GamificationVictoria, Corryn, Ana, Dan M, Tom H and Tom E.

“Gamification? Sounds rubbish, totally dungeons and dragons-y. Actually though it’s fascinating. Basically, gamification is where you add social communication, rewards and challenges into real life situations, making them into games.  This seems to be quite the ‘hot topic’ in marketing and advertising right now, and rightly so.”

Tom Houser

Examples of game as a utility.

Nike GRID.

Using London telephone boxes, the game was to run between branded locations to

gain points.

The user registered online, then checked into boxes using their unique id number. The person to win the most points earnt

the crown of their postcode.

Mini Stockholm Getaway

This reality game challenges you to do the impossible: stay at least 50 metres away from everybody else in Stockholm city between October 31st and November 7th 2010. If you succeed, you win the new MINI Countryman.

Coke Zero presents the first location-based video game that lets you play a real-life version of Disney TRON: Legacy. Build a Light Wall as you move about the real world and earn points by forcing other players to crash into it. Download LiveCycle for free at CokeZero.com.

Coke Zero and Tron

Current thinking on the state of games as branded utility.“Customer loyalty may be a primary application

driving the gamification trend, but other benefits can also be driven by the use of gaming mechanics. Gartner highlights an

example of a public sector body using gamification to drive innovation, for instance. In

Case Study: Innovation Squared: The Department for Work and Pensions Turns

Innovation Into a Game, the analyst details a project by the Department for Work and

Pensions in the UK which used game mechanics to create a market for innovation called

IdeaStreet.” brandnewgame.nl

More thinking on Game as utility

“The difficulty for those who can see the value in gamification is of course to understand these

mechanics and use them in a relevant way. Game mechanics have significant results for businesses, but

as with most powerful weapons, they should be handled with care. When confronted with something such as a complex loyalty system, most customers might get mildly frustrated, but if a company gets it

wrong with ‘status’, the reactions can and will be more serious. Learning, learning, testing and learning

again is the key to success in this area.”mycostumer.com

Problems with the current state of gamification:

• Thinness of game play• Sameness of many ideas (check-ins, rewards, levels, badges and points) • Nascent technology –picked up by tech aficionados / early adopters – it hasn’t yet properly defined what it is nor does it have a mainstream audience. • Gamification’s big idea is to regard life as some sort of infinite game – the problem: games are usually more fun when they are finite. Whereas games played in the more traditional environs of a bedroom or living room have certain sets of rules; a ground state for the game world and understandable sets of actions with which the player can play. They are enclosed. Gamification games such as Foursquare etc simply additive layer on top of reality – which of course isn’t enclosed and is infinitely more interesting. • We recognise when we are in a game rather than the real world because we are enter into a set of rules and limitations to get there – if we play football we know we aren’t allowed to pick up the ball. ‘Gamification’ games have no such sense of limitations or enclosure. • Jesse Schell gave a TED talk last year about games invading real life. His talk raised questions about cheating – in game systems where the promise is actual rewards (which is what gamification systems will have to become to retain an audience) there will inevitably the incentive to cheat. Then there is little incentive to continue to play the game once the rewards have been gained.

•http://www.ted.com/talks/jesse_schell_when_games_invade_real_life.html

FIN