Slashdot Mirror
Gamification — How Much of It Is Really New?
An anonymous reader writes "It's nigh impossible to avoid all the chatter and buzz around the concept of gamification — using game mechanics to create engagement outside the world of videogames. Silicon.com has an interview with author Aaron Dignan, whose book Game Frame delves into the topic to try and pull out a few rules of engagement for businesses seeking to tap into the power of gaming to better motivate their staff. Dignan is fairly convincing, yet I can't help feeling there's a lot of hype and not necessarily a great deal of substance to all this gamification chatter. Perhaps the term itself is the problem — maybe 'playfulness' would be a better name for the concept. What do Slashdot readers make of the gamification movement and its evangelists?"
I'll have to remember the term "gamification" next time my boss catches me playing Minesweeper.
"It's gamification! This is motivating me!"
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
For people NOT obsessed with gaming?
Grinding (case lists) and ganking (backstabbing managers) shit me to tears. I don't play WoW any more - should I treat work the same way?
You just have to start enjoying games!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
At least I always feel like I'm playing Farmville when I talk to tech support. It's expensive and frustrating. I get nothing but empty promises for my efforts which make no difference in the real world, it's a real slog, and I wish people could speak English.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The Go game is supposed to have been invented to train an emperor's son in better strategy/military skills... and that was a big pair of thousands years ago (see Wikipedia).
Again and again, a new name on an old idea, someone is trying to sell something to people not needing nor wanting to buy it.
Just because something suddenly has a trendy new name, does not mean the idea is new. We see this effect over and over... move along, nothing to see.
The olympics used to demonstrate the martial skills of a soldier. Shot put, Javelin, relay races... these were all military skills.
Play is practice. Even in the animal kingdom you see 'games' and play while juveniles practice their skills. There's even some theories that song and dance originally was an outreach of coordinating work.
By historical standards what we view as work is unnatural. If you look at a tribal culture in which we existed for hundreds of thousands of years you'll see people working hard but they are talking to one another and being social. The idea of locking someone away to slave over paper is a pretty recent development.
I would say that what we're really doing is re-discovering the innate mechanisms by which we best learn and it's not through mechanical determination it's through a more interactive and engaging process that works with--not against our nature.
The problem with 'gamification' is that it's not about games!
'Gamification' is about the application of (the lessons from) game theory, which has to do with psychology - the study of HOW and WHY we behave in such a manner - but not WHAT.
'Game' theory is a misnomer - it's NOT about games in themselves at all - it's about the study of COMPETITION, and COMPETITIVE behaviour in general.
Games are, of course, competitive activities, but so are puzzles, competitions, and life in general.
'Game' theory is not about the specific application of the specific behaviour the word game itself represents, even if it forms PART of its application, and so considering games in such a manner is INCONSISTENT with how the word game is used, and what it represents, elsewhere in the language, and is therefore causing problems!
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DarrenTomlyn/20110311/6174/Contents_NEW.php
'Stupidity is an often fatal disease' - R. A. Heinlein
I believe that there is something fundamentally different between gaming and real life. You cannot respawn in real life. There are significant and measurable consequences for screwing up. Adapting a business model to a game is asking staff to adopt an 'all care, no responsibility' attitude.
Now, having a gaming lounge in the office, with high spec PCs networked and all preloaded with L4D2 ready to play... now that's a different story. However, I don't think that's what they mean by gamification.
This seems like just one more way to extract more work out of people that are increasingly disappointed with their station and ambitions (or lack thereof). It seems like both companies and individuals would do better to address the root issues. I don't want to have to put a game layer on top of my work to feel like I'm doing something important, and for good reasons.
Or maybe I'm just too cynical.
It sho' is fun painting Tom Sawyer's fence.
There is a sucker born every minute. Some you can trick into thinking work is fun, and some you can even trick into paying you to work for you.
As a sailor in the Navy, this made me think of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal rating.
For them, their boss wants to see them "sweeping mines" on the job!
If you want to avoid all the chatter and buzz around the concept of gamification, I recommend being me. Never heard of it. Is this a US thing?
