“Gamification” has become a bad, bad word in a lot of circles. If you are getting an MA in Serious Games, for example, your fellow students will likely be horrified that game elements have been co-opted in pursuit of commercial gain. (Except, perhaps, when it is a game design company designing games in pursuit of lucre.) But gamification doesn’t have to be evil.
Aside from the distasteful association with selling more [fill in the blank] to sheep-like players, gamification exposes itself to criticism by taking the cheap, unimaginative way out.
The more you buy, the more badges you earn! Really? That’s just weak.
But what about gamification done well – done so well, perhaps, you can’t quite tell if it is gamification or a game. Check out this 8-bit game from Old Spice: Dikembe Motumbo’s 4 ½ Weeks to Save the World. I have it on good authority that it is (gasp!) fun!
Or use your mobile phone to catch some Oreos – right in your own backyard. (It is a nice AR touch.)
Gamification/games: as long as it is fun and engaging, does the terminology really matter?
A recent exercise for school asked me to engage in a thought experiment about gamifying an aspect of my life. I chose gardening. I am an enthusiastic vegetable gardener, right up until the mildew attacks the squash or the weather gets too hot to water and weed. Here in Michigan, that’s pretty early in the gardening game. So I created a game – with rewards, in addition to the intrinsic reward of the gardening itself and the yummy zukes.
I haven’t actually implemented the game (thought experiment, school project), but just the exercise of thinking it through helped me realize a few things: more squash plants; purge the mildew as soon as it shows; multiple plantings. I think there’s a life lesson in there along with the squash blossoms.