Are you an academic or designer looking to have your gamification research and case-studies published? The Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems (CROCELS) is an international research organization that has published an open-call for anyone with research or information about the ability for gamification to solve problems
Most of the buzz surrounding gamification seems to be located within the United States but it would foolish to not recognize its international presence as well. We’re aware of Spain BBVA’s gamified banking platform, a hugely successful alumni crowdfunding platform in Stockhom, and there’s even an upcoming gamification platform straight out of Estonia! But where’s the gamification presence in Asia? It’s growing tremendously and Keith Ng’s work with Gametize is proving gamification’s worth in Asia.
Last week, Linkedin sent out emails congratulating users for being in the top X% of “most viewed” profiles, ostensibly to celebrate their 200 millionth profile. The emails generated a fair amount of social media buzz, with even reticent users posting about their “accomplishments”, often with a #humblebrag attached.
What struck me about the campaign was how it managed to take both the best and the worst of gamified leaderboard and achievement design in one fell swoop.
Big class lectures can often be a painfully boring but inevitable part for any college student. It may be surprising to some but professors can be just as bored by the class material they have to teach. This has led to a growing movement by teachers and professors to innovate the teaching practice with the primary goal to better engage their students.
Among those trendsetters is Professor Cliff Lampe from the University of Michigan who has been using gamification to teach his undergraduate seminar classes. As an assistant professor at the university’s School of Information, Professor Lampe conduct classes for the undergraduate program in informatics. What he is currently most well known for is his use of gamification elements and principles in his 200 person introductory lecture.
We’ve noticed that there are very few resources for individuals wanting to learn more about companies in the gamification space. The kinds of question we continue to observe on a regular basis look like:
There are valid questions for someone looking to explore the space but its not always apparent where one can start, which is why we built two resources for anyone curious about gamification to explore: The Gamification Buyer’s Guide and The GBase.
Many designers are using gamification to intrigue their users and keep them involved with an application over time. However, you want to make sure that the mechanics you are using are sound, and will make the most out of your effort. Some ludemes (things like badges, experience points, achievements, levels) may look useful since they are used in many games, but can be overused and may eventually turn a user off. Here are some things that will work in gamification.
Starting next week, the Gamification Revolution, the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts will be at a new time every Thursday instead of the previous Monday.
You can now catch the Gamification Revolution every Thursday at 1PM EST/10 AM PST/1800 GMT.
Starting next week, the Gamification Revolution, the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts will be at a new time every Thursday instead of the previous Monday.
You can now catch the Gamification Revolution every Thursday at 1PM EST/10 AM PST/1800 GMT.
If you missed this week’s episode, we had the venerable designer and GSummit SF 2013 speaker, Jesse Schell of Schell Games. Watch Gabe’s discussion with Jesse to learn about how making engaging game experiences is the same process for designing any product:
Be sure to catch our next episode of the Gamification Revolution, airing live on Februrary 7, 1 PM EST. You can also catch Jesse express his expertise in person by catching his session at GSummit SF 2013
If you’re still unsure of what gamification is or how it could help you in marketing or human resources, Gabe Zichermann will be providing two free expert gamification webinars to show you why gamification works for marketing and HR on February 5th and 6th, 2013.
Its amazing that the sole act of watching TV has been replaced with watching TV while on your phone/laptop/tablet. And thus the concept of the “second screen” is born. We’ve become such distracted and consumption driven individuals that no one medium of entertainment is enough for our brains. While this may sound like a negative thing at first, nobody really understood the inherent synergy that exists between these two devices if they’re being used to consume the same media together. That is…until Jesse Redniss saw this opportunity and became one of the earliest pioneers of gamification for television media.
The moment a discussion about gamification dips into a deep discussion about game mechanics and what constitutes proper design, it seems inevitable that Jesse Schell’s book, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses becomes mentioned as the official reference to prove someone’s point. Jesse’s long history of working as a game-designer has earned him numerous accolades and his position as the CEO of Pittsburgh’s largest videogame studio.
Gamification is a powerful tool that is poised to change the world. The old Gartner adage that predicted that by 2014, 70 percent of the world’s top 2000 companies will be using some form of gamification…but they also had a report that stated 80 perfect of gamified processes will fail in 2014.
Naturally, there is some backlash from those who think gamification is a fad that doesn’t really work, or that it can even be harmful. And you know what? Some of those critics make good points. The problem, however, is not gamification itself. The problems are FAKE gamification and BAD gamification.
Coursera was a very integral part in growing the gamification community in 2012, largely due in part to Kevin Werbach’s class on gamification. However, Couresera’s ability to have effectively delivered a strong massive open online course (MOOC) is a testament to its ability to appeal to everyone’s intrinsic desires to learn. Its hard to believe how a system could appeal to 12 thousand students interested in gamification and have them complete 7 weeks of lectures, homeworks, and testing to receive a small certificate of completion. Coursera is doing something right and Julia Stiglitz is part of that team making it happen.
Earlier today, Gabe Zichermann had an Op-Ed go live on The Huffington Post entitled The Hard Truths of Gamification, in which he addresses most of the misunderstandings revolving around gamification and lays down all of the gamification’s clear triumphs in during the last two years.
Gabe describes a number of significant gamification successes in business, education, and health to support his arguments and lays down a strong foundation for an anyone dealing with a gamification skeptic. Although, not everybody was convinced and in true gamified fashion Gabe was awarded a particular badge.
This defense of #gamification wins maximum hubris badge. Frames critique as factless. cc: @ibogost & @dingstweets huffingtonpost.com/gabe-zicherman…
— Evan Selinger (@EvanSelinger) January 23, 2013
What do you think? Is gamification the future of motivation or do his arguments fall flat? Read the full article and decide for yourself.
If you’ve never attended one of our gsummitX meetups before, now’s your chance to experience some of the great speakers we sign up for our events. Watch the video below to hear some great sessions from our last gsummitX meetup at Tel-Aviv this past December. Some of these sessions include, talks on marketing gamification, the IDF Blog’s gamification story, and the brains behind Freshbiz, the Entrepreneurship Game, that we covered this past summer.
As the world evolves into a massively digital age, the publishers producing print media need to adapt in order to stay relevant. While it might be true that some children will always vehemently oppose the very nature of books, it doesn’t mean that new techniques and gamification could assist in making the classic book more engaging for others.
