Why Does Gamification Tend to Devolve?

[…] Lots of people have been jumping onto the anti-gamification bandwagon lately. […]

[…] Is it because the proponents of gamification are generally not game designers and don’t understand how hard it is to make a good game? In some cases, probably so. But there’s a deeper and more pervasive problem that is driving the “dumbing down” of gamification. The problem is: gamification is a very tough sell. […]

Read more: Why Does Gamification Tend to Devolve?.

Nice stats on the spreading of gamification use in UK digital agencies

[…] Companies and agencies continue to develop innovative techniques to help foster customer engagement, borrowing features from social gaming and networking. Small but significant percentages of companies are now using techniques such as time-limited activities (18%), rewards for online behaviour based on engagement (16%) and playful interfaces (10%).[…]

[…] “Broadly speaking, businesses are now more likely to be using both social media and mobile channels to deepen customer relationships and improve levels of service, including through the use of social networks, Twitter, mobile applications and location-based marketing.

“’Gamification’ is an important trend. At the moment, only a minority are using game-inspired features such as playful interfaces, top customer charts and levels of access which depend on the extent of engagement. But expect uptake of these techniques to increase in the future as companies seek to gain a competitive advantage.” […]

Read more: Companies blurring lines between social and corporate platforms.

The recipients and objectives of game-based business solutions

game-based business recipients and objectives
Game-based business solutions can take advantage of the paradigms of gamification and use the instruments of the game-based marketing (see our previous post). But which are the recipients and the objectives of these kinds of solutions?

Recipients can be divided into two main different categories:

  • Clients (actual of potential): they are the whole market demand and they include both the actual clients and the ones that can be reached by the diffusion of the service or product, encouraged by the spreading of viral or traditional communication campaigns.
  • Employees and co-makers: they represent a very specific group and the solution is often tailored to fulfill a particular need, related to the enhancement of the productivity, the communication of the corporate culture or the testing of working skills in a simulated environment.

Read More

Three social gaming trends for 2011 | Gamasutra: Joost Rietveld’s Blog

Social gaming, both expanding and diversifying the gamer population, has been maturing at rapid pace resulting in heavy consolidation, while at the same time leaving room for innovation. Drawing in part on 2010’s social gaming summit, consultancy activities in the social gaming sector and academic interests, in this article I look at three broad social gaming trends for 2011.

Trend 1. Mobile Social Gaming

’2011 will see the rise of mobile social games, both on Facebook as well as on other platforms such as iOS (Apple), Android Market and HTML5.’

Trend 2. Location Based Social Gaming

‘Backed by location based services, 2011 will see the rise of niche products in which cohesive communities will be served with innovative and meaningful products.’

Trend 3. Social Advergames

When properly executed, advergames are an extremely effective marketing tool. Disney acquired social game developer Playdom in July 2010 with the likely rationale of brand proliferation of Disney’s intellectual property rights through Playdom’s games and reach. McDonalds was one of the first and most visible to actually engage in social advergaming by taking over Farmville for a day in the form of a gigantic in game dynamic advertisement. Whereas Frima has attempted to iterate on the success of Farmville in favor of Mazda by developing Mazda’s DriverVille.
‘As companies have become aware of the strength of social media in 2010, 2011 will see the rise of holistic social advergames.’

Read More: Gamasutra: Joost Rietveld’s Blog – Three social gaming trends for 2011.

Game-based marketing instruments

The Game-based Business Solutions use the game mechanics and dynamics of games to create solutions for enterprises. They can be reach using two instruments: gamification and game-based marketing.
So, Game-based Business Solutions are new communication and marketing instruments (sometimes almost a new media) that allow to extremely increase the engagement and the participation of the communication target public.
Engagement and participation, in particular, allow two main advantages:

  • to drive the active interest of users toward the massage of firms;
  • to stimulate an active behavior of users

As we already said gamification is the implementation of gaming mechanics in non-gaming context to involve people in the activities of a site or service.
A parallel concept is the game-based marketing, that uses real and complete games for raising the awareness and improving the image of a brand.

Game-based marketing uses many different instruments and environments to spread messages and reach users. We’re going to analyze all these instruments to help choosing the right one for every single business objective.
Read More

Metro Milano for Android

Brief Description

Our Alessandro has developed Metro Milano: a useful Android App when you use public transports, if you won’t get lost in Milan!

Main Features

  • View all the underground stops on a map and the lines path, including “passante”.
  • Plan the route from one stop to another.
  • View the directions from your location to each of the subway stations.
  • Find the nearest subway station.
  • You can also view all (or only the selected) stops through augmented reality (using Layar), facilitating your search for the nearest stop.
  • See the diagram of the metro for a quick and easy reference.
  • Search the station name.
  • Possibility to add the station to search for the global search for Android

Read More

Why gamification is not a simple pointsfication
Gamification-Points-badges
As many other new disciplines, gamification is evolving day by day with new theories, emerging from studies in games design, human psychology, behavior and other academic fields.

We have already discussed about game mechanics and dynamics and their dominant role in producing a gamified environment. The next step is to focus on methods to apply those paradigms in the gamification process.
Read More