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 were 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 unfortunate 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.

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! –_^

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 juvenile escapist entertainment (despite the fact that gamers are, on average, 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. 

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.

But you'd be forgiven for not knowing what all the fuss is about, or for dismissing it prematurely. For every one or two researchers who are deeply interested in the application of game design to enhance productivity, motivation or innovation, there are twenty or so marketers trumpeting their buzz-wordy hype. And just like how "advertising", "marketing" and "branding" are distinctly different terms, they are often used interchangeably by those who don’t know better.

So, let's get clear on a few things:

“Gamification” – is perhaps the most popular term, used to describe the integration of game-like mechanics and dynamics to improve business processes or customer experience. While this can be all-reaching, its main application is generally limited to users engaged with online content (although some tout it as a quick fix, and a cheap way to buy 'loyatly' – which is crap).

“Serious Play” – is best thought of as non-entertainment gaming, where two or more independent decision-makers seek to solve real problems and achieve objectives within clearly defined parameters and constraints.

“Advergaming” – is when a brand pays a developer to make a game. Many companies mistakenly think that advergaming will enhance acquisition of new customers, but this strategy is best used to retain and/or on-sell to an existing customer base.

“Gamestorming” – is the process of using games to facilitate breakthrough thinking. You could think of it as brainstorming with games, but I think that sells it short. Gamestorming can be used to rapidly prototype new ideas, and can aid the creation of team-generated game-plans to execute ideas.

“Gameful Design” – is in some ways similar to gamification, but focusses more upon harnessing and directing our natural disposition to play, in order to overcome challenges and achieve something meaningful. Think Volkswagon’s Fun Theory, Quest to Learn or Find the Future. Gameful design attempts to capture the spirit of a game – and not merely the mechanics that feature within games. 

We are only scratching the surface here. Good game design offers profound insights that, when applied, could unlock massive productivity, motivation and innovation within organisations... but it will always come back to good design, and a deep understanding of the science of motivation. 

Source: http://images.wikia.com/fantendo/images/6/6a/Starmanmario.jpgYou can’t rely upon inspiration alone to see you through the execution of your most important projects.

One of the classic main power-ups in the timeless Super Mario Brothers series is the invincibility star – you don’t always know when you’re going to get it, but gosh you know it when you have it. The invincibility star will have you flashing all sorts of colours while you smash through the challenges, obstacles and opponents that would have otherwise slowed you down or held you back. It’s a real game changer.

But this special invincibility power-up only lasts for a very short period of time. After that, you’re back to normality, and the challenges and obstacles are long your path will become very real again.

Inspiration works much like the invincibility power-up. You don’t always know when you’re going to get inspired, but when you are, you can obtain a massive return on the effort expended towards achieving your goals. But when the inspiration expires – and it will – you’ll want to have the structures in place (the game, if you will) to ensure progress.

For conference and event organisers, this is particularly critical. Sure, you're going to have an inspiring event, and everyone is going to feel great. But how are they going to feel about the work required to make their new ideas happen once they get back to the office, with their overflowing inboxes and jammed photocopiers? Inspiration is great, until it expires. But in the meantime, you can craft and play games that put inspiration to work, unlocking awesome progress.

Progress is, after all, the ultimate motivator. 

In 2010, some fascinating research was published in the Harvard Business Review, prompting a good rethink about the way we go about building and sustaining the elements that support motivation at work. Originally, researchers Amabile and Kramer surveyed over 600 managers from dozens of diverse companies, asking them to rank workplace factors commonly considered to be significant to motivation. “Recognition of good work” was the clear winner. 

While this is still quite a good answer, it was far from the best. The most significant motivating factor – identified from a multi-year study of over 12,000 employee diary entries along with ratings of motivation and activity – was a sense of progress. And, ironically, this is what the 600+ managers ranked dead last.

This has been known to science for some time, but as Dan Pink would say, “there’s a big gap between what science knows and what business does.” And so many businesses continue to unquestioningly subscribe to the conventional nonsense like:

• “Failing to plan is planning to fail” – which is, of course, rubbish. Google’s business strategy is to have no business strategy, and too often, planning gets in the way of action, or locks you into a redundant pathway.
•  “You can achieve anything, all you need to do is believe”– self-efficacy is important, but you’re kidding yourself if you believe you can achieve positive change simply by thinking about it.
•  “All it takes is one big idea” – wrong, on so many levels. I’ll talk about this in another post.

I could go on. Regardless, the above elements are indeed each an important component of any good goal, strategy or game-plan. But even if you’ve got an idea, a goal, a vision, a plan and the belief to execute it, you’ve still got a heck of work to do. It’s easy to gloss over this fact, and make a disproportionate investment into your goals/ideas/plans/etc. Even if a “motivational” speaker parachutes in, gets your people hyped up, then jetpacks off into the sunset… you’ll still have a lot of work to do to make your ideas happen.

