Tag: gamification

Gamify or be gamified

Posted on December 31, 2021December 31, 2021 by Doug Belshaw

Seven years ago, I wrote a post entitled Curate or Be Curated: Why Our Information Environment is Crucial to a Flourishing Democracy, Civil Society. I come back to it often, as it was a bit of a warning that, if we all outsource our news-reading and information-gathering to algorithms, then we’re in trouble.

I wrote that post at a time when Twitter was proposing to turn its previously “raw” feed into an algorithmically-curated one. It completely spoiled the social network for me, and my use of it has dwindled since 2014. It’s also had nefarious effects, amplifying hate and disinformation — as we’ve seen with countless examples around the world. Our democratic institutions are at stake.

Listening to the latest episode of It’s Not Just In Your Head, a podcast from two mental health professionals exploring how capitalism, I was fascinated by their most recent guest’s insights. Dr. Alfie Bown, a lecturer in Digital Media Culture and Technology at Royal Holloway in London, and author of a number of books, spoke eloquently about gamification in our everyday lives.

Gamification is the strategic attempt to enhance systems, services, organizations, and activities in order to create similar experiences to those experienced when playing games in order to motivate and engage users This is generally accomplished through the application of game-design elements and game principles (dynamics and mechanics) in non-game contexts. (Wikipedia)

What I found particularly interesting was Bown’s inclusion of social media in his tallying-up of everyone who plays “video games” around the world. As he points out, the feedback loops and rewards for certain types of behaviour on social networks certainly mesh with what we’d consider to be video game mechanics.

I’m a gamer, and have been most of my 41 years on this earth. The games I see my kids playing, though, are quite different to the ones I used to play at their age. There’s a very positive angle to this, as they’re a lot more positive and social than many of the ones I played when I was younger. But there’s downsides as well, and that’s what I want to talk about here.

As an example, I’ve played the FIFA football (soccer) game series ever since the very first one came out over 25 years ago. Over the last few iterations, instead of just being a particular team and playing against another player or the computer, it’s possible to create your own ‘Ultimate Team’. Having experimented with this again recently, I was shocked at how little time I ended up actually playing a football game, and how much time I was spending ‘grinding’ — i.e. doing things to unlock or upgrade things.

As Dr. Alfie Bown pointed out in the podcast episode, everything is gamified these days, from work to dating to shopping. It’s like everyone’s competing in a slightly-different ARG. So this post is a marker and a reminder for me that I can choose to gamify my own life, or have it gamified for me.

There are multiple ways to do this. One very simple one that I’ve found to be unreasonably effective is to use Loop Habit Tracker to define habits that I want to build over time. They could be exercise or nutrition-related, or something else entirely. Right now, I’m trying to do each of the following at least twice a week:

Go to the gym
Go for a run
Go on the exercise bike

Each time I succeed, I put a tick in the box under that day and activity, and it strengthens the habit.

Gamification is not something that is good or bad, in and of itself. For me, it’s all to do with whether you’re being controlled or manipulated into acting in a way which is in alignment with your values and goals in life. For example, I’ve found Duolingo useful for language-learning, and it includes a lot of gamification techniques.

As we enter a new year, I’m on a bit of a mission to remove unhelpful gamified elements from my life, and to add in ones which will help me flourish as the human being I want to be.

Are alternative approaches such as gamification and badging effective in increasing engagement, retention, and achievement?

Posted on March 22, 2016March 22, 2016 by Doug Belshaw

Today I’ve been in Birmingham presenting at the AoC Learning Technology conference on behalf of City & Guilds. I made an audio recording of the 20-minute presentation to go along with my slides. You’ll have to manually advance, but it should be fairly obvious when to hit ‘next’!

Are alternative approaches such as gamification and badging effective in increasing engagement, retention, and achievement? from Doug Belshaw

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No audio above? Click here

Game design, gamification, game mechanics and games-based learning.

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Doug Belshaw

Journey

In a couple of weeks’ time I’ll have the privilege of attending the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF). It’ll be my fourth consecutive time and one of the educational highlights of my year.

Something I’ve learned at SLF is how effectively video games can be used for learning. The main man in this regard is Derek Robertson along with the people he’s inspired.

My interest in games-based learning was piqued a little late in my teaching career to be of much use, unfortunately, but it has come in useful as a parent. My son’s favourite games at the moment are Minecraft and Little Big Planet – both games are focused on building things and being creative.

But what about me?

I enrolled recently on the Coursera Gamification course led by Kevin Werbach not really expecting much. After all, it’s just a bunch of videos and some multiple-choice quizzes, right? But I’m actually enjoying it. 10-minute videos featuring an engaging speaker suits my attention span just fine.

As a Philosophy graduate I had been intrigued by Kevin Werbach’s reference to Wittgenstein’s problem of defining what constituted a ‘game’.

I was even more intrigued when he made reference to the work of Bernard Suits that claims there are three constituent parts that make up games:

To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude].

As a casual gamer I tend to play games that are easy to pick up and put down. So over the past year I’ve been playing mainly Battlefield 3 and Burnout Paradise as well as unsuccessfully curbing my 19-year addiction to Football Manager.

But the gamification course made me really think about game design and game mechanics. Instead of watching a film tonight I went looking for a new game. I came across Journey.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It took about the same amount as watching a film for me to complete. I don’t have the words to describe how magestic it was, how it managed to play with my emotions, and how cleverly-designed the overall experience felt.

There’s no explicit communication in Journey. Nor are there any written or verbal instructions. Other players who are online at the same time as you pop-up on occasion to join you for a while. There’s simultaneously endless possibilities in a vast lanscape and an unfolding narrative. The whole thing is cinematic.

At times I felt uplifted; other times confused, surprised, shocked, relieved or just happy and relaxed. It’s a game that really does play with your emotions.

The experience of playing Journey has made me reflect about not only game design, gamification, game mechanics and games-based learning but also learning itself. To my mind effective learning is about a series of impactful, memorable experiences – and I certainly had an amazing experience playing Journey this evening!