Gamification is huge. Corporations have found that people respond well to (i.e. can be somewhat controlled through) games. Is this good or bad?
A generation of gamers
Right now there is a conjunction of two factors in our society unique in the history of humanity.
Raised on video games
The majority of the population in the United States was raised in a post-video game era. Pong was released in 1972. The Atari 2600 home game system was released in 1977. I propose that anyone born in the USA on or after the year 1970 is likely to consider video games to have influenced their development. According to US census data, that is well over 50% of the populous.
Availability of games
The abundance of games available today is staggering. The Android Play store is full of thousands upon thousands of games, and a huge percent of them are even free! We could debate how many of those games are actually worth playing, but I assert that even the worst games (for the most part) would have been considered great fun when I was a child. Handheld electronic football anyone?
Ignoring video games for a minute, there’s also been a huge explosion in my own hobby of choice: board games. According to Board Game Geek, there were more than 700 board games released in the year 1985. Jump to the year 2000 and that number increases to just shy of 1,200 games released that year. But last year, in 2014, there were apparently more than 2,800 board games released.
Conditioned to play
The verdict is still out on specifically what impact games have on our society, though there are plenty of opinions ranging from more scientific studies to pure speculation. I, backed by the full authority of my superior speculative abilities, assert that games have conditioned our society to seek play. I recognize and freely admit that I am personally more motivated to do something when there is a game involved.
You know, there’s a game for that
In my third article on losing weight, I talked about the phone app, Noom, which takes a weight loss program and turns it into a game, complete with points and levels. There are countless apps available to transform just about any task into a game, including household chores such as sweeping the floor and doing your laundry!
Not only are there apps designed to make your life more fun, but there are games built into many applications that are ostensibly for a completely different purpose. When my company, Windstream, recently rolled out a new social media site for their employees, based on the Jive platform, I could earn points, badges and levels for doing things such as telling my coworkers how I’m feeling right now.
Another example is the Audible app on my phone. In a recent update, it added statistics and achievements. If I listen for another 121 hours, I will level-up from Scholar to Master! I have earned 9 out of 15 badges (4 at the gold level), the most recent being Mount Everest, which I earned for listening to a book that is longer than 20 hours. Yay! Go me!
The reputation game
A situation where I have found gamification to be quite helpful is when it is used to build a reputation. A good example of this is the website Stack Exchange.
Stack Exchange is a vehicle for answering questions. You can ask for “expert” advice on various topics including computer programming, cooking, politics, and Japanese anime. Most questions that I have asked receive an answer within a couple of hours. But how trustworthy is that answer?
The solution comes from gamification, in the form of points and badges awarded to Stack Exchange members who have answered questions correctly in the past. If a user is active on the site, and people find their contributions useful, then they will have a high score.
Am I playing, or am I being played?
If a company can get you to use their product more by making a game out of it, then who benefits? The company or the consumer?
It doesn’t really need to be an either/or question. As long as you are aware of the tactic, and its effects on you, then you are in control. Keep some guiding principles in mind:
- Is the game motivating me to do more of something that I want to do anyway, or am I letting it dictate how I spend my time?
- Is the game tempting me to spend money that I would not otherwise spend?
- If the only benefit from the game is entertainment value, would my time and / or money be better spent on another option that better fulfills that role?
Gamification success stories
I’m not going to start listening to more audio books just to earn badges in my Audible app, but I can relate some instances where I have greatly appreciated the practice. As mentioned before, I lost over 80 lbs using Noom, and I attribute much of my success to the gamification provided by the app.
Another example of beneficial gamification is the website CodinGame. I have been spending a good amount of time on CodinGame recently, trying to solve computer programming puzzles to improve my rank.
As of this writing, I have 1890 points, have earned 72 out of 156 achievements, am classified as a “Guru”, and am ranked number 718 out of 66,285 members on the site. While the accomplishments and accolades are fun, the time spent at CodinGame is more than just entertainment. It’s also good practice for my job at Windstream.
Care to share?
Do you think that gamification is beneficial, just an annoyance, or outright manipulative? Have you had any good experiences with gamification? Any bad experiences? Feel free to share in the comments below this article.
– danBhentschel
