Over 95% of our youth plays videogames. This huge wave (the next generation) can be mastered through gamification, because they understand games and therefore game mechanics. They live it, eat it, breath it and will embrace gamification! Roughly 50% of the current internet population plays social games. The rest? Well I am certain they play other games. It is fair to say that everybody plays. That’s why gamification is a very powerful tool! Gamifier.com gains knowledge about this phenomenon and shares it with the world. Feel free to explore Gamifier.com and find out if it fits your needs!
There are lots of definitions about Gamification The one from Oxford Dictionaries explains best: “The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service: gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun.“
Gamifier.com uses its own simple definition: Make things FUN by adding game-elements.
A short and understandable definition. To put this in the right perspective it is very important to understand what fun implies. The formal definition from Johan Huizinga on Wikipedia is: FUN is the enjoyment of pleasure and an absolutely primary category of life, familiar to everybody at a glance right down to the animal level.
Fun can be found in many things. Reading a good book is fun, accomplishing something difficult is fun, exploring new stuff is fun, achieving your goals is fun, socializing is fun, etc, etc.
Gamification brings fun into our daily routine and therefore is a very powerful tool!! A gamifier can make that happen. Using the plus 4 method a gamifier will find the game-factor of any given entity and create pure fun with it. As a result the entity (websit, school, organization, etc) will perform better. Throught this blog I want to inform you about Gamification trends and give my opinion about important matters. Please read the latest posts:
Exploring my son’s habitat together; Minecraft!
Ever since I saw the TED talk of Gabe Zichermann in which he encouraged all parents to go and play a games with their children. I was intrigued by this. I like games myself and still play a game now and then. Mostly casual games on my iPhone or iPad. The games that give me pleasure nowadays are easy to get a hold on and can be put aside any time. So called “snack games”. You could say that I have become a “snack game” consumer. They are fun and they keep my mind of things. It’s rarely that I play a console game with one of my kids. I...
read moreGamification: what about fun?
Fun is such a difficult topic. At the same time it is the real power behind the success of Gamification, nothing else. Every Gamifier says it is an important ingredient of Gamification. Professor Werbach in his Gamification course mentioned explicitly: “Don’t forget the fun!” There seems to been done some research on the subject, but I can’t find much about it. In this interesting post from Fun Theory the writer mentioned that: “The impact of fun is not just anecdotal. Scientific studies have proven that pleasurable activities such...
read moreGamification: don’t limit yourself by definitions
It came to my attention that people are still struggling with the definition of Gamification. For me, a definition is a guide line, nothing more. The broader the definition, the more I like it. There is some confusion about the difference between Gamification and Serious (or Applied) Gaming. In general Serious Gaming is about turning reality into a game and Gamification is about bringing game elements into the real world. That probably makes it easier to remember. They both belong to the same family and work very well together, we should not...
read moreGamification: board please!
The importance of boarding is hugely underestimated within Gamification. Seems that the focus is solely on the reward system. I have said it once and I will say it again: “without people boarding, everything else becomes useless.” Set your priorities straight. Time to be more specific about the boarding mechanism. Due to the immense competition, the game-industry has pushed this vital instrument to its limits. Especially within the Casual Games segment of the industry. An industry in which I learned the hard way, by making mistakes....
read moreLet’s gamify that bridge!
A new buoy and trampoline bridge over the Seine river in Paris, France, proposed by an architectural firm. I like it, what I love it and hope it can make it’s leap from the drawing board into reality. Would be a huge example of Gamification. A proposal for a new design by the architectural firm AZC called ‘A Bridge in Paris’ will add a unique flair to the city. Just incredable, a giant, inflatable structure with multiple trampolines that cross the famous Seine River. No doubt, pedestrians would have a blast crossing...
read moreGamification: the golden seconds prior to boarding
Something got you here. But how do I pull you in? What can I do to make you read further? That should be the most important question people should ask themselves regarding to Gamification and many other area’s for that matter. Get noticed, that’s what the first step is all about. That is a huge challenge, because we have less than 10 seconds before a visitor decides to board. At this point I am already exceeding the 10 seconds limit. Everything I am writing from now on doesn’t influence the decision of you, “the visitor”, to stay....
read moreGamification: the next phase!
Within the 10 years I worked in the gaming industry guiding (together with a great team of passionate people) Youdagames into the international (sub)top, I also made a lot of mistakes. But on the good side, a lot can be learned from failure. One lesson could be that you have reached your limits. Gamification as it is presented now is reaching its limits. In many posts writers are explaining that gamification is about giving rewards, points and badges to engage customers. This doesn’t come as a surprise, cause this is what large companies in...
read moreAfraid of spiders? The cure is Gamification.
A loud scream, panic and my mother jumped on our couch within a blink of an eye. That was something I witnessed a couple of times when I was a kid. Did the earth move? Did lightning struck our house? No, a small (one inch) black, hairy spider entered the room. I live in the Netherlands so there is no chance that the spider was poisonous. Still the level of anxiety my mother experienced was huge. This way I learned that spiders are scary. I fear them as well, but not that much anymore, thanks to my wife. She isn’t scared at all and if she...
read moreGamification of soccer
I am so excited about this that I had to find the time in this week’s busy schedule to put it in writing. In one of my earlier posts (September 18, 2012), a new era unfolds, I wrote this: “My middle son is a soccer fan and so am I. We both play soccer and follow the Dutch competition. My youngest son doesn’t play soccer and is less interested in the real thing, but he plays FIFA 2012 intensely. He adores the management part of the game, in which you can trade players. He knows exactly which player would be the best fit for a certain...
read moreAchievement Unlocked
Sam Geuter is the first foreign guest writer on my site. I am very happy to introduce him to you through an interesting post he wrote especially for gamifier.com. It is no coincidence that my site is in English (which is much harder for me to maintain). The whole point is to get opinions from abroad, so I am excited and happy that Sam stepped up and shared his thoughts. In return I will do the same for him, just give me a couple of days. How Gamification could transform Education The state of education in Europe at the...
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