10 gamification predictions for 2012 (from my skeptically optimistic perspective)

I recently came across a great post made by Mario Herger of Enterprise-Gamification, in which he makes seven predictions about gamification in 2012.* As far as articles go in this space, it’s refreshingly well referenced, and I find myself agreeing with most of his predictions. Do have a read, as I’ll be building upon Mario’s predictions in this post.**

MY THOUGHTS ON MARIO’S 7 PREDICTIONS

1. Gamification Platform Acquisitions
If you’ve ever played Osmos, you’ll understand what’s happening in the gamification industry. The bigger companies are gobbling up the littler ones with proven potential. While this might be a bad thing for boutique retailers, it’s probably a good thing for gamification, as it’ll reduce the noise created by all the half-cocked, me-too startups that spawned in 2010-11. Strong platforms will make identity of gamification clearer, and ensure that better research and case studies will emerge. Indeed, 2012 is going to be a good year for the gamification industry. 

2. Business Growth
When poster-child companies like Badgeville report 400% growth in 2011, it’s pretty clear that the market is valuing their services. What will be interesting to see is how well gamification businesses can retain clients and sustain high levels of value. In 2011 we saw many startups get terribly distracted by the “fruit” of games (like points, badges and leaderboards – which are really just tools that need to be used with the appropriate strategy), losing sight of the core premise and value proposition (genuine, sustained engagement). 

3. The ROI Holy Grail
It’s pretty clear that the existing data on the cost/benefit of gamification is rather limited at this stage. Of course, gamification (when done well) draws from the deep knowledge wells of psychology, motivation science and behavioural economics. The key challenge for the gamification industry is to show how gamified structures can continue to provide ROI beyond the initial novelty. This will mean providing more than simple fixes – companies will need ongoing and agile gamification of evolving processes.

4. More Sophistication
I’m so keen to see gamification find its identity and flourish within that niche (see point #9). Right now, gamification is trying to be everything to everyone. The examples of gamification we currently see range from apps to community dashboards to training facilitation games to HR policies (and so on) – which is far too broad to allow real depth in sophistication. Also it’s still unclear where gamification sits amongst concepts like “serious play” and “gameful design” (as noted in a previous article). Personally, I’d love it if gamification stuck to application and interface design (which are still critical, enduring strategic structures that guide user behaviour), while gameful design remains focussed on non-interface based productivity and motivation (capturing the spirit of a game with “people” – not “users”), and with serious play centred in the training and facilitation domains (where games are used to shift thinking, solve problems, develop strategy and instil experience). 

5. Critics
Many of the initial articles and claims in 2010 and 2011 where based on sloppy thinking and research (even from reputable brands like Saatchi&Saatchi). Couple this with gamification identity crisis, disturbing marketing claims (“add pleasure to your business”…?) and concerns about manipulation, it’s no wonder gamification has attracted criticism. But any scientist will tell you that this is a good thing. Even the less-than-constructive criticism is helpful, in that it forces gamification proponents to thoroughly consider the evidence, logic and reasoning behind their propositions. The critics are certainly not going to go away, but they will help catalyse the evolution and maturity of gamification industry. And of course, those who offer well considered, strategic and transparent interventions that deliver value will have nothing to worry about.

6. Workshops, Conferences and Books
I am what many would refer to as a “motivational speaker”. I bring my expertise in motivation design to give people new insight into making stuff happen and getting stuff done. Very often, this incorporates principles of game design. I like that there’ll be more of this as the market wakes up to the potential of gamification. But what we do not want to see is more noise enter the market, where ill-informed people simple parrot the latest findings without having invested the time and effort developing their own thought leadership. The existing platforms that rate books, along with the emerging platforms to rate "gurus" will become increasingly useful.

7. Gamification Gurus & Game Studios
To become a modern guru, one must lead with value through expertise. What is actually valued will always be determined by the market, however there are some interesting platforms that can help gauge one’s influence in this field. Take The Gamifcation Guru Leaderboard. Now, I’m not a huge fan leaderboards – they collapse wondrously complex and potentially collaborative phenomena into overly simple, competitive hierarchal scoring systems. There are too many variables for them to be useful (and this particular one has been too dependant upon Klout).