Uhh, I appreciate your point of view; however, the type of "gamificaton" you are referring to (in relation to Game Theory) is more about strategy.
There are other types of "gameification" which I think are more related to what TFA considered. It is called "role playing game" (best known as RPG). RPGs are being used to put people in "charge" of certain roles within a system; it is used as a "human simulation" to understand the decisions that people do and the non-rational reasons on why they do it.
RPGs can be used for example, when trying to "computerize" a real-world system. In order to *understand* the dynamics and decisions of such system you let people who know about the domain to play a well designed RPG.
I am actually working with such kind of games, using them specifically to create simulations of complex systems than include individual's behaviour. RPGs allow us to explore the actions of the people and to understand the reasons behind those actions.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I think this says it all: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/napoleonbo108401.html
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I'm too lazy to RTFA. Any examples of what this actually means?
I'm currently involved in an EU project looking at ways of creating incentives for people to make semantic annotations (http://www.insemtives.org) It's somewhat subtler and quite a bit more interesting a topic than this very brief article has space to suggest :)
Creating entertaining activities that also have worthwhile by-products in terms of data produced is quite a big deal; look at the spectacular success of Galaxy Zoo, Moon Zoo and the other Citizen's Science Alliance projects for evidence. Taking 'playful' (yes, better word than gamification) approaches to dealing with such problems improves outcomes - although this is taking a 'scientific' approach which is probably less cynical than some employers attitudes. Gamification is in many ways an HCI issue that is an inevitable by product of the fact that for a number of years now a whole bunch of people have been using exactly the same computers for spreadsheets, databases and running around mazes firing BFG's at alien monsters. Where it becomes really interesting is if you can persuade 10,000 people to give up a bit of free time to help out solving a problem.
Mind you, running around Skype conferences stomping on certain colleagues like Super Mario works for me too.
If Eddie Izzard worked at Square Enix: "How stupid do I think the gamers are? They'll pay money to navigate menus. We'll tell them it's from Japan."
What's the most popular form of gaming? Gambling.
What's the best motiivator? Money.
Same thing.
Status pales.
I live in the real world, I may choose to work in IT but I am not a stereotypical nerd/geek and I also have ZERO interest in bullshit like this. I don't want fucking achievements and "points" or other inane things, I want to be treated as a professional and I want to do my job. That is already almost impossible in IT as it is never given respect and seen as purely a cost/drain as it is. If any company I would work for would implement something like this, I would resign instantly.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I just recently wrote something on the subject for Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2289302
I think there are a lot of terrible ideas floating around right now under that heading.
I'm glad that the original post presented both sides of the argument because the truth is that no one really knows whether gamification of anything is a good idea....yet.
;)
My own research is in education where scientists have been looking at how games can teach and motivate since at least 1987 (I'm talking about research and not educational games which go further back). Classically the debate has always been two fold:
1. Can anyone prove that knowledge transfers from a game to another setting?
2. Can games increase intrinsic motivation to learn or are they just another extrinsic motivator?
The first question is still undetermined for a lot of reasons (i.e. how does one even determine whether someone knows something).
The second question is important because education research has proven pretty conclusively that extrinsic motivators don't work - people driven by extrinsic motivators drop their motivation as soon as motivator is removed. But new research in motivation has illuminated what drives individuals to learn; that framing motivation as extrinsic vs intrinsic is possibly a misrepresentation of what drives us to learn something. In addition, integrating a badge or achievement system is different than what we are used to thinking about when making something game like. The badges aren't necessarily replacing goals, just supplementing them. And if that is true (TBD) then that could also increase a type of motivation necessary for learning (or accomplishing other goals).
Does gamification work? Sit tight and I hope to have an answer in the next 6 months.
Funny, my boss and I were just discussing merit based review. At her last position you would get points for being able to do a certain level of task and points for completing tasks. Of course I immediately equate this to experience points:
1) Java Programmer: Level 6. .NET Programmer: Level 5
2)
3) PHP programmer: Level 3
4) write an application to inventory computers into an SQL-based database: 300 xp
5) script a website that allows for a single header across multiple pages: 25 xp
So there is less distance between level 3 and 4 so the PHP programmer might pick up task 5. But if that person takes on task 4 and does it well, that's a big xp boost and they might even ding.
