Did you ever lose track of time because of a game? And have you ever asked yourself how you ended up spending 4 hours playing Candy Crush?
Games are one of the most engaging things that we can find because they involve and fulfill almost all of our main human motivators and happiness factors while creating so much funbut some very special ones have this stickiness that makes us want to play them for a long period of time.
But…why?
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.
Social Roulette has a 1/6 chance of deleting your Facebook Existence. Well at least it used to until Facebook took down the app, according to an article posted by TechCrunch yesterday.
Social Roulette is a version of Russian Roulette: a game in which you place a single bullet in a revolver pistol, spin the barrel, and pull the trigger at yourself. If you’re unlucky, the single bullet will be in that chamber and subsequently send you into oblivion. Social Roulette is a play on this concept but instead of losing your life, you would only lose your all of your Facebook posts, pictures, and friends.
Every week until GSummit SF 2013, we’ll be unlocking some special content from last year to give you a preview on what to expect this April 16 – 18.
Jon Guerrera, lifehacker and frequent GCo contributor, explains the importance of understanding your audience to engage them with gamification.
Image by MridulRaj
Prior to the 2012 elections, MTV was working on new ways to better engage US citizens to be involved in the American democratic process. With support from the Knight Foundation, MTV conceived Fantasy Election 2012, an online game which gave users a new way to hold electoral candidates accountable while being rewarded for getting involved in the electoral process.
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
Gamification warns designers about the dangers of using leaderboards as a measure of success for its members. Citing its loss of meaning for players if they aren’t first place, many cap the potential of the leaderboard as a meaningful game element for all. Trials Evolution is a side-scrolling motorcycle game with an excellent physics engine. Trials Evolution’s…
Amidst all the arguments about gamification’s off-putting nomenclature, trivializing problems, and it not being about playing games, it would be a mistake to not at least consider the study of games as a point of reference to better understand gamification. If you can accept Richard Bartle’s player types as a model for gamification player design,…
