It is one of the concepts that today is gaining attention. Despite his young age already has many success stories on his back as well as failures. But this is only a good sign and that continues growing.

What is Gamification ?

There are many definitions, but I would like to mention one which is complete enough:

"The use of game elements and game development techniques in contexts that are not games . " Kevin Werbach

As we can see the definition has three parts to highlight:

  • Game Elements: is our toolbox, are those artifacts that we can easily find and are common to all games. Eg: levels, points, avatars, rankings, etc.
  • Development techniques: the games are not just a set of elements, but there are technology and engineering involved but is not all, there is some art and psychology involved too.
  • Non-game Contexts: the interesting thing is to bring the games to other areas such as education, social good, personal growth, business, etc. In all contexts we can have fun.

Basics

This concept has two pillars that make possible these are Motivation and Behavior.

  • Motivation: by definition is why we do something, all humans are different for this reason we must point to a limited group.
  • Behavior: how to do something, behavioral theory explains the behavior is a response to an external stimulus and that this has consequences (rewards and punishments).

Reviews

We saw that two deep concepts of human psychology are involve and this leads us to have a great " power" that can be used for good things as in the case of motivating to reach the goals , or manipulated to hide uncomfortable situations.

Opinion

I had the opportunity to be in a chat with Gabe Zicherman, where many different examples and cases of this new world were discussed. My opinion and personal conclusion is that we have a new toolbox that only a few know how to use, not complex (I’am not saying it is not) but unknown , we can all create new things and imagine unexpected uses.

What will be the future of this tool?

@JoaquinIbar

Sources: For the Win : How Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Game Business - Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter