2. You can't choose a solution from the 'solution shelf'
The above is a quote from designer Marty Neumeier that I value highly. Companies operate in such a complex environment these days that the transferability of 'standard recipes' has become minimal. This also applies to gamification. So as a manager, don't be tempted to implement a few gimmicks to be able to tick the gamification box. If there is something that has the potential to get completely out of hand if you start it the wrong way, it is a game. By the way, Neumeier's answer to the above problem is: you have to design the way forward. That applies doubly here.
Jane McGonigal
The biggest frustration that many critics of gamification have is that it gets stuck at rather flat matters and that it ignores so much more potential that games have. The most optimistic in this area is probably Jane McGonigal . She is currently the most visible game designer and game scientist to the general public, with her book , her TED Talk and her TV appearances . She is also starting to adopt the label gamification (or at least to appear at conferences with that theme), but she is clearly in the camp of Deterding and Bogost. Her ambition is much greater than that of Zichermann and his associates. With her Alternate Reality Games, McGonigal wants nothing less than to improve the world. And although I do not completely agree with her optimism, I find her vision much more appealing than what I have heard from the gamification camp so far.
Not easy!
It would be such a shame if the corporate world were to be introduced to benin phone number list the potential of games through short-sighted gamification initiatives and then, after the initial disappointments, write off games as a phenomenon that adds no value. Sebastian Deterding (and even Ian Bogost) is fundamentally optimistic about the application of elements from games in other contexts. And – as should be clear by now – I am in their camp.
I think games and game design are particularly suited to thinking in systems and harnessing the power of those systems in all sorts of areas (game designer Eric Zimmerman – not to be confused with Zichermann – can put it much better, by the way ). And given the fact that our systems have been letting us down lately, we should take all the help we can get in that area. It is not easy to capture the power of games and use it in a different context, but that does not mean we should give up trying. And it certainly does not mean we should succumb to quick, short-term, illusory solutions.