Emerging Technologies
Gamification the New Age of Motivation
Jasper Lim
Westwood College

Gamification the New Age of Motivation
With the rapidly evolving technologies of today, instruments of innovation surface as the next big thing in advancement. Different aspects of life are improved by these advancements, with this said the ideology to which these devices are applied become questioned. In mind the concept of gamification comes into a rapidly growing notion with schools and businesses taking part in its progression.
What is gamification? The idea of gamification came into fruition as a business strategy to improve the productivity of employees in a work environment. It is the relative application of game elements to business practices and websites. Examples of said practice include experience bars, and achievement badges all of which corresponds to motivations that people instinctively respond to. In an age where children learn at such a rapid pace video games have becoming the primary entertainment tool. The fast pace and challenge of video games bring to audiences turn it into a valuable medium of amusement. This is aside from the fact that video games is the youngest of entertainment platforms.
According to Wanda Meloni and Wolfgang Gruener the appeal of gamification stems from the fact that people enjoy actively engaging and participating with others through entertainment. A strong case can be made in favor for gamification because of this statement. We live in a generation where a good amount of the American population has played a video game one form or another. Game franchises from Call of Duty to Angry Birds reflect the different forms to which entertainment is consumed. The common elements these games have are the mechanics that are used in gamifying a system.
The primary goal of gamification is to engage, motivate, promote, and retain over all participation. Having this said it is in the interest of a company to implement gamification, as a tool to encourage people with the following:

