As part of a Serious Games/Gamification course, I was directed to read/watch the following links in order to get a better idea of Serious Games and Gamification. Below are summaries of the main points, and what I took away from the experience.
Meaningful Play: Getting Gamification Right
Meaningful Play: Getting Gamification Right
Sebastian Deterding
“I basically
made a game out of it by deciding ok, I imagine there is lava and...I
should not step on the little cracks in the pavement, which turned
that very boring walk home less boring, and more exciting for me.”
User experience designer and game
researcher, Sebastian Deterding, summarizes a few attractions of
Gamification and discusses what's frequently missing from
implementations. Long and dull tasks can be made more bearable by
means of make-believe: creating interesting rules and challenges.
Daunting tasks can be broken up into smaller sub-goals, which provide
more frequent feedback, to make them less daunting. Providing an
unobserved, unregulated space to play can lead users to learn and
explore.
Deterding expands
on these attractions, defining the aspects of Meaning, Mastery, and
Autonomy (respectively) as areas of Gamification that are often
overlooked. Goal-setting can be a driving force for user
participation, as long as the goals are clearly defined, paced,
layered, and varied. These goals are more desirable if there exists
a community of users who share a similar interest. Adding
storytelling elements can help add meaning to the user's goals and
actions. The author reminds designers that play is voluntary, and
users should be guided not forced to perform tasks. He also warns of
some pitfalls such as gaming the system (emergent behavior),
devaluing of service (offering sweepstakes for
sign-up/participation), and creating social awkwardness.
Ian Bogost
“...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. “
Media Philosopher,
Ian Bogost, addresses the over simplification of the of the video
game allure into “Gamification”. Bogost uses the term 'bullshit'
to demean the intelligence of corporate officers, who he claims treat
Gamification as a trendy, buzz-word check-mark, right next to social
media. He believes that, despite the critiques of players and game
designers, Gamification continues to be reduced to “adding
points”, a simple, repeatable process which instantly makes things
better. Bogost offers the term “exploitationware”, as the term
for the capitalization upon video games by sellers with “questionable
expertise”.
Jane McGonigal
“...gamers are a human resource
that we can use to do real-world work..”
Game designer, Jane McGonigal, pitches
the idea of harnessing the average gamer's time, enthusiasm, and
skills, on a global scale, to solve serious, real-world problems like
world hunger and global warming. She identifies the feeling of
constantly being on the verge of an “epic win” as the addictive
quality of gaming. She also notes that the feeling of being “bad
at life”, and the fear of failing drive people away from trying
hard in the real-world. McGonigal cites Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000
hour rule (that spending 10,000 hours on a single task will result in
mastery of the task), and the fact that today's average child will
spend 10,000 hours gaming by the time they turn 21, as the advent of
a generation of “virtuoso gamers”. She provides historical
precedence by telling the story of the kingdom of Lydia, who's ruler
stifled civil unrest amidst a twenty-year famine, by ordering
citizens to play games to distract them from their hunger.
Tadhg Kelly
“ It
only works if you reduce your objectives to the improvements of one
quantity that players can influence and one kind of emotion sitting
behind that. “
Game Designer, Tadhg Kelly, provides a set of guidelines for Gamification, three different “kinds” of Gamification, and discuses the mindset required to implement Gamification. Kelly suggests that designers create a numeric representation of success, but warns that this number must be meaningful, and not overly complicated. A game should be simple enough that it can be summarized in one sentence. Kelly notes that users need direct feedback and that they like immediate gratification/rewards. Kelly notes that following pedestrian mechanics (badges, levels, and experience points) can be boring. Moreover, he states that mimicking another game too closely will simply breed contempt from users. Kelly identifies three drives that keep users playing: validation, completion, and prizes. Validation is provided to users in the form of increased popularity, social approval, and community forming. The feeling of Completion rewards users for putting forth substantial personal effort, and serves as an intrinsic motivator. Prizes (extrinsic) can be useful as they drive users to participate, but users will only play as long as there's a carrot in-front of them.
The Game is a Lie.
After going
through the above resources, I can't help but feel like the
difference between Gamification and Serious Games is in the
implementation details, but that neither should include the word
“game”. If one were to take a serious website, and apply
Gamification, it might be called a Serious Game. At the same time, a
Serious Game that wasn't designed very well might be viewed as
something that was Gamified.
I want to believe
that Gamification is bad. It sounds bad. It sounds lame. It
sounds to me like a shallow copy of badly implemented video game
mechanics. I watch as Deterding pull up sites like tumblr and Stack
Overflow, and think to myself “these aren't games, serious games
must be better”. They aren't. I cringe as I hear McGonigal say
that one of her games wants users to imagine a scenario, and blog
about it. This is homework, not a game. While some games may
require “creative thinking”, no successful video game ever
required writing. I am a gamer, and I am lazy. I will solve
puzzles, complete quests, and kill indiscriminately. I will not
blog to play a game. These examples are not “games”, what's
really meant by “game” is “motivation”. Not the same.
I believe Serious
Games can be both entertaining and solve serious, real-world problems
(See Foldit and freerice.com). I also believe that Gamification can
make things less mundane (maybe even “fun”). However, I don't
think either of these two ideas will ever fully match the
addictiveness and entertainment value of a true, triple-A rated video
game.
