Gamification = b*llsh$t

The author has a legitimate beef. "Game mechanics" is the new "Web 2.0" as far as misapplied buzzwords go, but "gamification" still comes out of "video games" and "psychology," both of which have been around longer than the web, and the web likes slapping a new term on something and thinking it invented it.

To truly take advantage of game mechanics properly, you really need to know a lot about both video games and psychology. Like anything else, you may have to design with gamification in mind from the get-go, and you'll probably get it wrong the first few times out, which means you'll need to practice (or have betas).

Instead of completely retooling your software or process or "healthcare issue," perhaps instead you can add a meta-game on top: Office Hero was a game added atop Microsoft Word by Lost Garden writer danc: http://www.officelabs.com/ribbonhero && http://www.lostgarden.com/2010/01/ribbon-hero-turns-learning...

You'll never be able to "let's just add badges!" just like you can't "let's use gradients and glossy buttons!" to move the needle.

There's even the notion that video games and traditional UI interaction design are incompatible: IxD is about making things easy, but video games are about intentionally challenging the user. If your users aren't expecting a game, they may end up incredibly frustrated instead.

I did a workshop on adding game mechanics to an existing product (a calendar/dayplanner) and the results varied wildly. One group (Ray and Nicole) integrated social game mechanics into the application really well. Another group (Cecy and Brody) treated each mechanic as a feature, and by the end of the discussion I felt like it was "missing something." You can read the write-up of the workshop here: http://vi.to/workshop/20100426/

My notes include a lot of references, as well as images of the handouts and my own distillation of these principles: http://vi.to/gmnotes

I've been looking at gamification for my startup & I feel ambiguous about it at best. Especially when applied to healthcare issues. There are plenty of simpler things you can do that will have a better impact long-term. One thing gamification seems to be really good at though is driving up traffic in the short term & I guess that is the reason why VCs are swooning with joy over these types of startups.

Question: does anyone have references to controlled studies proving the effects of gamification?

I quit reading at:

"Scrum is definitely “gamification” (they even have planning poker!), "

... Seriously? Does he even know what 'planning poker' is? Hint: It's not a game.

If you can implement some game mechanics in your site and drive up sales and usage, do so. But don't stretch the site for it. Most people won't care or will be annoyed if it's done wrong.