May 15, 2026
Headlines
parenting

How to Provide More Meaningful Rewards in Your Parenting

Sudarshan Gopaladesikan17 mins

Every parent knows that bribing their child is not the most effective behavioral management technique, but getting your children to eat the vegetables on their plate for 15 more minutes of video game time doesn’t seem too harmful, right?.

Over the years, psychologists have determined that short-term rewards directed towards end results are not helpful in teaching children proper behavior and manners. In fact, bribes—whether they come in the form of money, play time, and/or candy—have a negative effect on children learning development.

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ddr classroom edition

UnitedHealthcare Teams up with KONAMI to Produce DDR Classroom Edition

Ivan Kuo13 mins

Going through a strange time in my adolescence, I was very fond of playing Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) as a means of being able to play videogames while being active. I can attribute much of my adult lower body strength simply to my stomping and jumping to fast-paced Japanese music and it pleases me to no end that UnitedHealthcare and KONAMI are working together to bring these benefits to entire classrooms.

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Learn More About Viral Infections with the Killer Flu Game

Ivan Kuo22 mins

If you haven’t already noticed, the 2013 strain of influenza is reaching “epidemic” proportions and people all over your Facebook have been strangely bragging about contracting this “flu thing”.

While there’s little we can do besides avoiding other sick people and bathing in hand sanitizer, there is a way to educate ourselves more about how influenza spreads and avoid blowing the entire problem out of proportion.

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Prominent Gamifiers: Asi Burak

Ivan Kuo04 mins

As the Co-President of Games for Change, Asi Burak has had a long career using the transformative power of games to promote greater social good in the world. Asi’s path to social impact games began with his education in a Masters of Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon and a BA in Design from the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. His initial work in mobile gaming with Axis Mobile has led to many significant projects that has been picked up by international media outlets. Some of this exceptional work includes:

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Status in the Subway: Montreal STM Introduces VIP Program

Heong Weng Mak04 mins

Loyalty programs have been commonly associated with airlines and retailers but Montreal’s recent plans may soon change that perspective to include public transportation systems. Montreal operates the Opus-à-l’année also know as the Opus & Cie subscriptions, a subscription service which recharges a commuter’s OPUS card automatically every month.
Montreal STM will be introducing a VIP class for its customers, which will only be made available to 20,000 commuters (9% of the 217,000 who regularly buy monthly Société passes). After subscribing for more 12 months, Opus & Cie users will be given the opportunity to upgrade to their new “maestro” status.

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The State of the Gamification Industry with Kris Duggan

Ivan Kuo22 mins

We return with a bang in 2013 to bring you first episode of Season 2 of the Gamification Revolution, the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts happening every Monday at 1PM ET/10AM PT/1800 GMT. This week’s guest is Kris Duggan, CEO of Badgeville, and speaker at GSummit SF 2013.

Watch this week’s episode to get a broad perspective on the current state of the gamification industry, some of Kris’ insights into marketing gamification for others, and to learn how Kris managed to scale up his gamification platform and hire talent for his company. We also now will have each of our episodes available in MP4 for downloads so you can take it with you on the go.

Keep an eye out for our next episode featuring Asi Burak, Co-President of Games for Change, in our special episode this coming Friday, January 18, at 1 PM ET.

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The Hidden Implications Behind the NRA Shooting Game

Ivan Kuo45 mins

The NRA has just released a free iOS shooting game one month after the Sandy Hook Tragedy and blaming the video games industry for excessive gun violence.

It is particularly easy to see how hypocritical it is for the NRA to release a shooting game of their own, despite having blamed video games themselves. The obvious criticisms about the game have already been well stated by The Huffington Post but there’s something even more reviling that I haven’t heard anyone mention:
There are microtransactions in this game 

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Health Insurers are Using Competitions to Gamify Weight Loss

Kevin Shane03 mins

Many of us agree that the ultimate rewards for successful weight loss are looking great and feeling better. However, how many times have you lost sight of your goal because of the time and work it takes to get there? By using games in health, notably in weight loss, dieters are able to compete and reap rewards to encourage them to stick to their diet plans.

A recent article in AIS Health describes how health insurers are getting involved to keep dieters on track. United Health, Aetna, and Humana have developed competitions for dieters to encourage participation.

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Integrating Gamification into Customer Relationship Management

Kevin Shane24 mins

According to a recent CFO.com article, there is a big problem with customer relationship management (CRM) systems – getting salespeople to actually use them. CRM systems don’t always get the expected return on investment because users often don’t want to do the extra work involved; they want to get on to the next sales call.

The research group Forrester put it this way:

“The use of CRM apps is important to the whole sales process, but if salespeople aren’t using the technology, the ability to leverage the technology to generate deals is greatly diminished.”

Gamification can change that.

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Recent Retail Gamification Campaigns: Was it Worth it?

Sudarshan Gopaladesikan08 mins

Gartner has kept busy in the past few months with analyzing gamification’s current status and potential. A list of all of their research can be found here, but a recently published report by them states that by 2015, 40% of Global 1000 companies will use gamification as a primary tool to drive primary business goals. For these companies who wish to engage in increasing loyalty, virality, and engagement, they often host promotional offers through the popular social media platform Facebook. While most marketing campaigns are based around standard giveaways, three companies have been able to successfully implement some form of game elements and behavioral science to drive results. Taking a look at these retail gamification implementations from Rue La La, Dunkin Donuts, and Best Buy, the spirit of giving is mixed with the flair of games to promote cheer through the past holiday season.

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Deloitte Leadership Academy Leads with the Gamification of Training

Heong Weng Mak57 mins

Getting employees involved with training can be a challenging task for many firms. Even when the training program is simple to use and easily available, training would be the last thing employees would like to do when they are away from the work place. As James Sanders, Manager of Innovation at Deloitte Consulting puts it, “Let’s face it, for most people, on a typical Sunday morning, if given the choice between ‘Am I gonna watch ESPN, or am I gonna do some training?’ training will not win out.” While it may seem that the odds are stacked against enterprises, Deloitte is keeping itself ahead of the pack with their training program, Deloitte Leadership Academy (DLA).

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