But I’ve recently noticed that Toby Beresford (the creator of the gamification guru leaderboard) is on a quest, actively evolving his leaderboard to become increasingly meaningful. While it’s a far cry from The Scientific Method of peer review, Toby has made a simple and effective game anyone “gamification guru” can play. It’s quite reasonable to predict that gamification platforms such as this will grow in sophistication and usefulness, with more video-based platforms soon to emerge.

MY 3 BONUS PREDICTIONS

8. Gameful design will continue to be awesome
The likes of Jane McGonigal, Aaron Dignan, the Baxters (and other champions you can watch here) tend to get drowned out amongst the gamification marketing zealots. But I predict we’ll see a resurgence in gameful design, particularly when gamification sorts out its identity issues. This’ll happen in the field of education and learning, and in domains not dependant upon establish interfaces (ie, more like Find the Future, Fun Theory, or games-based learning in schools).

9. Gamification will finally decide who it wants to be
One of the most important lessons for any consultant or business is to learn that you can’t be everything and do everything for everyone. Right now, gamification is on this unforuntate pathway – but I believe what it does best is within the domain of websites and interfaces (which are actually very critical to business strategy). Bunchball claims to have invented gamification, (pfft, I say they merely coined the definition for an existing phenomena), and their definition of gamification has generally prevailed. That is, "integrating game dynamics into your site, service, comunity, content or campaign, in order to drive participation. When you look at what Bunchball actually does, you’ll see a clearer picture of what gamification's really ought to be about.

I predict/hope that by the end of 2012 gamification will finally have a clear and sophisticated service niche to occupy.

10. A new philosophy of work will emerge 
This may be more wishful thinking on my behalf then any logical prediction, but I think people are going to pay more attention to the words we use, and the meanings we craft. I think there’s a huge ontological and existential case to make in support of gameful design – and it comes down to simple distinctions like James Carse’s assertion that life is an “infinite game” compared to the terribly common saying that life “is a game”. (If you can't see the linguistic distinction between the two phrases, I highly recommend James Carse's practical philosophy of finite and infinite games: a vision of play and possibility). When people realise that there are many finite games at play within this infinite game of life, they’ll also realise that it each game and experience will always comes down to good design and whatever facilitates progress.

(Well, that turned out far more rambly than I intended. Hopefully you’ll find a few nuggets in this post. Badgeville have also made a nifty set of 10 predictions that closely mirrors the predictions we have here. Worth checking out. Now, bring on 2012!).

* Thanks to Gerry Breislin for pointing me onto this (a thoroughly top bloke).
** I’d again like to point out that the first seven points of this article originated from Mario Herger’s article. I’m just throwing in my thoughts on top. And hey, isn’t Mario such a cool name for someone in this industry? He must get that all the time. Super.

Goal Setting and the four biggest traps that'll destroy your motivation (and the one key thing that'll sustain it).

January is the time of year where many motivational speakers begin to tout the virtues of goal setting with fervor and zeal. Which is great, but at the same time I'll admit to a recurring sense of frustration – every year it's the same old outdated, misuguided and rehashed nonesense, +/- a new hyped-up angle or two. Whether we're talking new year's resolutions, goal setting, vision planning, “dream casting” or any well-intended motivational endeavor, invariably many "experts" disproportionately emphasize all the wrong areas. 

In this little video, I attempt to set the record straight. Take a squizz if you're keen to learn the four most over-emphasized elements of goal getting, and the one critical element that's often overlooked (hint: this relates to the 2010 breakthrough idea from the Harvard Business Review). 

(Also note that I'm deliberately being a protagonist here to make a point, and to save you some time, money and effort the next time you attempt to embark upon an ambitious or innovative new project). Enjoy with salt! –_^

How video games are changing education.

Via: Online Colleges Guide

The 12 smartest presentations on Applied Game Design.

Imagine if there were an ethical way to wholesomely influence, elevate, engage, motivate and direct the actions of people towards achieving progress toward a particular goal. Imagine if we could make work work.

Lol – we can. It’s called game design. And it’s been around for a long time.

All mammals have a natural disposition to play – it’s a survival mechanism. Play is where we make mistakes and learn. It is, as Einstein describes it, “the highest form of research.” “Fun” is often our reward for play – a sensation the brain produces when it recognises that we have effectively invested in our own learning and development (read: survival skills). Play can be spontaneous and unstructured, or it can form (or emerge) from a well designed game (or experience).

