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.

I don't play golf. But if I did, and I'd tell my colleagues at the office that I spent €250 on a golf club, they would nod wisely and say that this is what a decent golf club costs. But if I told them I spent 2,500 hours on the driving range training, they would think I'm crazy. Online players think differently. They'd nod wisely if I told them I spent 2,500 hours in an online game, and think I'm crazy because I spent €250 on World of Tanks. I didn't spend 2,500 hours in WoT, but I did 2,500 battles, so well over 250 hours, which at less than 1€ per hour still is cheaper than most other forms of commercial entertainment.

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.

Why are players playing your game?  What motivations did you inspire in them?  Are they the motivations you wanted?

In just a few short years we’ve seen reward systems in games evolve beyond measure — from what was once a simple quest for points to a whirlpool of reward systems…what’s a designer to do?  Take a deeper look at your game, and look at what rewards you’re giving the player — and more importantly, why you’re giving them.  Adding a reward system to your game can often feel like a wild stab in the dark, which is why so many games have turned to the shotgun approach — throw everything in and hope that one catches the players.  Even worse, you could throw a reward system into your game without even understanding what motivations it gives your players.  We can do better than this.  Let’s take a look the reward systems, reasons behind the rewards then talk about how to use them effectively.

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.

Playing video games is a time-consuming business. Even the shortest games can take upwards of four hours to complete.

Time, by contrast, is limited; and spare time is an even dearer commodity.

Why then should I prefer to spend time playing games over other activities? I’m not suggesting that I shouldn’t, but there must be a very good reason to justify spending a precious resource.

I waded into the debate on game achievements with my lecture at the 2010 Game Developers Conference entitled Achievements Considered Harmful?, with a strong emphasis on the "?". Since the game industry seems to be careening head first into a future of larding points and medals and cute titles on players for just starting up a video game, I wanted to raise awareness of the large body of research studying the impact on motivation from various types of rewards. Trying to be "fair and balanced", I delved into what the data show and what they don't show.