Now, let’s discuss what to consider if the organization has said, “We want to play.” As with any major program that an organization wants to implement, there are serious considerations to implementing a gamification strategy

I believe that behaviour design (sometimes called persuasive design) has significant potential to help improve gamification strategy design to influence task behaviours. I need to say from the outset that this notion is still new and emerging and somewhat contraversial and this post will be the first of many as I explore this exciting space. 

Embedded gaming or "Gamification" is a next generation advertising approach in which gaming elements are integrated into a non-game environment.
Gamification represents a promising strategy for public and commercial brands to increase customer activity, build loyalty, broaden reach and monetize assets.

Mind Commerce projects Gamification growth to reach $3.6 billion by 2017. It is also estimated that by 2017, 80% of Global 2000 organizations will have gamified applications and/or processes.

You work for the Transportation Security Administration, manning the x-ray machine at a local airport. Your day begins easily enough, quickly scanning passengers’ luggage and bodies and waving them through. But after a few minutes, you get an alert—shirts are now contraband. OK, fine, you dutifully strip people of their T-shirts as they pass through the metal detector. Then another alert: Mobile phones are prohibited, too. Wait, now coffee isn’t allowed either, but cell phones are OK again. As you struggle to keep the new rules straight, the line of cranky passengers gets longer. Wait, snakes and turbans have just been outlawed. Oh, and shirts are allowed now, but you didn’t realize that until you’d already stripped down another passenger. That’s one strike against you. Now native headdresses are forbidden, turbans are OK, but shoes must be removed. You get confused and let a snake through—another black mark. The line of passengers begins to stretch across the room even as new regulations keep coming in faster than you can process them. Before long, you are fired—not because you’ve endangered anyone’s safety, but because you failed to cope with the illogical edicts of a capricious bureaucracy.

Gabe Zichermann (b. 1974) is an entrepreneur, author, highly rated public speaker and gamification thought leader. He is the chair of the Gamification Summit and Workshops, and is co-author of the book “Game-Based Marketing” (Wiley, 2010) where he makes a compelling case for the use of games and game mechanics in everyday life, the web and business. Gabe is also a board member of StartOut.org and facilitator for the NYC chapter of the Founder Institute. A native of Canada and resident of NYC, Gabe frequently muses about games and the world at http://Gamification.Co

My sense is that brand managers are approaching games in the wrong way. A few years ago they were all into creating virtual worlds but that didn’t really work out. More recently they went through a phase of creating social games, but again no luck. Now they’re keen to commission digital agencies or game developers to create gamified sites or software for brands, which will inevitably become coupon schemes, badges and leader boards.

The vast majority of these projects are utter failures because they end up creating vapid digital services with no soul. The ones that do succeed often do so accidentally (for example, because they were unexpectedly fun). Games are a cultural product, and like any other culture there is a line where commercial relationships become nakedly self-serving, and no customer finds that sexy.

Perhaps the branding industry should consider branding games rather than gamifying brands instead, if only for the reason that it’s more likely to work.

I’ve found myself wondering about “gamification” with increasing frequency these last few months as various articles appear online to denounce it. What is it, exactly? And is it really as bad as they all say? What follows is a brief exploration of the concept and a look at its applications.  At the end, I offer my opinion on whether gamification really is bad, or merely misunderstood.

Outside of the recent flurry associated with Google+, the one term that has been top of mind throughout the digital space recently is gamification. Gamification is a term used to describe organizations using game mechanics to drive engagement in traditionally non-gaming products. There are examples of gamification everywhere in our daily lives and many brands are integrating game mechanics in unique and compelling ways all with the purpose of driving user engagement.

Below are 15 examples of Gamification and how brands are capitalizing on the trend.

I'm lucky enough not to be drowning in email, so keeping my inbox clean doesn't require zen-like discipline. But for everyone else out there for whom "Inbox Zero" is a fantasy at best, there's a handy web-app called "The Email Game," which uses clever game mechanics to -- as I previously put it when we first covered the product -- "make email your bitch, not the other way around." But the game's creators haven't been sitting on their laurels since then: they've just released an updated version of the game with a better design.

Gamification is bullshit.

I'm not being flip or glib or provocative. I'm speaking philosophically.

More specifically, gamification is marketing bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless wasteland of big business, where bullshit already reigns anyway.

