Resources and Further Readings on the Benefits of Video Games in Education Many recent articles have been critical of the computer games industry siting evidence of the negative effects of computer games on learning and even on physical and mental health. These studies raise the alarm about how video games lead to addictions, violent behavior, sexism,…
Nike is a brand that has been engrained in the United States and around the world. Motivating people worldwide to “Just Do It”™ and be active; it is a beacon of health, wellness, fashion, and promoting physical activity. However, Nike hasn’t always been this successful. Arguably Nike’s most important product line is their running shoes. Nike has had fierce competition from Under Armour and Adidas for many years. Nike took a step forward and used gamification to increase customer engagement and brand awareness to take control of the running shoe market.
Gamification is fun even with the most serious games. Learning through games is as interactive and entertaining as it gets, and Sokobond is no different.
Sitting in a call center taking and making calls is the kind of job that many people find repetitive and boring. But at one major American company, an entire department plays games on company time and does so with the full knowledge and consent of management. That company is the Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Encouraging employees to play games, the company found, improved employee engagement in the work by setting goals, which in turn, boosted their productivity.
As patients take more pills, tracking that medication and staying on the pill schedule gets harder and harder. There’s no shortage of mobile apps that aim to help patients stick to the drug regimen. But many of these apps feel punitive. After all, an alarm or warning that you haven’t yet taken your meds can feel more like medication compliance by punishment. It doesn’t have to be that way. A gamification startup has developed a mobile app that encourages medication compliance by turning the mundane drug regimen into an engaging game.
For many students, a field trip to the museum is a break from the classroom but to others it’s not much more fun than school. However, mobile gamification apps can give students a real escape while engaging them in the subject matter of the museum. These apps can turn museum visits into interactive adventures. Canada Aviation and Space Museum’s Ace Academy is one of these apps. It takes a visitor on a “time-trip” to World War I flight navigation training.
Playing games is fun, but people also driven to play games because they want to win. Businesses have found different ways to gamify employee training. But DirecTV is taking a counterintuitive approach that uses gamification to celebrate failure. And it’s working.
While educational games have a history of contributing positively to student learning, there are cases where something developers perhaps should not have turned into a game. The recent flak over Mission US: Flight to Freedom illustrates the point.
DevHub is a platform where consumers can build websites and make money for their work. It had “over 300,000 sites built on the platform by the end of 2009” and is still recognized as a leader in website building and monetization. Their long term success is credited to solving a few core problems by implementing gamification.
Not everyone can create custom content that links back to a brand. A great example of loyal customers who love their company: Nintendo. Nintendo gamers love to riff, spin-off, and make YouTube videos about Nintendo products.
Imagine learning in 34 hours what would traditionally take an entire semester. Duolingo, a game based language-learning program, provides a platform for doing just that.
Gamification continues to grow in popularity as an innovative solution to problems in a wide variety of fields from education to healthcare. This rising interest has led to a number of published academic studies all asking the same question: Does gamification really work?
Games in education is a hot topic these days. Teachers are trying to figure out how to use video games to benefit the education of their students. That’s difficult when entertainment games and educational games seem to exist as separate industries catering to separate worlds. But somehow, it worked in the 90s.
Pain Squad is a electronic pain management tool that children use to record pain levels with an easy to use program and gamification elements. Kids and teens with cancer can keep track of detailed reports of their pain.
The corporate world presents workers with a lot of training information to sort through and digest. The information overload is only compounded in an increasingly digital world. How can businesses help their employees cope? Xerox turned to a software company called Qstream to gamify employee training.