My examples to my boss actually included killing orcs and saving princesses but you know...didn't want to alienate the tech-only crowd.
Interesting idea aside, its a bit like discussing Tomato crop yields when you find your pizza sauce bland. Sure, what tomatoes go into pizza sauce make a difference, but if its just shitty sauce its not really going to matter if you add some nice tomatoes to it.
If employers think embracing Gamification will fix an endemically lousy work environment...well, its probably why the work environment is so bad in the first place.
dimes
I just finished reading Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonagall. It had very similar ideas. She tied together some really interesting concepts about personal engagement and flow experiences (when we're at our most productive and self-forgetful). Flow happens when certain conditions are met: we're getting realtime feedback, we're right at the threshold of our own skill levels (being neither bored nor overwhelmed), we believe we can win, etc. This is covered in the research and writing of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (primarily his classic work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience).
It's not entirely new territory. The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack (1994) made a great case for structuring business endeavors as mini-games. People love to outdo themselves. It invites a phenomenal amount of brilliance as people's goals go from vague to ultra-measurable. Case studies are presented where entire plants are transformed and everyone's ingenuity is invited, not just high-level planners. I think this ties into McGonagall's ideas about using theories of flow and personal engagement, informed by the wild success of gaming at rewarding players for overcoming essentially voluntary obstacles, to restructure reality in new and creative ways.
When I started reading the book, I was suspicious of its core premise. But I really do now believe that principles from game design can be, and is already being, used to restructure academic experience (look at Khan Academy and it's built-in reward systems for mastering material). Similar creative leaps await us in business and society as well.
I just finished reading Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonagall. It had very similar ideas. She tied together some really interesting concepts about personal engagement and flow experiences (when we're at our most productive and self-forgetful). Flow happens when certain conditions are met: we're getting realtime feedback, we're right at the threshold of our own skill levels (being neither bored nor overwhelmed), we believe we can win, etc. This is covered in the research and writing of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (primarily his classic work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience).
It's not entirely new territory. The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack (1994) made a great case for structuring business endeavors as mini-games. People love to outdo themselves. It invites a phenomenal amount of brilliance as people's goals go from vague to ultra-measurable. Case studies are presented where entire plants are transformed and everyone's ingenuity is invited, not just high-level planners. I think this ties into McGonagall's ideas about using theories of flow and personal engagement, informed by the wild success of gaming at rewarding players for overcoming essentially voluntary obstacles, to restructure reality in new and creative ways.
When I started reading the book, I was suspicious of its core premise. But I really do now believe that principles from game design can be, and is already being, used to restructure academic experience (look at Khan Academy and it's built-in reward systems for mastering material). Similar creative leaps await us in business and society as well.
I just bought a hybrid car. When I drive, it shows me my current MPG, and when I get to my destination, it shows me the MPG for the trip. If I get over 35 MPG, I get a little "Excellent!" message that flashes.
It's not much, but I'm surprised at the effect this has had on my driving. I notice myself driving differently when I have this feedback.
Now imagine we all had cars that published (tweeted, for example) our total MPG, and some sort of public leaderboard/ranking system. I think that alone would change the way a lot of people drove, and save a lot of fuel.
After reading the article, I found nothing new that I hadn't already learned by reading the books and papers already out by other authors like Edward Castronova and Nick Yee. I wish someone would focus less on explaining the what the concept is about and more on some actual case studies instead. In theory it sounds interesting, but who is getting it to work and what did they do?
"In every job that must be done there is an element of fun; you find the fun and snap, the job's a game" - Mary Poppins
I believe the "scholarly" term they're looking for is captology, the study of persuasive technology.
This is all just recruiting the lower parts of the brain that B.F. Skinner studied. Pull-lever-get-food-pellet type of stuff. No play involved, really.
Just leveled up my java skill doing some web programming here. Now i'll grind "big files" to improve my perl pet and sell the loot to apple store.
That is very good comment you shared.Thank you so much that for you shared those things with us.Im wishing you to carry on with ur achivments.All the best. chat