Gamification: a bubble soon to go burst!?

In a relatively short timeframe gamification turned into a proper movement. The official blog; a full-fledged book; a summit; and many (self-)proclaimed experts are advocating the use of game mechanics in non-game settings. Gamification can be seen as the logical next step in the diffusion of games as it commoditises games by making them part of the marketer’s toolkit without her actually having to design games. Is the rapid rise of the phenomenon at hand legit, or is gamification a bubble soon to go burst?

At this week’s London Business School’s Marketing Club, this question was answered by Professor in Game Design Richard Bartle. Professor Bartle has a proven track record in games being the spiritual father of the first Virtual World, MUD (1978), and reputable author on the subject of games design. Bartle concluded his presentation on the note that Gamification is a bubble that will eventually burst. Why won’t gamification become ubiquitous in the next five years?

More often than once, gamification rather is 'pointsification'. That is, gamification fails to deliver a game-like experience (something you can lose at) but rather exclusively offers extrinsic rewards for aspired behaviour. Where games offer extrinsic rewards for something that the player already perceives as fun (intrinsic reward), in gamification the receipt of the reward itself ought to be fun (or valuable). As in most cases, if the reward is not valuable or fun, it is not a reward. This is an insight that will eventually dawn on consumers, and when this happens they will feel deceived and abandon gamification practices.  This is precisely the reason why marketers should realise that gamification is short-lived and might even lead to legal and ethical consequences.

Professor Bartle made it abundantly clear that gamification is different from serious games, or advergames, where actual games are used for stimulating functional behaviour. Besides the short term financial gains and notable success cases, gamification will ready those non-gamers left for playing games. This is good news for skilled advergaming studios like Sticky Studios and Media Monks who are trained in creating game experiences around brand-messages. Rather than repetitive behaviour with no real reward, brand messages should be reflected in fun game-play leading to real-life behaviour.

>> Professor Bartle’s slides for a similar presentation held at a Gamification workshop in Shoreditch can be found here.