Gamification is the application of elements, techniques and dynamics inherent of games in alien areas, with the purpose of stimulating certain conducts.
Main game elements:
- Points
- Avatars
- Levels
- Competition
- Awards
Techniques of game designing:
- Attractive experience
- Consistency
- Easy-to-understand framework
- Challenges
- Engagement
What elements make games funny?
- To win
- To see the adversary lose
- Reality
- Risk (something to lose)
- Personal overcoming
- Challenges
- Sharing
- Collecting
- Teamwork
Gamification is the action to include the fun part of the game in another context. It consists on joining part of fun with another goal. It can be very effective, but it cannot be applied to every and each context.
Examples of areas that are using gamificación:
- Education
- Health industry
- Art
- Productivity
- Marketing
Recommended books:
- “For the win” by Kevin Werbach: Gamification is about learning from games
- “Reality is broken” by Jane McGonigal
Recommended video:
- Gaming can make a better world by Jane McGonigal (Ted talk)
One of the main exponents of gamification are serious games, which are games designed with a non playful purpose. Between them, we can find:
- News games: they are press games which inform about recent events or express an editorial article. Ej: ONGs
- How should I vote (The Telegraph)
- Advergames: complete game with advertising purposes for a brand, product, organization or idea. Their main goal is to entertain people to get them share it with their friends. Examples:
- Angriest Whopper game (Burger King)
- Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (Paramount Pictures)
- Rock Climbing game (Urban Sports Club)
- Edutainment: concept that unifies education and entertainment, which results in programs that teach using playful resources. Examples:
- The speed camera lottery: if you respect the speed limit, you can win the lottery with the amount collected with the speeding tickets
- Writing the Wifi password through a mathematical function
- Games in museums (it’s called painstation)
Gamification can be very simple and low cost, as a simple joke, or very complex and expensive, through an online internet platform.
Other examples of gamification:
- Pizza Hero
- Geocaching: finding treasures
