Yesterday I posted my first prediction for big technology trends for 2o11 – home entertainment embracing the 2nd screen. Today’s trend is …
2. Gamification of everything
I was first introduced to the concept of Gamification back in Nov by Alicia Dudek at one of the Girl Geek Dinners. In brief, gamification is the use of gaming priniciples for everyday life. 4square is often mentioned as an example, as well as Farmville/FrontierVille/CityVille. While the ‘theory’ behind gamification is drawn from the recent invention of video games, it can be applied to a number of seemingly unrelated fields such as marketing and web app design. Not convinced? Just look at loyalty schemes where consumers are rewarded points by purchasing from the same vendor. It is one of the most prevalent and widely accepted mechanisms which uses gaming priniciples.
I’m just starting to learn more about gamification and the design principles the movement advocates. At the core of it, is a points system that drives everything. People get points for doing things or sharing things. But because it isn’t that isn’t for people to share with other people the points they have, they have badges as proxies to show others how many points they have. Just like cash in real life, you probably wouldn’t tell people what your bank balance is (read:points), but people can infer it from the car that you drive, the area that you live in, the clothes that you wear (read:badges).
The first Gamification summit is being held in San Fran on 21st Jan and there are interesting startups such as bunchball which provide the backend to the gaming side of thing. I’m completely intrigued by the ideas: I listened to my first Gamification seminar tonight and am in the process of writing a ‘fitness’ game. Gamification will get big. Real big.
Tune in tomorrow for the next instalment: The Rise of Multi-user, Multi-device Applications
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[...] Comments « Predictions for 2011 – 2. Gamification of Everything [...]
Great Article! Virtual points and economies will always drive usage through the natural human instinct to compete with others. A feeling of user reward and achievement through their journey over time is critical to success . I believe gamification is going to be a winner in 2011 and can really help disrupt stale industry problems.
We are finding more and more apps are now requiring some form of virtual points or currency to help their stickiness. For example we have been working on an app that brings game mechanics into the recruitment industry and helps solve a long standing recruitment problem at the same time. The ‘game’ is being used to both attract a certain demographic of user (social media users) and also record reward when they do something positive! We then leave it up to the creator of the game to determine what that reward should be.
It’s important to know when to use gamification. Take a trip over to Talent Tribes and have a look http://www.talenttribes.com. We are in beta right now but is a good example of a subtle implementation within an app aimed at companies 20-100 people in size.
[...] the fourth instalment of my predictions for big tech trends for 2011. You can read predictions 1, 2 and 3 [...]
*cough* I’m sure I introduced this to you about 3 years ago… At least in concept.
Intrigued by the newfound importance of this as “a tech trend”, instead of simply something which was always possible to do. Increasingly I’m of the option that foresight doesn’t matter in fast-evolving software technology, because everyone can jump on the bandwagon as and when it comes past, without requiring years of pre-emptive product development.
[...] Home Entertainment Embracing the Second Screen 2. Gamification of Everything 3. The Rise of Multi-user, Multi-device apps 4. A Re-Focus on [...]
[...] is the third instalment of my predictions for big tech trends in 2011. Read prediction 1 and prediction 2 as well [...]
[...] the fourth instalment of my predictions for big tech trends for 2011. You can read predictions 1, 2 and 3 [...]