Gamification

Introduction

Gabe Zichermann and Christopher Cunningham (2011) define gamification as “The use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems.”

The Gamification encyclopedia defines gamification as “the concept that you can apply the basic elements that make games fun and engaging to things that typically aren't considered a game. In theory you can apply Game Design to almost anything including Education, Health, Work and more. [...] Gamification at it's core is about fun, rewards and social connections. It has the opportunity to connect people in ways never seen before.”(retrieved 11:27, 15 June 2011 (CEST))

Gamification is a recent trend in marketing and user experience design. It raises interesting questions and brings together principles that already have been used in the past under labels such as fun, serious play and user engagement. As all trends it may promise more than it can deliver - Daniel K. Schneider 11:27, 15 June 2011 (CEST).

Gamification techniques

According to Mese et al (2015) , “Krapp (2014) enlisted gamification elements as Story, Challenge, Curiosity, Character, Interactivity, Feedback and Freedom to Fail. Besides, Karataş (2014) described gamification elements as Feedback, Point, Experience, Leader Board, Quest, Reward, Avatar,Achievement, Reputation, Challenge, Fantasy, Level, Virtual Goods, Progress Bar, Real Gift and Trophy. Robinson and Bellotti (2013) categorized 42 gamification elements under six major themes which are General Framing, General Rules and Performance Framing, Social Features, Incentives, Resources and Constraints, and Feedback and Status Information.”

Wikipedia (in 2011) listed the following popular gamification techniques: achievement "badges", achievement levels, "leader boards", a progress bar or other visual meter to indicate how close people are to completing a task a company is trying to encourage, such as completing a social networking profile or earning a frequent shopper loyalty award, virtual currency, systems for awarding, redeeming, trading, gifting, and otherwise exchanging points, challenges between users, and embedding small casual games within other activities.

Gamification in Marketing

Gamification has several applications in the domain of marketing. Certain companies are applying gamification techniques to engage customers and reward them in return. Brands find this a very useful platform as many people like playing games. Noise Street is one of the company who is adopting Gamification to provide a platform for brands to connect with customers. They use interactive games to allow brands to engage with their customers and reward them in returns. This form of gamification in marketing is seen very beneficial as every consumer has their phone on themselves which they use to play games.

Links

software

• Gamify a gamification platform. From a quick look at it it seems that it will allow to hand out points, achievements, levels, coupons and other virtual artifacts to users that participate.

Manuals, introductions and similar

• Gamification Encyclopedia, a wiki sponsored by Gamify.
• Gamification (Wikipedia)
• GamificationU O'Reilly Master Class. (includes a video, and also demos how turn a download, twitter participation into a game)

Presentations (slides and videos)

• Gamification, by Sylvain Cottong, IICO 2011

• video by JP Rangaswami, gamification.com

Using office software

• Experience Points for Student Goal Setting

other

• http://thefuntheory.com/
• Work and play - The gamification of hiring, The Economist, May 26th 2012

Bibliography

• Cronk, M. (2012). Using Gamification to Increase Student Engagement and Participation in Class Discussion. In T. Amiel & B. Wilson (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2012 (pp. 311-315). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. http://www.editlib.org/p/40762

• Zichermann, Gabe and Christopher Cunningham (2011). Gamification by Design, O'Reilly. Early release version. ISBN 1303155502