Gamefication

Not too long ago I saw a video on gamification. Unfortunately I cannot find it anymore, and I would normally have linked to it by now when the reference is this clear. However, I did notice that about a gazillion results came up when I searched for the term, so I'm sure you can look it up if you do not know what it means.

If you want a quick catch up as to what it means and how the more positive perspectives on this idea reinforces their perspectives with arguments, look no further than this guy's presentation:



If you draw anything from this presentation please disregard his ideas on what to draw. You should be weary of this concept. Especially looking at the industry attempting to constantly trying to impress kids and force their parents to buy a product. If you look at this specific part of a documentary about corporations, you should get the bigger picture on why you want to question what industries educate your children.


My idea on how to make gamification useful is to introduce it into the basic learning of children. Much like these business vultures would want to, but ethically of course. How so? Well first of all it should be scientific, meaning the games developer should pick a topic they find interesting to develop a game world on, and then they should confer with the experts on that field.




An interesting way on how to make biology classes more compelling could be to make a game that puts the player into the role of becoming a white blood cell and fighting off infections to the host. These infections could then mutate and evolve, to make room for differing levels of difficulty. In addition the game could easily be transformed into a multiplayer game so a class of students would learn how the system of their bodies work together to keep them as healthy as possible.
Tie this in with specific levels in the game making it harder to work as a white blood cell due to fatigue, because the host body is eating too much fast food or drinking too many soft drinks filled with additives, and you got yourself one educative game.


I have no idea how to market this idea though, and I am quite sure that one way is to remove the aspect of combatting fast food, embracing the idea that the heart of the host body could wear a tag for a fast food chain the kids normally love. Many games will be doing similar things to get on the market in the future. Refer back to my prior post on advertising. 
The competition will be fierce and the corporations want to be a part of it, both so new games do not embrace the ideas I have mentioned that could potentially educate their consumers of their harmful ways, but of course also in order to be a part of sponsoring the games inside the games.


Finally I will simply say this. What the speaker at TEDx is right about specifically is that this trend towards gamification will not go away. It will not only be used on children, it will be utilised on adults as well, to make them compliant ressourceful workers with rising productivity due to the old carrot on a stick routine.


I will leave you with this lecture theorising why that will not work.