Kaplan University teamed up with gamification platform Badgeville to test whether gaming techniques and mechanics would have an effect on the motivation levels of students in higher education. According to a Techonomy article written by David DeHaven and Susan Ferebee the initial pilot program showed very promising results.
After seeing the results of the Top 40 Gamification Gurus leaderboard in the beginning of the month (I joined the list at #35!), it’s helped me really visualize the passionate people who are working in this industry, as well as the evangelists promoting the idea of engagement with fun design.
I’m certain most of the people on the list have thoughts, ideas, and great information to share with the gamification community and I would like to make these voices heard, which is why I am excited to announce the start of our Gamification Community Op-Ed Program!
Measuring ROI is an elusive task: you have external factors that affect the results; measuring the baseline is a subjective process; forecasting future impact is hard and even calculating the actual investment is a project by itself.
That said, one can measure almost anything (I recommend reading the book How to Measure Anything). There are testimonies of increased sales results after implementing gamification systems by 5-15%. But, I believe we need to dive in to understand how to analyze success.
The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every week. Join us and have all of your gamification questions answered by these experts. This past week’s guest was Melvin Greer, Senior Fellow at Lockheed and Martin
Be sure to catch our next episode this Thursday, July 18 at 1PM ET/1800 GMT, where we feature Tim Chang of the Mayfield Fund (@timechange) as our next guest.
In this week’s episode, Gabe and Melvin dive deep into the developing work happening in teaching STEM and STEAM (the A is for Art) education initiatives. The audience also asks a number of great questions as it relates to learning, knowledge transference, and emerging tech in ed. Melvin also gets into the intricacies with government gamification initiatives and the challenges of their implementation.
It’s official. Games have educational value.
For most, this is old news. Games like Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail have been around for years and most of Generation Y has been playing these games as early as the third grade. So what happened to these games and why weren’t there more iconic educational tools like these in school?
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 for short) is an annual event where developers showcase their latest electronic and gaming projects. Each year this event announces new video game consoles, games, and other media that are deserving of the big stage. Among this year’s presentation of the next round of console wars, shooters, sport games and RPGs, there was one announcement that stood out in the crowd as innovate to say the least: Project Spark.
Project Spark (PS) was a big part of Microsoft’s press conference at E3. The main concept behind PS is that players create their own worlds filled with characters, story, an evolving environment, or anything else they want.
The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every week. Join us and have all of your gamification questions answered by these experts. This past week’s guest was Bunchball Co-Founder, Rajat Paharia.
In Rajat’s second appearance on the show since December, he and Gabe talk about the book’s rise up the New York Times Best Seller List and have a deep discussion on the current shortcomings of the loyalty industry. What’s holding loyalty back now and what will it have to do to really sustain itself in the future? For more information on Rajat’s new book, check out Loyalty30.com. Watch the full video to find out:
For more information on Rajat’s new book, check out Loyalty30.com
It’s become quite clear to all sorts of businesses and organizations that adding an element of gamification to their interactions with their customers can be a real asset to them. Even NASA is taking note of the success of gamification, and working to use it to their advantage.
“Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A,”
And boom: you’ve just earned yourself 30 lives because Contra for the NES was too damn hard. If you’ve never heard of any of these terms before, Contra is an notoriously difficult side-scrolling shooting game that was released back in 1988 on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The button combination above, known as the Konami Code, is a cheat that granted players 30 extra lives to progress through the hair-tearing game.
And in the case of Vogue’s UK website – this code does something awesome and you should have something similar for your own website.
Since its first emergence of the word in 2010, the gamification movement has gained the attention of a wide range of audiences, reaching to all four corners the globe. From the corporate offices of America to the Streets of Hong Kong, gamification has made an impact in people’s daily life. Speaking of making an impact, non-profit organizations are realizing the potential gamification could be used as a tool for change and a organization called i-kifu based in Tokyo, Japan is aiming to do just that. Gamification Co had the opportunity to interview i-kifu founder, Nhat Vuong to talk about his web-based platform.
There’s little question that the loyalty “industry” has an innovation problem. With few exceptions, the world’s largest loyalty programs (mostly in travel, finance and retail) are mostly the same as they were 20 years ago. Social, mobile, gamification have struggled to find a footing, even as they are the entire foundation of next-gen loyalty systems such as those developed by Square, Belly or any number of gamified providers. With so much inertia and torpor, it’s easy to give up on traditional loyalty providers when it comes to innovation…but perhaps the old dog has a few tricks left.
A few weeks ago, through a social sharing post by a friend (this data point will be crucial), I came upon a new promotion run by Air Canada, called Earn Your Wings. The program created a leaderboard of top flyers during the promotional period that were ranked based on a range of activities. These included, but weren’t limited to, miles flown and were supported by a series of badges awarded for different activity loops. Top players split a large pot of 10 million miles at the end of the promotion period, and that activity seemed especially fierce, which is what really excited me.
Starting my own company was always the obvious choice. I was raised to look up to entrepreneurs as successful and independent visionaries. I set out to help people to realize the potential of cloud- based services and founded Alien Interactive in 1999. Almost 14 years ago, it was not an easy task. But my vision was bigger than that. I wanted to find a way to offer people what games and sports had offered me; the enjoyment of motivation, determination and deep engagement. The word gamification was not yet heard of but I was fascinated by the thought of making an engaging game out of less exciting work-days. But almost 14 years ago, without the adoption of technology we see today, it was even harder for people to understand that idea than the potential of cloud services.
My entrepreneurial ambition spawned, and still does, from one fundamental stance: There is no reason why work shouldn’t be a thrilling experience. By adding a well-designed engagement system to our enterprise-environment we can take advantage of the elements of games and sports to truly engage users, employees and partners.
More and more businesses are employing gamification to get customers interested in their products and services. Schools are looking to startups like Amplify to encourage their students to be more engaged in learning, inside and outside of school. The quantified self movement has even evolved to start measuring your brainwaves. Everywhere you look, the world is turning to games to improve participation and morale. Could there be real use for these ideas into your everyday life? These two new companies are saying yes, you can gamify your life.
The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every week. Join us and have all of your gamification questions answered by these experts. This past week’s guest was Mark Koerner, VP of Product at employee wellness platform Keas.
Gabe and Mark go through some of the features of Keas and discuss how organizations can improve their internal processes by engaging with employee health. Learn about the intricacies of data privacy, the metrics for success, and Keas’ general approach of gamification for health in the video below:
