selected productions serious games interactive 2006-2011 © serious games: press start to play now...
TRANSCRIPT
Selected productions Serious Games Interactive 2006-2011 ©
Serious Games: Press start to playNow is Digital, 15th June ‘11
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, PhD
CEO, founder Serious Games Interactive
Gamification
My Background
• MA Psychology• PhD Games & learning• Mixing industry & research
European Research projects: SIREN, PlayMancer, Vistra & GaLa
Computer games• Global Conflicts-series• Playing History-series• +20 games for clients
Serious Games Interactive (SGI) was founded in 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Covered in most major news outlets and won numerous awards.
Develop serious games that combines playing, learning, communication and story-telling.
We are a cross-disciplinary team of 18 people with strong roots in research.
Range of different client: Amnesty, Unicef, Kaplan, WWF, The Danish National Museum, World bank, LEGO and European Schoolnet.
Company background
What is serious games…
”A solution that use game mechanics and game technology for
more than entertainment"
What is gamification…
”Integrating game dynamics into a site, service, activity, community, content or campaign, in order to
encourage a certain behavior, attitude or skill."
Serious games VS gamification
Serious games are about developing new, finite and unique solutions based on game mechanics
VS.
Gamification about developing new structures and incentives around existing experience.
Serious games VS gamification
Product vs. meta
Ex.: School - Learning games vs. incentive activity structuresEx.: Health - Rehabilitation game vs. weight-loss app
Ex. Corporations - Onboarding game vs. customer service tool
Agenda
Why games matters?Why gamification now?What is gamification Who have done this?How to get started?
Game industry growing fast…
EUR 15bn EUR 30bn
1990 2000
EUR 75bn
2010
We invest 3 Billion hours every week in playing games
Everyone…
Source: Mr. Toledano
Agenda
Why games matters?Why gamification now?What is gamification Who have done this?How to get started?
The attention economy
Gamification signals a greater shift… Fight for attention & relevance
Need for engaged usersNeed for user permissions
Getting more creative in user interaction
The pre-history of gamification
Cash incentives
1900s 2000s1980s1930s
Coupon codes
Loyalty systems
Virtual rewards
Cost and status
Source: Gabe Zichermann
Value
Cost
The power of computers…
Read… Listen…
View
Representation – we can really only ‘show’ things
Simulation –We can represent, track, interact and manipulate
Doing & experiencing
Why gamification now?
•Digitalization & Virtualization constantly increasing.
•Tracking, feedback and reward structures easy to embed.
•Games are increasingly becoming omnipresent
Agenda
Why games matters?Why gamification now?What is gamification Who have done this?How to get started?
What is gamification…
”Integrating game dynamics into a site, service, community, content or campaign, in order to encourage a certain behavior, attitude or skill."
Haven’t we seen this before?
Cybernetics
Behavioural
economics
Control
theory
Behavioural
theories
Behaviour
change
Game theory
Sociology
Psychology
How gamification can work
“A game is a pastime with formal and predefined set of rules for the progression of a game session, with built-in and quantitative
definitions of success and failure.”
- Jesper Juul
ActiveChallenge
Win condition
Rewards
Achievement Social status
The key rewards (they overlap)…
Status
Access
Power
Stuf
f
The most effective reward and it cost designers nothing. Taps into social nature of people.
Powerful for progressing people and support status. Eg. VIP access to special areas or voting.
Effective incentive comes in many shapes like kicking people, voting for changes etc.
Both be virtual and material. Both can free or costly. Probably the least effective incentive.
How gamification work
Experience systems
Short- and long-term
goals
Rapid, frequent feedback
Other people
Rewards for effort
Uncertainty
Source: Tom Chatfield [2010]
When it works…
Pitfalls
•Everyone = no-one? It’s difficult to engage everyone - women, elderly, hip-hopper, casual, hardcore etc.
•Pseudo victory: Rewards are not achievements - it needs to be meaningful. Not just 'badgification or pointification'.
•Participation bandwidth: Need to be interesting and engaging enough to draw people away from something else.
•Unintended consequences: When you engineer behaviors you may make mistakes that leads to unforeseen results.
•Undermining intrinsic values: By providing external rewards for something that should be intrinsic you risk undermining inner drive.
Agenda
Why games matters?Why gamification now?What is gamification Who have done this?How to get started?
Case: Eksperten.dk
Case: British American Tobacco
Case: Ribbon Hero
4 months after release+100.000 Downloads+120.000 Challenges played
Microsoft Office seen as innovative, interesting and cool.
Source: Microsoft Office Lab through Gabe Zichermann
Case: Speeding control
Case: Nike+
Case: Farmville
Case: Car dash boards
Agenda
Why games matters?Why gamification now?What is gamification Who have done this?How to get started?
First steps…
•Identify your target behavior change•Create game challenges around those targets•Create good feedback loops for rewarding right behavior•Create status/achievement system for recognizing winners
A creative process that requires understanding users, games and business..
• It appears to be working
• We have always been doing this
• But its more triggy than it appears
• Now we have identified it’s more powerful.
Bring the engagement to the product – not the other way around
The Wrap-up
Contact details
Serious Games Interactivewww.seriousgames.dk www.globalconflicts.euwww.playinghistory.eu
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsenwww.egenfeldt.eu