HUMINF Seminar Broken Technologies. Alcalá de Henares. Nov 2014.

Gamification: Breaking videogames, reconstructing reality

Luis de Marcos Ortega (Univ. of Alcalá)luis.demarcos@uah.es

http://www.uah.es/pdi/luis_demarcos

TOC

1. Games2. Videogames3. Serious Games4. Playful Design5. Gamification6. Multistability7. References

Games• Wittgenstein [on language]

– “For how is the concept of a gamebounded? What still counts as agame and what no longer does?Can you give the boundary? No.You can draw one; for none hasso far been drawn. (But that nevertroubled you before when youused the word ‘game’.)”

Philosophical Investigations, Aphorism 68

Games• Huizinga: Play cannot be denied• “play-factor was extremely active all through the

cultural process” (Huizinga, 1949)

• Magic circle– All play is a voluntary activity– Rule-bound– Absolute order

Games• “playing a game is an

attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles“

• Elements:– Objective (prelusory goal)– Rules (lusory means)– Lusory attitude

(Suits, 2005)

Games• Game Technologies are reality-broken• “the idea is to create a belief of authenticity; it is

a technology that works as a belief-factory”• “we understand this technologies as reality

broken, understanding ‘reality’ as the level ofcompleteness that the everyday world demandsin space and time dimensionality”(Flores, 2009)

• Suspension of disbelief (Coleridge)

Games• Counterargument 1: Inseparable duality reality/imagination• “A child does not behave in a purely

symbolic fashion in play; rather hewishes and realizes his wishes byletting the basic categories of realitypass through his experience. Thechild, in wishing, carries out hiswishes. In thinking, he acts. Internaland external action are inseparable:imagination, interpretation, and will arethe internal processes carried byexternal action” (Vygotskii, 1978)

Games• Counterargument 2: Reality is broken• “Reality doesn’t motivate us

effectively. Reality isn’t engineered tomaximise our potential. Reality wasn’tdesigned from the bottom up to makeus happy. Reality, compared togames, is broken.”

• “What if we decided to use everythingwe know about game design to fixwhat’s wrong with reality?”(McGonigal, 2011)

Videogames• Computers provide to games:

–immediate feedback–multimedia enriched narrative–connectivity

Videogames• Types of brokeness (Flores, 2009).

Videogames are:– Game technologies

• Reality-broken (space + time)– Virtual technologies

• Space-broken– Intermedial technologies

• Media-broken

Videogames• “virtual realities are less than three-dimensional

realities, and that means a reality that does notbelong to the dimensión of the real-presentialand cannot be touched. Any study of virtuality isthen a study of ‘non-presential’ worlds, worlds inwhich the human body and the sense of touch isnot available”

• “virtual reality does not reach the level ofeveryday materiality, it could be considered as aform of objectifying thought-representation”(Flores, 2009)

Videogames• Play vs game (Caillois, 1958)

– Paidia Play– Ludus Game

Videogames• Deconstructing games (Deterding, 2011)

Gaming (Paidia)

System

Playing (Ludus)

Elements

(Serious)Games Gamification

(Serious)Toys

PlayfulDesign

(Serious) Games• American Army

– First-person shooter designed for recruiting– Most effective marketing tool of the American Army

(Serious) Games• Fold-it

– Real world-problem (protein folding)– Meaning contributing to a larger goal

(Serious) Games• (Serious) Game = Game + System• Seriousness is just in the purpose• Not belonging to a different category of analysis

from any other [video]game• All games are serious!!!

• Similar analysis applies for (Serious) toys• (Serious) Toy = Play + System

– Just that it is not an extensive field of research

Playful design• Playful design = Play + elements• Piano Stairs

– Behavior change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

Playful design• Stairs are stable technologies

– never to be broken• Escalator

– whole technology while being used– mixed technology

• Stairs + Elevator

• Piano stairs– broken as piano impossible to play– temporally turns the scalator into a

motivational-broken technology (notludic)

Gamification

• Gamification = Game + elements• “Gamification is the use of game

design elements in non-gamecontexts to engage users andpromote action” (Werbach, 2012)

• a.k.a. gameful design

Gamification• Game design elements (Werbach, 2012)

– Dynamics (5): Constraints, emotions, narrative, progression,relationships

– Mechanics (10): Challenge, chance, competition, cooperation,feedback, resourse acquisition, rewards, transactions, turns, winstates

– Components (15): Achievements, avatars, badges, boss fights,collections, combat, content unlocking, gifting, leaderboards, levels,points, quests, social graph, teams, virtual goods.

Gamification

• PBL triad:–(P)oints–(B)agdes–(L)eaderboard

Gamification• Foursquare

– Social network of places– Visits (check-ins) Badges (social recognition)

Gamification• Nike+

– Fuel points + community (challenge friends)– 11 million users (2013)– Market share (U.S shoes):

• from 47% (2006) to 61% (2009)

Gamification• Starbucks loyality program

– Points (stars) + levels– Nice integration: Payment App– 6 million users (2013)– $3 billion in sales

Gamification• Hurrah! & Microsoft CRMGamified

– challenge, competition, rewards (trophies)– points, badges, leaderboards, achievements– "generate and inspire key behaviors that drive more

sales, encourage and motivate your employees“

Gamification• I suggest that gamification technologies are

ontical-broken• “both pragma an noema exist but they, but they

are not related with each other in fullcorrespondence. The ontology created in thisincongruent relationship is technological butincomplete” (Flores, 2009)

• Ontical-broken means tehcnologies of poverty• But… gamification is supposed to motivate, add

value, create richness…

26

Gamification• "More and more the sad conclusion forces itself

upon us that the play-element in culture has beenon the wane ever since the 18th century, when itwas in full flower. Civilization today is no longerplayed, and even where it still seems to play it isfalse play" (Huizinga, 1959)

• “at its core gamification is about finding the fun inthe things that you have to do” (Werbach, 2012)

Gamification• “even routine activities can be transformed into

personally meaningful games that provide optimalexperiences” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990)

• Just think of it AS a game– games at school school as a game– games at workplace workplace as a game

Gamification• Motivational design is a promising proposition

– How might we restructure a system to support intrinsicenjoyment, using game design as a lens?

– Put differently, if this were a game in what ways is itbroken? (Deterding, 2012)

• Therefore (and again): Is reality broken? Could itbe that gamification is just a naïve approach tobring [essential] fun back?

Criticism“Gamification is bullshit. I'm not being flip or glib or provocative. I'm speaking philosophically. More specifically, gamification is marketing bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless wasteland of big business, where bullshit already reigns anyway.” (Bogost)http://www.bogost.com/blog/gamification_is_bullshit.shtml

Criticism

• Cow clicker– “deconstructive satire of social games […]

gamification, educational apps, and alternate reality games” (wikipedia)

– Pointsification…

http://bogost.com/writing/blog/cow_clicker_1/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker

Criticism“Gamification is an inadvertent con. It trickspeople into believing that there’s a simple wayto imbue their thing (bank, gym, job,government, genital health outreach program,etc) with the psychological, emotional andsocial power of a great game.” (Robertson)

http://www.hideandseek.net/2010/10/06/cant-play-wont-play/

Multistability• In terms of action / perception

– Games are reality-broken (rules constraintaction)

• Videogames are media-broken– Gamification is ontical-broken

• In motivational terms– Reality is broken– Games are whole technologies– Playful design & gamification are endevours to

bring fun back to reality

References• CSÍKSZENTMIHÁLYI, M. 1990. Flow: The psychology of optimal experience, New York, HarperCollins.• CAILLOIS, R. 2001. Man, play, games. Combined Academic Publishers.• DETERDING, S., DIXON, D., KHALED, R. & NACKE, L. 2011. From game design elements to

gamefulness: defining "gamification". Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrekConference: Envisioning Future Media Environments. Tampere, Finland: ACM

• DETERDING, S. 2012. 9.5 Theses on the Power & Efficacy of Gamification. Presentation in SlideShare.• FLORES, F. 2009. Broken Technologies: The Humanist as Engineer, Lund, University of Lund.• HUIZINGA, J. 1949. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element in Culture, London, Routledge & Kean

Paul.• McGONIGAL, J. 2011. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the

World, New York, Penguin Books.• RYAN, R. M. & DECI, E. L. 2000. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New

Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.• SUITS, B. 2005. The Grasshopper: Life, Games & Utopia, Toronto, Broadview Press.• VYGOTSKII, L. S. 1978. Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes, Cambridge,

Massachussetts, Harvard University Press.• WERBACH, K. & HUNTER, D. 2012. For the win: How game thinking can revolutionize your business,

Philadelphia, Wharton Digital Press.

Thank you & Questions

Conferencia. ANIEI, CNCIIC 2014. Aguascalientes. Octubre 2014.

Luis de Marcos Ortega (Univ. of Alcalá)luis.demarcos@uah.es

http://www.uah.es/pdi/luis_demarcos

Gamification: Breaking videogames, reconstructing reality