification, following Part I - The Origin, Part II - The Name and Part III - The Definitions. I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.

Since the first uses of the word gamification in late 2010, the concept quickly spread. That is due, in great part, to some popular video presentations, even if some of them do not use the word gamification. These video presentations, some at the TED Conferences, highlighted the importance of game thinking, with perspectives from game designers like Tom Chatfield, Jane McGonigal and Jessie Schell (all in 2010) or perspectives from digital marketing professionals, like Gabe Zichermann (in 2011).

In 2011, the word gamification was part of the Oxford University Press short list for the word of the year. In the same year, Jane McGonigal published Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, a book about how features from video games could be used in different contexts making a contribution to a better citizenship and to a better world. Although McGonigal, a game designer, never mentioned the word gamification, the concept was present and inspired several other gamification’s developers and researchers. Many software applications, digital services, campaigns, products and communication strategies released in 2011 and after were inspired by this gamification movement.

Gartner added gamification to its “hype cycle for emergent technologies” in 2011, pointing for a period of 5 to 10 years for mainstream adoption. Gartner uses hype cycles to track technology adoption: after the “peak of inflated expectations” period, technologies will fall into the “trough of disillusionment”. Then, they will start evolving to the “slope of enlightenment” and some of them will reach the “plateau of productivity”. By 2013, gamification was at the “peak of inflated expectations”. 

Gamification became a buzzword in the business world and a popular term in digital media.

Also with an increasing number of scholars and professionals becoming interested in the concept, along with the general public, the online learning platform Coursera launched in August 2012, a MOOC on gamification, lectured by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor from the University of Pennsylvania. The course had more than 80.000 registered students with further editions in 2013 (with 66.000 students) and January 2014 (with 70.000 registrations). After the first edition of the course, Werbach co-authored the book For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business.

Since 2011, a large number of web log posts were released covering gamification related themes. These first references to gamification were very informal and debated the advantages or drawbacks of the concept and look for examples within web applications. Books on gamification were also published (e.g. Gamification by Design, Gamification at Work: Designing Engaging Business Software,  Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification). Most of them approach the concept with a business or enterprise view and others cover specific areas of application, like education and training (The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education; The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Pratice).

Gamified applications, gamification platforms and a large number of academic papers on gamification also became part of the gamification movement, but that is for future posts.

The concept behind gamification long precedes the emergence of the term although its spread was only possible when the digital games industry has matured and after a generation of gamers was fully active in their working lives. The proliferation of digital media, social networks and other popular Web 2.0 applications have also created the environment that helped the dissemination of a movement that, despite all the criticism, became known as gamification.

This nice infographic (first published here) shows some of the important milestones on the short but rich history of gamification:

See also:

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin

A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name

A Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions 

IJSG - International Journal of Serious Games

The International Journal of Serious Games (IJSG) has lauched its first issue (volume 1, number 1, january 2014). The published papers are fully available for download:

Individual and collaborative Performance and Level of Certainty in MetaVals
Mireia Usart, Margarida Romero

Gamification and Smart, Competence-Centered Feedback: Promising Experiences in the Classroom
Michael D. Kickmeier-Rust, Eva C. Hillemann, Dietrich Albert

Guidelines for an effective design of serious games
Chiara Eva Catalano, Angelo Marco Luccini, Michela Mortara

Serious Games for education and training
Alessandro De Gloria, Francesco Bellotti, Riccardo Berta

Business models for Serious Games developers - transition from a product centric to a service centric approach
Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge, Stefan Wiesner, Rosa Garcia Sanchez, Poul Kyvsgaard Hansen, Giusy Fiucci, Michel Rudnianski, Jon Arambarri Basanez

The journal is seeking for contributions in several topics. Gamification is one of those topics.

The IJSG is published by the Serious Games Society.

A Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions

The third part of The Brief History of Gamification is here, following A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin and A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name. I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.

This third post is about the definition of the concept that became known as gamification. There are probably as many definitions for gamification as people writing about it. Gamification definitions have been proposed since the word appeared in 2010. Some of them were listed previously in this blog in a post where 23 definitions were listed. Those definitions were found in web logs, technical reports and academic papers. Some of them are redundant or very similar to each other. 

Here are some of those definitions and a few more recent ones:

• “The notion that gaming mechanics can be applied to routine activities” (Johnson et al., 2014);

•  “The use of game mechanics and rewards in non-game setting to increase user engagement and drive desired user behaviors” (Duggan and Shoup, 2013);

• “Implementing design concepts from games, loyalty programs, and behavior economics to drive user engagement” (Zichermann and Linder, 2013);

• “The use of game elements and game-design techniques in non-game contexts” (Werbach and Hunter, 2012);

•  “The application of game metaphors to real life tasks to influence behaviour, improve motivation and enhance engagement” (Marczewski, 2012); 

• “Using game techniques to make activities more engaging and fun” (Kim, 2011); 

• “The use of game attributes to drive game-like player behavior in a non-game 
context” (Wu, 2011); 

• “Taking game mechanics and applying to other web properties to increase engagement” (Terrill, 2008);

   

Other definitions from the academia are:

•  “Incorporating game elements into a non-gaming software application to increase user experience and engagement” (Domínguez et al., 2013);

• “A form of service packaging where a core service is enhanced by a rules-based service system that provides feedback and interaction mechanisms to the user with an aim to facilitate and support the users’ overall value creation” (Huotari and Hamari, 2011);

• “The use of game mechanics, dynamics, and frameworks to promote desired behaviors” (Lee and Hammer, 2011);

• “The use of game design elements in non-game contexts” (Deterding et al., 2011).

This shows that there is no consensus for a single and widely accepted definition for gamification (Werbach and Hunter, 2012). The first known definition in an academic paper is the one from Huotari and Hamari. In spite of all these different proposals, the definition that is more often found in academic papers is the one from Deterding et al. (2011). This definition is now widely used as the academic definition for the concept of gamification.

The definition from Domínguez et al. refers to non-gaming educative contexts. To conclude, some more definitions regardind education and training contexts:

• “The adition of elements commonly associated with games (e.g. game mechanics) to an educational or training program in order to make the learning process more engaging” (Landers and Callan, 2011); 

• “Using game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems” (Kapp, 2012); 

• “Simple gameplay to support productive interaction for expected types of learners and instructors” (Rughinis, 2013); 

See also:

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin

A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name

References:

Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., and Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining ”gamification". In Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, MindTrek ’11, pages 9–15, New York, NY, USA. ACM.

 Domínguez, A., Saenz-de Navarrete, J., de Marcos, L., Fernández-Sanz, L., Pagés, C., and Martínez-Herráiz, J. (2013). Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes. Computers and Education, 63(0):380–392. 

Duggan, C. and Shoup, K. (2013). Business Gamification for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.  

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2014). NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition. Technical report, Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. 

Kapp, K. (2012). The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education. Pfeiffer. 

Kim, A. (2011). Smart gamification: Designing the player journey [video].

Huotari, K. and Hamari, J. (2011). Gamification: from the perspective of service marketing. In Proc. CHI 2011 Workshop Gamification. 

Landers, R. and Callan, R. (2011). Casual social games as serious games: The psychology of gamification in undergraduate education and employee training. Serious Games and Edutainment Applications.

Lee, J. and Hammer, J. (2011). Gamification in education: What, how, why bother? Academic Exchange Quarterly, 15(2):2.

Marczewski, A. (2012). Gamification: A Simple Introduction. Marczewski, A.

Rughinis, R. (2013). Gamification for productive interaction reading and working with the gamification debate in education. In Proceedings of the Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 8th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies.

Terrill, B. (2008). My coverage of lobby of the social gaming summit   
Werbach, K. and Hunter, D. (2012). For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business. Wharton Digital Press. 

Wu, M. (2011). What is gamification, really? [web log message] 

Zichermann, G. and Linder, J. (2013). The Gamification Revolution. McGraw-Hill Education. 

gEducation Workshop: Call for Papers

The gEducation Workshop - How Gamification is changing the future of Education will be held in Barcelona, on the Gamification World Congress. The gEducation Workshop will be on Saturday, May 24, 2014 (9:00am - 1:30pm).  