Play is nature's learning engine, says games researcher and author Aaron Dignan. In other words, we're hardwired to enjoy games - they're addictive, skill-building, and satisfying. So the question is: How can we integrate game concepts into our work lives to help us push ideas forward? In this talk, Dignan walks us through the principles of creating a great game and suggests ways that we might use them to overcome email exhaustion, spice up workaday meetings, and more.

Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, dives into a world of game development which will emerge from the popular "Facebook Games" era.

Spielen ist Lernen – auch wenn es auf den ersten Blick schwerfällt, in dem über 350 Millionen mal heruntergeladenen Casual Game Angry Birds mehr als nur Zeitvertreib zu sehen. Und den suchen nicht wenige von uns:  Fast jeder zweite deutsche Internetnutzer besucht Online Gaming-Seiten. Knapp 40 Prozent der Smartphone Besitzer nutzen ihr Handy zum Spielen (comscore 2011). Kein Wunder, dass mehr und mehr darüber nachgedacht wird, den Gebrauch von Produkten oder Services für Nutzer mit Erfolgsfaktoren aus dem Spielesektor attraktiv und belohnend zu gestalten. Das Zauberwort heisst Gamification.

Games as learning tools are in my mind A LOT these days. And so it happens with this gamefi-learni-cation happening all around that the topic is in many peoples’ minds. A question that comes up when I have conversations around the topic (which happens pretty often) is what are effective strategies to design a game for learning. The obvious answer is that games for learning are first and foremost games and in order to make them you should take all the steps you would take to create a fun game. A rule of thumb I apply whenever I design a game for the classroom is to ask myself whether or not a kid would play this again outside of the school context, say at home with friends. If the answer to that question is NO - then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Gamification has come under some fire from gamers recently, specifically since this post from Ian Bogost (since republished in The Atlantic). It could be the beginning of a backlash against the use of video games and game culture in a wide variety of spaces. Bogost is ruthless in his attack on the corporate world's foray into gaming, but what of serious games and the broader concepts around gamification and game-based learning in education? Where does this leave the push by schools and educators who have been exploring the use of games and game-based learning as a way of engaging students, teaching twenty-first century skills and finding ways to make the technologically-saturated lives of our children relevant in the classroom?

Gamification is a polarizing and divisive topic with many proponents and vocal skeptics and cynics. But it is not bullshit. Gamification is real and its benefits are tangible. Gamification is here to stay.

My talk was on building an application that rescued princesses. The goal was to give interaction designers some insight into how game design might be applied to the domain of more utilitarian applications. The talk was recorded and should be up sometime this week. When it appears online, I'll link to the video from this post.

Games are becoming more Web-like, and the Web is becoming more game-like. If you need proof of this, you have only to look at Yahoo Answers. Random questions are posed, the top answer is chosen, and credibility points are given to the winner. It’s a ranking system that accumulates and unlocks more and more features within the system. It works because of the psychology of achievement and game mechanics and thus encourages interaction. This raises the question, what can a Web designer learn from games, or — more specifically — video games?

In 1960, Milton Bradley published »The Game of Life«: a capitalist wet dream of a board game, won by the lucky one who retired richest. Today, »gamification« vendors take Milton Bradley seriously. From losing weight to saving Africa, from watching TV to matching DNA sequences: there’s nothing that couldn’t be made more fun by adding points, badges, and other elements from video games. At least that’s the selling proposition.

Ha, got your attention, eh?  But this is actually an important topic, of the 'reality is broken' variety.  Like the fact that we're obsessed over sexting and other digital phenomena related to sex, yet we have done little to improve sex education in this country.  In fact, we have vilified and cut funding to Planned Parenthood and other organizations that save people's lives by providing them critical information that affects them physically, emotionally, spiritually.

About a year ago an idea occurred to me (yes, it happens occasionally): wouldn’t it be great to make a game, and I mean a real AAA title, that was educational? That you could really learn something from? Of course we’ve all played games like Sim City and Civilization but one could argue that the potential learning involved there is more the means than the goal itself. And improved reflexes by playing first person shooters isn’t quite what I mean either.

Last month I had the privilege of presenting at the Games for Health Conference.[1] It was a big gathering of people that want to use games to positively change the world. However, most of attendees were from the the education or healthcare space. While everyone knew they were on to something powerful, there were also a lot of misconceptions on how gaming works as a motivator.

Dr Richard A. Bartle, Senior Lecturer and Visiting Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK is often quoted by, well pretty much anyone involved with gamification.

