Gamification: Who Owns Play?

Posted by McCann on June 29, 2011

I have only very recently joined the advertising industry with most of my professional life spent working in computer games (most recently for Sony PlayStation) so I have been actively following the convergence of these two worlds into something that is being termed ‘Gamification’. If you are new to this concept you will have missed the entire internet conversational cycle around Gamification where its proponents and knockers have been arguing whether it is our best hope for meaningful social change or a cynical tool of manipulation and coercion which will plummet us into an Orwellian consumerist hell.
But what is it?

Simply, Gamification is the introduction of game mechanics into a non-gaming context. The process of Gamification identifies what makes games compelling and important to us and uses those techniques to motivate behavioural change in areas that are not traditionally considered to be fun. One of the more famous Gamification examples is ‘The Fun Theory’ campaign by Volkswagen which motivated people to use the stairs instead of an escalator by making the experience more playful.

Digital projects are now taking the concept of play and elements from traditional computer games into consideration from their inception and interactive designers are mindful of how powerful gamifying a digital property can be. Fun is better than not fun right? They point to the successes of Gamification such as uploading a profile to LinkedIn where over 80% of users were convinced to complete the sign up progress by adding a progress bar with simple tasks.

Another great example of Gamification are the current strategies being used by a traditional games company Nintendo. Launching their latest portable games machine the 3DS they identified the iPhone as one of their strongest competitors. In particular, the iPhone has the benefit that people carry their phone everywhere they go and as such it has become a popular device for playing games outside of the home. In order to compete with this, Nintendo have introduced concepts of Gamification to convince users that they should constantly carry their Nintendo games machine with them at all times so that Nindendo games are as readily-at-hand as iPhone games. In order to do this, they implemented a pedometer which counts the total number of steps that a user has taken whilst carrying the 3DS and rewards them with virtual currency. In addition to this, by walking past another user who is carrying a 3DS the user is presented with benefits such as virtual statues and mini-games. Remembering to put an electronic device in your pocket when leaving home could never be considered a game, but Nintendo have used gaming elements to try to influence behaviour.

Foursquarification!
The computer application Foursquare wrote the Gamification playbook – one that is being slavishly followed by the majority of gamified projects. If you haven’t used Foursquare, it is an application that encourages users to ‘check in’ to real world locations by rewarding them with virtual badges and points which can be viewed on a leaderboard.

Foursquare makes getting your morning coffee, seeing a movie or even checking into work a competition motivated by virtual currency and bragging rights between friends. These leaderboards can be translated by Foursquare into real-world rewards – for example if you check into a café a certain number of times you might receive a free coffee which provides the user with further motivation to participate. The game concepts integrated into Foursquare have become the de facto blueprint for Gamification projects with virtual (and real) rewards, points and social leaderboards becoming the definition of a gamified property.
Along with this narrowing of the definition of Gamification has also come detractors. Sam Doust, the Creative Director of Strategic Development for the ABC recently wrote an article called ‘Why Gamification is as Stupid as it Sounds’ where he argued:

…Gamification is a clearly distinguishable, pre-existing concept that is being re-branded into a coercive mechanism, and in the process dumbing-down a richer, longer, far more interesting and important history of creativity.

His concern is that marketers are taking the concept of playfulness and turning it into a commodity. Gamification’s reliance on goal-oriented reward structures as exemplified in the Foursquare model dilutes anything that could be considered fun or playful. To put it another way:
It is an invariable principle of all play that whoever plays, plays freely.

Whoever must play, cannot play.
- James P. Cause, Finite and Infinite Games (1986)

I started working in the games industry as a games QA tester (as all new recruits do) where my 9 to 5 job was to sit in front of a game all day, playing it and reporting all the bugs and issues. When I told people about my job their response was always “you play games for a living?? Awesome!” which used to infuriate me because it was hard, boring, repetitive work. I can attest that this was a real job and not in any way shape or form play with the coercion in this case being a salary.

It is important to understand that using the Foursquare model of Gamification and just throwing in leaderboards and virtual goodies to influence user behaviour is not in itself fun nor should it be the defining paradigm of how advertisers use gaming, playfulness and fun to connect with people. If we return to the original definition of Gamification above (the introduction of game mechanics into a non-gaming context) we can start to think of exciting ways to introduce playfulness into communication without slavishly copying one model of interaction. We can start to concentrate on the fun in games and not just the mechanics that provide that fun. In fact, brands and advertisers are in an incredibly fortunate position when it comes to thinking about fun and playfulness. We can really investigate creative uses of technology that are not being utilised by traditional game makers such as augmented reality, location based gaming and user generated content to provide unique playful experiences. Advertising has embraced narrative without destroying the book or movie industries; has learned how to effectively harness the power of music and is now learning all it can about fun and playfulness in order to provide experiences influenced by games. Welcome to Gamification.