Topics of Interest:

    •    Tools for education
    •    Gamification in education
    •    Techniques and strategies
    •    Frameworks
    •    Collaborative learning
    •    Innovative methodologies
    •    Success stories
    •    User experiences and gamification in the clasrooms
    •    Management of gamified classrooms
    •    Useful resources for educators
    •    Gamification for different learning levels
    •    Styles of gamfication in educational environment
    •    E-learning

Important Dates:

    •    Submission deadline: April 14
    •    Notifications: May 1
    •    Workshop: May 24

A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name

This is the second post regarding the origin and evolution of gamification, following A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin. I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.

The Name

About the concept’s name, several authors claim that the term gamification, a neologism, was created in 2002 (Marczewski, 2012; Penenberg, 2013), or 2003 (Werbach and Hunter, 2012), or 2004 (Rughinis 2013) by Nick Pelling, a British programmer and video game designer. In fact, according to this alleged author, the word was created in 2002 (Pelling, 2011) and became public in 2003 in Pelling’s company website. By then, he intended to apply his gamification ideas to electronic devices. Others claim the term’s authorship for themselves at even earlier dates: “a trend I call gameification, which I first identified in the early eighties” (Burrus and Mann, 2012). Other sources indicate that the term was invented by Tim Chang from Norwest Venture Partners at an undefined date.

In digital media and according to Huotari and Hamari (2012), the term, written as gameification, was mentioned for the first time in 2008 in a blog post (Terrill, 2008). Werbach and Hunter (2012) note also that it was only in 2010 that the term was widely adopted. In fact, the term only started to be searched in Google on August, 2010 (Duggan and Shoup, 2013; Zichermann and Linder, 2013).

Before the term gamification came into widespread use on digital media, the underlying concept was also known as funware, a term proposed by Gabe Zichermann. Similar terms were associated with the concept like fun at work, serious games or games with a purpose (Rughinis, 2013), although these last two terms are in fact related with different concepts. Landers and Callan (2011) also use the term gameification, applying it in learning contexts. Besides all of these alternative terms, the word gamification prevailed even not being consensual.

The concept is seen by many as misleading and difficult to define (Anderson and Rainie, 2012; Raczkowski, 2013) and as Robertson (2010) claims “is the wrong word for the right idea”. Although game design is central to the concept of gamification, some game designers do not agree neither with the word nor with the concept (e.g. Bogost, 2011a). As long as the word became popular, criticism of gamification also made presence in digital media. Some game designers point that gamification is just a meaningless buzzword. Depreciative terms like exploitationware (Bogost, 2011b) or pointsification as proposed by Robertson, shows that both the word and the concept are not consensual.

See also:

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin

A brief history of gamification, by Zac Fitz-Walter

Who coined the term gamification?

References:

Anderson, A. and Rainie, L. (2012). The future of gamification. Technical report, Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. 

Duggan, C. and Shoup, K. (2013). Business Gamification for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
 
Burrus, D. and Mann, J. (2012). Gameification: Accelerating learning with technolog

Bogost, I. (2011a). Gamification is bullshit

Bogost, I. (2011b). Persuasive games: Exploitationware

Huotari, K. and Hamari, J. (2012). Defining gamification: A service marketing per- spective. In Proceeding of the 16th International Academic MindTrek Conference, MindTrek ’12, pages 17–22, New York, NY, USA. ACM.
 
Landers, R. and Callan, R. (2011). Casual social games as serious games: The psychology of gamification in undergraduate education and employee training. Serious Games and Edutainment Applications.
 
Marczewski, A. (2012). Gamification: A Simple Introduction. Marczewski, A.  

Pelling, N. (2011). The (short) prehistory of “gamification”

Penenberg, A. (2013). Play at Work: How Games Inspire Breakthrough Thinking. Piatkus. 

Robertson, M. (2010). Can’t play, won’t play

Raczkowski, F. (2013). It’s all fun and games... a history of ideas concerning gamification. In Proceedings of DiGRA 2013: DeFragging Game Studies.

Rughinis, R. (2013). Gamification for productive interaction reading and working with the gamification debate in education. In Proceedings of the Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 8th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies.

Terrill, B. (2008). My coverage of lobby of the social gaming summit

Werbach, K. and Hunter, D. (2012). For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business. Wharton Digital Press. 

Zichermann, G. and Linder, J. (2013). The Gamification Revolution. McGraw-Hill Education.