June 17, 2026
Headlines

McGill University Doctors Used Tetris to Treat Lazy Eye

Alex Landa05 mins

It’s funny – I’ve always thought that Tetris is the reason for some gamers having OCD and great organizational skills. Turns out that Tetris can fix lazy eye.

To go along with a trend in using video games to improve the health of players as seen in aiding senior citizen health and increasing multitasking abilities, doctors are now using Tetris to treat patients with lazy eyes. Featured in Current Biology, a team at McGill University found that Tetris worked better than the usual method of patching the good eye to force the weak eye to work on its own.

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Turning Big Data into Smart Data: Nike+ Drives Valuable Insight

Sudarshan Gopaladesikan04 mins

It was 2006 when Nike turned the most simple of sports into a key driver for adopting a healthier lifestyle. 7 years later, Nike+ now has about 7 million users. Socially rich data is key for any quantified self project, and running is no exception. The success of Nike+ is an example of how measuring performance is useful to gaining key insight. For users, they get to understand their running patterns better. For Nike, servers worth of Nike+ data can be turned into strategic business decisions to improve company performance.

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Why It Doesn’t Matter What “Gamification” Is Called

Ivan Kuo117 mins

There were many brilliant stories of successful case studies and tactful use of engagement techniques at GSummit 2013 but a common qualm about the concept of gamification was made clear in a number of presentations:

People really don’t like the word “gamification”.

Various high-profile speakers, including 2 of the top 10 speakers at GSummit 2013 (Schell and Werbach), explicitly mentioned their displeasure at the g-word and offered a number of alternative names like “motivational design” or “human-focused design”. From what I understand of the complaints, the g-word has negative connotations to it and provides a limited scope through which it can be understood. Many of these complaints are valid but the fact is, if you’re someone who is interested in gamification and/or is working towards implementing it in your own organization, it really doesn’t matter and here’s why:

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Top 10 Gamification Presentations at GSummit 2013

Ivan Kuo33 mins

GSummit 2013 was an absolute hit this year and every one of our knowledgable speakers brought some brilliant content to the stage for everyone to learn. Many people have been asking where the slides for each presentation are and I am happy to announce that we finally have all of them uploaded and ready for viewing at gamification.co/gsummit-2013-slides

However, some speakers resonated with our audience more than others, which was very evident through the use of our conference Twitter client, Memecube and generated huge amounts of buzz. See which GSummit speakers got the most attention according to Memecube:

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Why Gamification Matters as a Student

Heong Weng Mak08 mins

Playing games has always been a part of my experience growing up. From playing physical board games to virtual games on consoles and PC, each has its own unique sense of achievement and marvel. Yet, after playing all sorts of games over the years, there was a constant thought that ran through my mind. Somehow, the actions and experiences we undergo in the process of playing games conceals a deeper purpose.

Moreover, as a college student who has spent a considerable amount of leisure time playing video games, the nagging thought that games could possibly have some impact on my learning experience became even more apparent. Aside from the standard way of learning through formal education, could games mechanics observed in games and thinking through the lens of games actually help us in unforeseeable ways? Surely there is something more to video games than just playing it for fun?

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GAwards 2013 Winners: The Best in Gamification

Ivan Kuo62 mins

Each year we hold the GAwards to recognize companies for their best practices and use of engagement techniques with gamification. We crowdsource the nominees to see who has had the most impact on the gamification communities and we officially announced all the winners at the main stage of GSummit SF 2013. Here’s a recap on who won:

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Emory Uses Halo To Teach Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Sudarshan Gopaladesikan28 mins

Starcraft II teaches game theory and multivariable calculus. World of Warcraft gives insight to instructors on how they should structure the classroom environment. Minecraft has even become mandatory in a Swedish school’s curriculum as it teaches urban engineering concepts. To add to this growing list of games for education, Emory PhD Student Samantha Allen has incorporated Halo into her lesson plans for teaching intersectional theories of oppression for her Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) introductory course. This is what I would call an interesting juxtaposition as it bridges the gap between the macho Halo protagonist, Master Chief with sensitive global issues of rights and accessibility to all.

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Octalysis: Design Breakdown of the Speed Camera Lottery

Yu-kai Chou211 mins

Originally proposed to the The Fun Factory by Kevin Richardson of San Francisco, the Speed Camera Lottery was implemented by the Swedish National Society for Road Safety on site in Stockholm, Sweden in November 2010. Using existing traffic-camera and speed-capture technologies, the Speed Camera Lottery device would photograph all drivers passing beneath it. Each vehicle’s speed was displayed to the drivers passing by and recorded by the system. Speeders would be photographed and issued a citation, with the proceeds going into a cash fund. Drivers who obeyed the speed law would also be recorded and entered into the lottery, where they would be eligible to win some of the money from the speeders.

This case study has been seen by almost everyone within the gamification industry, but how can we learn to create an innovative solution like this by ourselves for our own projects? The answer for that is to dig deeper into the motivating factors involved by examining the project through the Gamification Framework Octalysis.

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Hakitzu Excites Children to Become Black Belt Coders

Sudarshan Gopaladesikan010 mins

In 2009, Rovio launched Angry Birds, one of the first games to make use of the mobile platform. In 2013, this infographic claims that there are 263 million active monthly users, and every other new cell phone purchased has the game downloaded onto it.

Kuato Studios, a development studio created from SRI International (the people who sold Siri to Apple) and Horizon Ventures (VC firm responsible for their investments in Facebook, Spotify, and Summly), is looking to take advantage of mobile platforms to a further level. Instead of crashing birds into objects, they want to use battle robots to make learning how to code fun. Wait, learning how to code can be fun?

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What Attendees are Saying About GSummit 2013: Day 1

Alex Landa13 mins

A Focus on Our Favorite Tweets from GSummit 2013. GSummit 2013 is fast underway and attendees aren’t wasting any time tweeting about their experience here. Everyone attending is actively participating and giving feedback by posting real-time reactions to Twitter during talks, events, and even the awesome lunch trucks. Between Mario Herger’s Enterprise Gamification Certification Workshop…

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