April 23, 2026
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SXSW

Foursquare’s Removal of Gamification: Not a Mistake but a Mature Design Decision

Ivan Kuo95 mins

Earlier this week, Twitter was run amuck by Foursquare Co-Founder and CEO, Dennis Crowley, and his statements about Foursquare’s overemphasis on gamification elements.

Crowley was discussing the future direction of Foursquare in an on-stage interview with Anil Dash (Co-Founder of Activate) at SXSW and stated that he was phasing out gamification from Foursquare in an effort to move away from the perception that Foursquare is only about points and badges.

Numerous people on Twitter were quick to take these statements as evidence that gamification itself was a mistake, when in fact Crowley explicitly mentioned that it was the overemphasis on points and badges that has led to Foursquare’s perception problem.

In fact, I would say that Crowley’s decision to ultimately phase out Foursquare’s gamification mechanics is one of the most mature decisions a gamification designer can make.

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Software is the New Black

Justin Schier12 mins

by Justin Schier, Chief Creative Officer, Dopamine Inc. One day you’re in, the next you’re uninstalled – or even worse, forgotten. The number of apps, services, social media sites and games competing for our attention has never been greater. How can the average person keep track of it all? The real question is: does it…

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Gamification Roundup – March 19, 2012

Ivan Kuo01 mins

This week on the Gamification Roundup we have big news from Bunchball and their game-changing introduction of their new Flamethrower platform. Other game changers include Zeebox’s social-TV rolling out onto the states later this year, the UVA Bay Game that organically fostered great collaborations, and a scavenger hunt created by three librarians that’s changing the…

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Click to Participate – Games in Government

Jeff Lopez311 mins

According to Jen Pahlka, founder and Executive Director of Code for America, trust in government is at an all time low except amongst a single demographic: Millennials. This may seem odd, as our generation is typically seen either in a never ending text conversation, wasting time on Facebook, battling friends on Call of Duty, or clicking on cows in FarmVille. But I see these elements as something different. I believe our “wastes of time” have the ability to make our generation into the most participatory generation in the past two-thousand years. As Pahlka puts it, “it’s not that Millennials think the government works now, it’s that they think they can remake the government in their image”. In line with this idea, collaboration and participation through social media is becoming an integral part of the Government 2.0 movement, and I see games as the next step in the process.

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