Games share an interesting relationship to play. Games are essentially goal-driven, challenge-intensive and feedback-rich environments that can harness and direct our natural disposition to play. However, just because we make something work more like a game doesn’t mean there’ll automatically be play. But oh boy, when we get it right – when we can craft a stirring narrative (goal), design the parameters that focus our efforts (rules) and employ powerful ways to track meaningful progress (feedback) – we can unlock massive motivation, productivity and innovation.

The immense power of applied gameful design is positively darn exciting. Oh, the things we can do! Solve deep social issues, cure AIDS, save lives (<– do check out that link, it's for The Fun Theory's Speed Camera Lottery) and drive progress… game design can be applied to make (everything) work better.

But most people don’t see this, and instead relegate games to the realm of juevenile escapist entertainment (despite the fact that gamers are, on avrage, 35 years old). They prematurely dismiss them, working from outdated and grossly misinformed stigmas. Some will even go as far as to vehemently eschew games.

And in so doing, they short change themselves from a whole world of possibility and place their future selves at a major disadvantage.

“Bah!” I say. “Bah!”

As part of my epic quest to get everyone playing a better game, I’ve collected 12 of the best videos on game design from the interwebs. Now, no doubt you’ve seen me talk on the topic (at least, a brief snippet of me talking on it – it’s more of an entrée): –



But there are plenty more who think like this – allow me to introduce you to some of the most inspiring thought leaders in this space.

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1. First up must be Dr Jane McGonigal and her brilliant TED presentation on why gaming can make a better world.



Jane is a bit of a hero in my world. If you’re interested, Jane has some amazing side projects, including Superbetter – a game designed around achieving health recovery goals. She also champions Gameful – a secret headquarters for game changers to plot devious plans to make the world work better (like games that facilitate Random Acts of Kindness).

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2. Next up is Aaron Dignan, author of Game Frame. I like the cut of this man’s jib, and the fact that he emphasises the core behavioural side of games, focussing on how experiences are structured. (And as an aside, his characterisation of some of the gamification types as “moustache twirlers” is amusingly apt. You know my stance on gamification.)

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3. My little gamification grumble provides a perfect segue to Sebastian Deterding, a self-confessed grumpy German and a thoroughly constructive critic of gamification and gameful design. Sebastian consistently delivers deep, rigorous insights into the nature of games and play. He almost plays the role of an inquisitor, dismantling rogue theories when marketers get carried away, and bringing us back to our grounded, rational understanding of motivational design. At times he can be (professionally) brutal – but this only serves to help mature the evolution of applied gameful design with rigour.

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4. If Sebastian’s presentation was a bit heavy, you may enjoy Dan Pink’s brilliantly delivered presentation on the surprising truth about what motivates us. While not talking about game design per se, the insights he shares on intrinsically-driven motivation and extrinsically-driven motivation is important, highlighting why we need to be very considered in how we attempt to motivate people to achieve particular things.

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5. Taking things into a deeper and more academic level, no good game designer could go by without a generous nod to the stellar work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his work on the pyschology of optimal experience. All game designers aspire to create opportunities for optimal experience – a state Mihaly dubs as “flow”. 

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6. And while we’re talking psychology, let’s unpack 7 ways games reward the brain – a presentation by author and gamer Dr Tom Chatfield.

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7. And here’s a video for the teachers, parents and politicians who have no idea as to the magic and learning that can happen within game worlds. Will Wright – the same game designer who created Sim City, and who is famous for crafting progressive, open, non-linear and non-violent game environments – shares how he makes toys that make worlds. 

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8. At this point, you can probably understand why David Perry asks the question: Are games better than life?



The answer is, of course, no video games probably aren't better than real life. But real life could be a whole heap better if we craft our experiences using good game design.

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9. And as we’ll see, Jesse Schell playfully takes this notion to the extreme, painting an exciting yet somewhat scary image of what the future could be when games invade real life.

(Though I’d like to add all life is already an infinite game consisting of many finite games. What Jesse is actually proposing is not so much about games invading life, but what life would be like if we had easy means of providing rapid game-like feedback in all life domains). 

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10. Seth Priebatsch has already begun a quest in this direction, building what he calls a game layer on top of the world.



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11. But we could easily get carried away here. Game design has very real application in the present. In this video, Dave Gray shows us how gamestorming (the art of using game design to accelerate creative innovation) can be used to solve problems and facilitate breakthrough thinking. 