Dr Richard A. Bartle, Senior Lecturer and Visiting Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK is often quoted by, well pretty much anyone involved with gamification... And I'm just about to disagree with him. I just read Will Gamification be Ubiquitous in 5 Years? on Gametuned, and although I believe Dr. Bartle makes a few good points, he's missing some important new developments. Either that, or his and my definition of gamification just don't agree.

I was recently given the opportunity to join the BigDoor team and a few of their clients up in a beautiful cabin in the evergreen forests of Washington to do a jam session on gamification.  *Thanks Keith, Jeff and team!*

Leading the session was co-founder of ShuffleBrain Amy Jo Kim, who has been gamifying systems before there was even a term for it.  Remember eBay seller ratings?  Yup, it incorporated game elements and she was a part of that.  Rock Band, The Sims, Bejewelled 2?  Uhh... yeah, she helped in the design of those games too.  She is an awesome speaker and I highly recommend you go to one of her talks if you have a chance.

Aside from an ugly name, thinness of gameplay, sameness of ideas (rewards, levels, badges and points) and a lack of any strong examples of what it is supposed to be, what’s the most fundamental issue that gamification faces?

The basic idea of gamification is that a game can become integrated in life. Gamification proposes to embellish the real world with a layer of game-like things to do and earn, and in so doing enhance lives. So in a sense, gamification’s big idea is to regard life as some sort of infinite game.

The problem? Games are no fun unless they are finite.

Yes, we turned Office into a game! If you're going to spend time immersed in the inner workings of Office, by golly it should be fun. In Ribbon Hero 2, the player will hop on board Clippy's stolen time machine and explore different time periods. With each time period, they get to explore a new game board with challenges they must complete to get to the next level. Each challenge takes the player into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote to complete a task. Discover new Office features by actually using them, with a hint button to fall back on in case you get stuck. Race for a high score with colleagues, classmates and friends, or even put your score on your resume to show off your Office skills!

"Gamification efforts have come under criticism from many in the games industry for being shallow..."
Yes, you got that part right.
"-- that is, lacking the narrative quality of games made with a pure entertainment motive."
I don't think you understand the criticism, then, if you think "shallow" simply refers to "less narrative quality".

My gamified syllabi in classes, for exampled, have bombed. Students *really* don't want their grades determined by MMORPG mechanicsms. That's because one of the essential conditions of XP acquisition - that you can try and try again indefinitely - are missing in a classroom. In teaching, time is limited. So are mob pulls; you can't have as many shots at challenges as you want. In a classroom, you have a few challenges, time runs out, and somebody - me - has to judge how you did. Also, there are not enough opportunities for loose, flowing grouping; every teamwork exercise in a class is forced-grouping which, we've learned, people hate. Add to that the fact that ultimately the class is serious and not play. This means no one can say "settle down, it's just a game." And therefore, they DON'T settle down. They get almost homicidal when another team-mate screws up their grade.

In her new book, Reality Is Broken, Jane McGonigal argues that the rules, rewards and feedback offered by modern videogames can be used to make the world a happier and more productive place. We sit down with her to learn more.

Gamification is a new vocabulary word lately, and there’s even a summit about it. What is the definition of gamification? The word gamification is used to describe companies integrating game mechanics into their non-gaming product or service to drive user engagement. These companies are “gamifying” their products and services by adding light game mechanics on top of them.

What does that actually look like? While the term is relatively new, the tactics aren’t and have already been in play for quite some time. Here are some examples of gamification in action.

I’ve been quite surprised by how well-received my previous post on gamification has been. As a long-time geek who played role-playing games in her youth, I’m all about a good game, and love that companies are taking hold of these theories and putting them to use in attracting and retaining customers.

I’ve seen a number of great posts recently about gamification and wanted to highlight a few of them here.

Ga*mi*fi*ca*tion = integrating game dynamics into a digital platform, service, community, content or campaign, in order to engage individuals while simultaneously driving meaningful value for doing business (read: monetization).

Every individual is hungry for reward, status, achievement, competition and self-expression. Gamification uses proven techniques to satisfy each individual's needs & desires and to engage each individual with personal relevant transmedia experiences (content, communities, brands, services or other valued solutions).

Humans are naturally competitive. (We do call it the ‘human race’, after all!) We like validation of our place in the world. When society provides independent measures of our success, we can contextualize our personal achievements.