But that’s fine, because work can be awesome if you get the progress dynamics right. It’s why World of Warcraft still has millions of people paying money each month for the opportunity to engage in challenging, repetitive work. It’s why the Nike+ system for recording your running progress was a huge success. It’s also why we procrastinate by writing lists, making cups of coffee or cleaning the house – because these activities provide an easier way to see (and mark off) the progress we make.

We are most happy when we can see that our efforts directly contribute to something meaningful.

So, here are the five critical design elements that are used sustain motivation and effort in good games – and they are totally available for you to adapt into your work projects: 

1. Track it
Of all online communities and social networks, LinkedIn has one of the highest levels of profile completion. This is largely due to a nifty little (and quite simple) progress bar, which indicates your percentage of profile completion. Coupled with this are suggestions on the direct actions you can take to progress the level of profile completion.
 

2. Reduce feedback latency
Motivation declines when there is a long delay between effort and useful feedback – which makes sense, because if it is unclear whether our efforts are contributing to progress, we are more likely to conserve our energy (ie, do nothing) or invest it into an area where we can make progress (like checking emails). The quicker we have access to meaningful feedback, the sooner we can calibrate our efforts to make progress.

3. Balance gratification
You’ve probably heard of the marshmallow study, which has cute videos associated with it. The basic premise is that delayed gratification leads to success – and while the evidence is only a weak correlation, at some level we can all see the reason in this. If we were simply run by short-term gratification, it’d be beer and skittles, all the time (which probably isn’t healthy). So, we’re told to instead word hard, save money, stick at it and delay gratification. 

But it doesn’t have to be like this – you can actually blend both forms of gratification. Games do this very well – as you are leveling up and progressing your characters, you’ll receive small acknowledgements and little token rewards. You’ll progress the narrative, and this will continue to fuel your motivation and effort.

Tim Ferris – the author of The Four Hour Workweek – has given some people an idea about how they can build in mini-rewards into their life. Rather than living what he calls the “delayed life plan” – he advocates for frequent, mini-retirements instead.
 

The key here is to not think in terms of either short-term or long-term gratification, rather, to think about how short-term gratification (points, mini-rewards, hat-tips) can be used to reinforce your progress toward bigger gratification.
 

4. Celebrate wins
Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up relentlessly focussing on the to-do list, without celebrating the wins in your “have-done” list. For managers, stretching targets and autocratically changing goals will eliminate the ability for your team to celebrate wins and achievements, which in turn will diminish the motivation to do work.

Of course, when you’re playing a good video game, you’ll know what level you’re at, and it’s easy to mark out your previous wins, achievements and all the stages you’ve progressed through. But we can build this into our real world work too.

Behance – a creative agency based in New York – has a wonderful “DONE! wall". It’s a physical wall where they post up all the completed action steps they’ve taken. As they describe it, they have literally surrounded themselves with progress.

5. Maintain agility
The path to innovation rarely follows a straight line, and your ability to make progress will be dependant upon your ability to adapt to changes along the way. Many software developers are very used to this, and they employ agile project methods to keep their people making progress. For some, this includes 12-minute stand up meetings each morning, where team members will report on yesterday's wins and today’s goals (which also creates an ecology of open accountability, and the ability for team members to work collaboratively and eliminate fires early).

Meaningful progress is the heart and core of all motivation (and the whole point for doing work). If you’re serious about building and sustaining the motivation to unlock massive productivity in your team, make work work by making it work more like a game.

1. At this stage, we generate new ideas, playing collaborative and explorative games to unlock new possibilities. It's all thoroughly exciting and inspiring. This is where we attend conferences and events, and this is where we have creativity sessions to stimulate new thinking. For every unit of effort we put in, it will feel like we get a five-fold return.


2. But then, the excitement flattens out, and as the dust settles, we are left with a huge amount of work to do. Here, without the right gameful design, this will feel like a 1:1 return on effort. Done poorly, these innovative projects will drag on and on and on, with no clear sense of progress or purpose. They say that the path to innovation is fraught with failure, and within this challenging, non-linear plateau of work, it is very easy for organisations and teams to give up on trying to make ideas happen altogether (X). Or...


3. If you persist long enough, you'll reach a new break through, and excitement resumes. It'll all seem worth it. You'll be the leaders in your industry, the premium products on the shelves or the most sort after service (etc). Everything input of effort will give you a tenfold return here. Until...


4. We try to secure things, and consolidate our wins. Then, we run the risk of settling, of becoming comfortable, and complacent, rather than maintaining momentum. Where really, we want to be...


5. Here, faster. To get from point 1 to point 5, we'll need to get our head into the game, lift our game and play a better game. And with the right, applied gameful design, this is all very possible.

Stay tuned to learn how ^_^