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.

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin

This is the first post regarding the origin and evolution of gamification, the concept broadly defined as "the use of game elements in non-game contexts". I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.

The Origin

The concept behind what become known as gamification in recent years was already known almost one hundred years ago. Nelson (2012) argue that the origins of gamification are in the early to mid 20th century in Soviet Union, like “a way to motivate workers without relying on capitalist-style monetary incentives”. Workers and factories could compete with each other to increase production, using points and other game-like elements. Later, in american management, on the transition from the 20th to the 21st century, the strategy of turning the workplace into a more playful setting reappeared. In 1984, Coonradt (2007) published the first edition of his book The Game of Work. Coonradt, known as the “grandfather of gamification”, applied game principles in business contexts, dealing with employee motivation. His principles to motivate people include frequent feedback, clear goals and personal choice, features that can be found in games. These American and Soviet approaches, as precursors of gamification, gave rise to o sub-genre of the concept, the “gamification of work” (or playbour). Even before Coonradt's work, loyalty programs, like frequent flyer programs in airline companies (Kumar and Herger, 2013), where travelers gain miles (i.e. points) that can be exchanged for some benefit, and other marketing campaigns already incorporate some game features.

In other contexts, similarities with game elements can be found in the use of icons or symbols to express achievements, as insignias on military uniforms or insignias used on youth organizations like the Scouts (Silvers, 2011; Werbach and Hunter, 2012). These icons and symbols have their digital counterpart in video games’ badges (Rosewell, 2012). As the Scout can collect badges and display them on their uniform, digital badges can be used to display individual skills, abilities and accomplishments since a software system provides the adequate infrastructure.

In the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) context, Deterding et al. (2011) note that, in the 1980s, in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), the design of user interfaces already benefited from the knowledge of different design practices, namely game design. Playfulness, as a desirable user experience or mode of interaction, gained the attention of multiple HCI researchers. As Deterding et al. refer, game elements were long used in HCI, as game controllers used as input devices or graphic engines and authoring tools of video games used in non-ludic contexts.

Game-Based Learning (GBL) and the Serious Games movement contribute to the spread of the concept, revealing that games could be useful in non-ludic contexts instead of just being used for fun and amusement. Gamification, connects to concepts related to HCI and to game studies, as serious games, pervasive games, alternate reality games, or playful design ( Deterding et al.).

References:

Nelson, M. (2012). Soviet and american precursors to the gamification of work. In Lugmayr, A., editor, MindTrek, pages 23–26. ACM.

Coonradt, C. (2007). The Game of Work: How to Enjoy Work as Much as Play. Gibbs Smith.

Kumar, J. and Herger, M. (2013). Gamification at Work: Designing Engaging Business Software. Aarhus, Denmark,. The Interaction Design Foundation.

Silvers, A. (2011). On education, badges and scouting [web log message].

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

Rosewell, J. (2012). A speculation on the possible use of badges for learning at the uk open university. In EADTU Annual Conference: The Role Of Open And Flexible Education In European Higher Education Systems For 2020: New Models, New Markets, New Media.
 

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.

A Origem de "Gamification"

Para além da aplicação do termo "gamification" ser polémica, assim como o próprio termo em si (alternativas como gameful, gamefulness ou serious gamification são preferidos por alguns), a origem do termo também não é consensual. O conceito, com uma pequena variação na grafia, gameification, surge como sendo da autoria de Daniel Burrus, nas palavras do próprio, que afirma ter criado o termo no início da década de 1980 (" ... a trend I call gameification, which I first identified in the early eighties ..."). A paternidade de gamification aparece mais tarde, em 2002 atribuída a Nick Pelling, fundador de uma empresa, a Conundra Ltd, que procurava aplicar o conceito na área da eletrónica de consumo (ver Looking Back: The Rise and Glory of Gamification). Em An Introduction to Gamification, é referido que o termo terá sido trazido ao conhecimento público algures em Outubro de 2010, num artigo de um jornal norte-americano. Não é claro, neste post, se o termo já existiria antes (ver também o que já foi referido aqui).

Talvez uma fonte mais segura seja a Google. As estatísticas indicam que a primeira pesquisa do termo "gamification" terá ocorrido em 29 de Agosto de 2010 (poderá ser considerada esta a "data oficial de registo" deste conceito?). É estranho que o termo existisse desde 2002, ou mesmo desde a década de 1980, apesar da grafia diferente, e apenas tivesse sido pesquisado em 2010. Outros autores apontam ainda 2008 como sendo o ano de nascimento da gamification (ver também From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining “ Gamification).

Em todo o caso, desde que o termo começou a ganhar visibilidade, o ensino e a formação foram desde logo potenciais áreas de aplicação associando-se a outras tendências destes setores: os Serious Games e, mais em geral, a Aprendizagem Baseada em Jogos (Game-Based Learning).