The General Perception of Gaming A friend of mine complained about his 10 years old son doing nothing but playing video games the whole day. He was worried and did not know how to convince little Jimmy to do something else with his time. My friend was not asking for advice, but I did what any non-parent friend should not do and I offered exactly that. I told him to explain compulsions and how games create addictive compulsory behaviors that keep us engaged. Video games do not exactly improve personal development either. It is not good when you can’t control what you spend your time on. Kids admire lots of people: athletes, scientists, astronauts, firemen, etc. Those people have not become who they are because of playing video games all day. Games are a source of amusement, but they should not prevent us from becoming something else. Because of things like this, many grownups have bad feelings about video games. I feel Gamification is affected by that stigma too. Play Your Way Out of Your Current Reality A couple days later, my friend told me his son was moved by my explanation and did not play games for the rest of the day. However, my friend was frustrated anew, because the very next morning Jimmy was playing games again. I was not surprised. I played video games a lot when I was younger, so I know exactly how it works. My mom hated when I used to answer “In a minute.” It was never a minute. I told my friend that the best way to beat a game is with a different game. I advised him to allow the kid to play WHEN he finishes his tasks (as a REWARD). He should start with simple activities, but have them gradually evolve into more complex ones (i.e. LEVELS). If you try enough tasks and add some fun things in between, a kid will eventually find other things he or she likes (mini games). You can built an entire network of goals and behaviors that will help you improve yourself. Once you do, you will subconsciously reward yourself when you do right*. Your mind is gamified. Game mechanics are just techniques that we identified in order to tap into our mental wiring. Gamification works because our minds have evolved to learn from clues and identify progress. Most companies are not in the entertainment business. Therefore, it is expected they will not believe that a video game will relate in any way to the problems they have to deal with every day. When you join that to the stigma of video games, Gamification does not look appealing. However, Gamification is a tool that shares principles that follow quite different objectives than video games do. Gamify All Things! There are things you need to do at work or even in life that are just plain boring. You know you need to do it, but you can’t find the motivation to put your energy into it. Most of our clients who are reluctant to use Gamification fall in these groups: 1- “I don’t play video games.” I hear that more than you would believe. It […]
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