As a prime indication on how gamification affects people in a positive light is through gameplay, creativity, communication, reward and virality it provides. Notably, having these elements improve the value to which people interact with the system. Creativity for instance involves self-education that strongly benefits the pacing which most educational systems have problems with. Learning how to perform a task through gamification enforces the value of the task itself. And in a generation where everyone is connected through social networking it can’t be ignored that gamification is a gain, because of society’s reliance on networking. Compared to 1990’s information travels in a much higher pace, by acknowledging this we gain a respect towards gamification as a tool to access said knowledge.
Gamification has been getting a lot of buzz lately from a variety of sources. From conferences on how to gamify the office at work, to websites adding experience bars or badges, to speakers preaching how great gamification is going to be. The general consensus seems to be we are on a path to make everything fun and rewarding. That games will make school and work fun and the lines between boring responsible stuff and cutting edge entertainment will be blurred away to nothing.
But the reality of what gamification is a little more pedestrian then that. First it has to be established what gamification isn’t. It isn’t games like Carmen San Diego or Oregon Trail. Those are actual games created with the intent to use game mechanics and simulations to educate or inform. Gamification is more to akin to the “Pizza Hut Book IT!” program that gives kids pizza in exchange for reading books. It’s the act of slapping intrinsic and often pointless motivator to an activity in order to entice people to engage that activity longer or more often.
The point of gamification is not to make things fun, it’s not to make every aspect of our lives super enjoyable experience, where we are constantly rewarded and constantly rewarded for every action we take in the right direction. It is not going to turn work or school or exercise into an experience comparable to League of Legends or Black Ops 2. The point of gamification is to exploit instinctive human reactions to basic stimuli in order to get someone to do something otherwise wouldn’t be done, It utilities collecting and hording impulses by providing lists of badges to complete. Gamification gives people experience bars and leveling up mechanics in order to make the end users feel more productive, it also creates a positive feedback loop where every action taken for the benefit of the system’s owners grants more rewards. It then compounds all of those features with the need for social recognition and praise by making these badges and levels viewable to everyone. Establishing a social hierarchy that re-enforces the behaviors they are looking to promote.
The idea is to take the whole mess of constructs and attach them to an established system someone wants to encourage interaction with. So users start collecting badges and leveling up to make themselves feel better while the owner of the system benefits through either ad revenue or increase productivity. For example let us observe “the Escapist” which is a gaming magazine website that at some point started gamifying their website and added a badge system in their forums. Someone can get badges for interacting with the site in different ways; watching certain videos while logged in, commenting on a particularly long thread, advertising articles by liking them on facebook. There are even date sensitive badges that are only achievable at a certain time window encouraging users to check back in often. And exchange for promoting someone else’s content and spending hours on pointless personality quizzes the reward is a thirty-two by thirty-two pixel icon which can be shown off to other forum users.
Alternately, we can look at what “1UP.com” has done with their leveling up system. Unlike promoting specific behaviors with a small icon, 1UP promotes everything via experience bar at the top of the screen. This implementation de-emphasizes the social pressure aspects that “the Escapist” had in favor of a positive feedback loop. Just about any interaction with the site earns points and fills the experience bar, compelling the individual to keep on posting on the forum or updating blogs because there is always a gain to the activity.
The point is users are manipulated by content owners to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do, not because they are thoroughly engaged by these little games that they can’t tear themselves away from the computer desk but because they are following gut instincts to fill bars and collect collectable things. This is similar to a cat chasing a laser pointer it is just following instincts and will walk away empty handed every time. Gamification doesn’t engage users it manipulates them.
As an article by Matthew Jensen states Gamification isn’t fundamentally wrong, it just needs to evolve past the hype. Considering this statement and the previous discussion on the actual exploitative notions of it, gamification it is both a tool for growth and exploitation. As popular the idea of applying game design to systems may be it can easily be misused. As Matthew Jensen further points out that player experience must come first, by doing so will hinder the argument that gamification only exploits those who use it. Rather than just indicating achievements, make the accomplishment personal, a generic format of achievement is less appreciated by the player then a success tailored towards him. These are only a few design changes that point to the underlining change that must take place: designing meaningful games. By way of example it is imperative to consider that it is part of society’s development to find better methods to conduct menial tasks. In the present state of gamification it can easily be exploited with unrefined application, but with further honing and designing it can be a way to which users find an escape from the tedious chores. In terms of education, it has the potential to improve on our current education, by making learning more “fun” children will be more engaged and willing to learn. Just as video games have underlining educational properties such as, the current popular League of Legends promotes teamwork and coordination while Black Ops 2 provides hand and eye coordination, gamifying learning will also have underlying education values.
In conclusion, gamification has a lot of benefits to it that can be expounded upon. Being a fairly new tool for companies and schools it still needs further refinement. If it isn’t polished it can result in exploitation of users and not really use to its full potential. It can be misconstrued as exploitation and monetization without the engaging the users properly. With this said it can be said that there are limitless possibilities to this endeavor. Being rapidly emerging technology it can be argued that gamification is the right path to teaching the youth.

References

1UP.com: Video Game Reviews, Cheats, and More. 1UP.com: Video Game Reviews, Cheats, and More. Retrieved from http://www.1up.com/
Blobel, B., Quaglini, S., Moen, A., Mantas, J. J., Andersen, S., Mazzoleni, M., & ... Italian Medical, I. (2012). Quality of Life Through Quality of Information : Proceedings of MIE2012. IOS Press.
The Escapist. The Escapist. Retrieved from http://www.escapistmagazine.com/
Hecker, C. Chris Hecker's Website. Achievements Considered Harmful? - Chris Hecker's Website. Retrieved from http://chrishecker.com/Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F
Jensen, M. (2012). Engaging the Learner Gamification Strives to Keep the User's Interest. T+D, 66(1), 40-44.
Kapp, K. M. (2012). GAMES, GAMIFICATION, AND THE QUEST FOR LEARNER ENGAGEMENT. T+D, 66(6), 64-68.
Meloni, W., & Gruener, W. Gaming Business Review | Business Intelligence for the Games & Entertainment Industry.Gamification in 2012. Retrieved February 2013, from http://gamingbusinessreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Gamification-in-2012-M2R3.pdf
Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Program - Read Your Heart Out. Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Program - Read Your Heart Out. Retrieved from http://www.bookitprogram.com/