May 15, 2026
Headlines

Case Study: eLearning Tourism Training Tool Raised Engagement by 65%

Ivan Kuo07 mins

Product eLearning has experienced huge growth in the travel and tourism sector in the last few years. In the UK alone there are over 300 free training courses available to travel agents. Organisations such as SeaWorld, Avis and British Airways have used eLearning as an advertising medium with transparent results and measurable ROI. However, eLearning didn’t just come out of the blue; we created it as a way to solve some problems specific to our problems in training within the travel industry.

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7 Ways to Royally Mess Up Your Gamification Campaign

Kevin Shane16 mins

There’s already an entire library of information about game mechanics and how startups have successfully implemented gamification. If you’re considering gamifying an experience, however, you should probably know the ways you can reduce its efficacy. That way you can either choose differently, or if you really want to test social experiences you can see how well people respond to gamification that simply doesn’t work.

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Ventus Mobilizes Citizen Scientists to Fight Against Global Warming

Ivan Kuo24 mins

When it comes to research, no other method matches the productivity output of motivated groups of people. Fold.it has seen great success with breakthrough findings in AIDS research with their crowdsourced puzzle game and recently, even the US Navy has started to crowdsource ideas to spur innovative solutions for their problems. It is no surprise then that a group of climate scientists at Arizona State University has taken to this tactic in an effort to catalog fossil fuel-burning power plants around the world, in order to get a better understanding of their emission output and its total effect on global warming. The result? A crowdsourced data collection game called Ventus.

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7 Reasons Why Apple’s Enterprise Bread and Circuses Fail in iOS 7

Gabe Zichermann315 mins

Yesterday Apple revealed iOS 7, the latest version of its operating system for mobile devices. The update was greeted – as usual – by thunderous applause from the company’s legions of fanboys and with vocal derision from pro-Android bigots. In the midst of all the hoopla and traded social media barbs, one thing seems glaringly obvious: Apple is out of ideas, particularly for business users.

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How Not to Make a Point (and Earn that Badge)

Gabe Zichermann74 mins

Yesterday, Steve Bocska opined here on Gamification.co about what was to be – ostensibly – a discussion of designing gamification without using poins and badges. Instead, what he wrote was a screed that questioned the ethics of many gamifiers, assailed social games (really? is this 2011 again?) and reached its climax with the oh-so-powerful suggestion that you “think very carefully about what you’re trying to accomplish.” In the process of trying to lecture this growing community on its ills, I think Steve has made the point of one of our most prolific experts, Rajat Paharia, very clear: game designers – in general – just don’t understand gamification.

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Can the Gamification of Female Masturbation Remove Its Social Stigma? – GCo Exclusive

Ivan Kuo495 mins

Masturbater. Master Baiter?

Whether you’re an expert animal trapper or a normal person who enjoys self-pleasure, the mere sound of the word masturbation isn’t pleasant for anyone. The clunky quadrisyllabic term meant to describe personal relief is so socially awkward that it’s ostensibly forbidden to talk about, despite being something every human being has engaged with at some point in our lives. Masturbation as it relates to women is an even bigger taboo to discuss, as a result of widespread dogma pushing absolute female purity throughout the development of most modern societies.

The act of masturbation is an important step in our sexual development as human beings, yet this dogma still exists. As a result of this many females feel a societal pressure to live up to these outdated beliefs and suffer from negative self-image and lowered self-esteem for their natural desires. The fact remains that many women and girls don’t masturbate at all and may not even know how to but does it need to be this way?

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Objective Logistics Rewards Wait Staff Employees for Good Services

Kevin Shane24 mins

Americans tend to eat about five meals per week in restaurants. But how often do you go to a restaurant and vow never to return because of bad service? Some food service industry businesses fail based on the personalities of their servers rather than the quality of the food being served. For the business owners, this can feel like an unearned failure, which is why it’s important to make good decisions when hiring employees.

And this isn’t some tightly-kept trade secret. Customers know this and business owners know this. Customers are more likely to return if they’re treated well. Therefore, business owners — especially those in the service industry — have a remarkable incentive to retain highly performing service workers by rewarding them with desirable shifts and, especially in the case of food service, more generous financial bonuses. Objective Logistics, an innovative company in the broad category of gamification startups, is offering a service to restaurants that rates and manages servers in the food service industry.

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One Player’s Journey of Gaming Memecube at GSummit SF 2013

Taavi Lindmaa015 mins

Maybe you noticed my Twitter feed blowing up over 2 days in the middle of April. I didn’t count but I’m told there were well over 100 tweets in that brief period of time. While my followers should be used to booms when I hit a conference, this was definitely another level.

The reason for my tweet-binge was Memecube. Memecube is an interesting twist on the usual session hashtags; a conference exclusive Twitter tool. Only attendees were told the URL needed to access the system; in it was the conference schedule. After checking in to a session, you only see tweets from others who are also using Memecube and have checked in and new tweets auto-populated with the speakers’ Twitter handle & the GSummit hashtag. This meant, despite GSummit becoming the #1 trending hashtag on twitter during the conference, we did not see the usual assault of the bimbots. Additionally we didn’t have to try to separate our session from all the others to tweet or retweet something relevant, and the overall system was just easier to use. I cannot think of something the DreamForce Conference needed more.

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Ross Smith on Engaging Quality Assurance Teams at Microsoft

Ivan Kuo01 mins

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 Ross Smith, Director of Test at Microsoft. Ross Smith was responsible for the creation of the language quality assurance game, making the process significantly faster and more effective. Learn more about Ross’ current projects as a part of 42projects‘ management innovation team by watching Gabe Zichermann’s full interview with Ross.


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Washing Your Hands Has Never Been (This) Fun

Gabe Zichermann03 mins

The New York Times recently wrote an interesting piece about the importance of hand-washing in hospitals. It turns out that only 30% of medical professionals wash their hands appropriately, leading to billions of dollars in downstream costs from readmissions, malpractice and secondary infections. While the exact reasons for poor adherence are the subject of speculation, a number of companies have jumped into the fray to try and solve the problem. Their solutions often rest heavily on gamification.

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The 10th Annual Games for Change Festival Launches in NYC from June 17 – 19

Alex Landa18 mins

Do you like gaming? Do you enjoy new and innovative ideas that can better our world? Of course you do! It’s time to check out the 10th Anniversary Games for Change Festival at New World Stages in New York City June 17th – 19th.

The event is created and hosted by Games for Change (G4C) with the mission to promote social change through gaming. This international conference unites gaming professionals of different backgrounds from around the world ranging from commercial gaming to academia with the shared goal of bettering tomorrow. “The story of the Games for Change Festival is the story of how digital games have evolved, growing from an audience of 40 in 2004 to more than 10,000 attendees on-site and online,” said Michelle Byrd and Asi Burak, Co-Presidents of Games for Change. This year’s event aims to be the biggest and best one yet.

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Farm Defenders is a Gates-Funded Training Game for Actual Farmers

Ivan Kuo05 mins

As the worldwide agricultural market becomes increasingly commoditized, the existence of a traditional farmer is becoming more and more scarce. However, many rural villages in Africa still require the skills of a trained farmer in order to support their local economy and community. We’ve reported on one community in Kyrgyz who has used a Farmville-esque game to support local farm operations but Fast Company reports on a new game supported by the Gates Foundation that aims to support these communities through learning. Farm Defenders is a hyperrealistic simulation training game that will be used as a tool for training extension workers, which are government-contracted consultants who teach villagers scientific knowledge through farming.

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