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12. And all of this is, really, a tool to make things work better. And by taking inspiration from game design, we can craft environments that enable and empower – like John Hunter’s World Peace Game.



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And there you have it – 12 of the smartest presentations on the web from some of the predominant thinkers in this space. I don't necessarily agree with all aspects of each presenters' content, and you’ll see that we all approach and use game design in different ways – but the unifying context is the same: taking what works in good games and applying it to make things work better in the real world.
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UPDATE! Thanks to the brilliant Kristian Still, of www.kristianstill.co.uk, for pointing out a superb video by Penny Arcade. Alas, I cannot embed it here, but do check it out if you'd like to learn about Gamifying Education. 

That makes thirteen! Can you think of any other videos that are missing? Let me know.
You know my bias – let's go beyond the external gamification fruits, and work on the internal gameful roots. 

The Flameful Purification of Gamification – and why good design is worth fighting for.

Source: http://media.photobucket.com/image/fireball+mario+/numerobetically/Mario%20Renders/mariorenderawesomecopy.png
If you’ve been following the #gamification hype, you’ll probably know that the recent release of Gabe Zichermann’s new book “Gamification by Design” (O’Reilly Media) has sparked some deep questions about the science and validity of the gamification thrust. Which, as any researcher would concur, is a jolly good thing (and well overdue).

Gamification is deservedly full of promise and excitement. Yet at the same time, its relatively short life has been plagued by hyped-up, shallow and sloppy thinking – from Saachi & Saachi’s terribly flawed report, to the upwelling of “gamification startups” waving their faux-scientific-dopamine-loving flags, to the horde of marketers trumpeting out the latest fad.

Some see gamification as a way to use the extrinsic fruit from games to make your customers feel like they are getting stuff, when really they are getting nothing. To them, gamification offers a cheap and easy way to trick people into ‘loyalty’. As a result of this, game designers and motivation scientists are getting mightily peeved, and naively optimistic companies can find themselves paying good money for bad gamification design that ultimately does more harm than good.

Gamification almost became a dirty word in some circles. But then along came Sebastian Deterding, a self-confessed Grumpy German, and a long-time advocate for the science of good gamification design. In response to Zichermann’s new book, Deterding released a very deep, insightful (and severe) critique. It’s very academically rigorous – imagine the type of critiques one would expect from a panel of professors at a dissertation defence – the type of stuff that puts PhD candidates into states of utter fear – distilled into one post. That’s what it was like. Take a look.

The crux of this gamification schism is that some of the marketing types advocate that games work because of status, badges, leader-boards and rewards. And it’s these folks who are naturally getting their thoughts into the limelight – they're marketers, and they're businesses, and they want you to be sold on the idea of gamification.

Alternatively, most game designers and motivation scientists instead argue that games work primarily because people enjoy engaging in goal-driven, challenge-intense and feedback-rich environments that produce progress. And it’s this side of games that has the weight of reason and evidence to support it.

Tim O’Reilly, the founder of O’Reilly Media took special notice of Deterding’s detailed critique, which prompted Deterding to write a further, detailed response. Zichermann then made his reply (poor guy – he’d only just finished facilitating the Gamification Summit). Deterding, ever the dedicated academic, posted a further detailed reply (all worth reading), and in the meantime, in light of the recent breakthrough in AIDS research achieved by gamers, O’Reilly seems to be swayed towards what he now calls “deeper gamification” (suggesting that the conventional view of gamification is a bit… shallow).

It’s been fascinating to watch the debate evolve as the gamification industry begins its journey to maturity. I for one have always tried to avoid using the “gamification” label to describe my services, steering instead towards Dr Jane McGonigal’s term “gameful design” – crafting the constructs that capture the spirit of a game (along with an inspired philosophy of life as possibility and play).

Glorious semantics aside, what it all boils down to is good design. If you’re going to mess with motivational dynamics in play, you'll want to do it right. After all, this is human behaviour and emotion we’re playing with here. And people are smart – they’ll catch on to the charlatans soon enough. In the meantime, the good folk who design with pure intent and advocate for infinite play, and who are ever-curious to explore ways to empower people collaborate, conquer, create, master, advance, produce and to do great work… these are the ones who will help us make a better world.