Just giving feedback is not game design, and it will be lousy “gamification.”
When we train game designers, when we critique projects, and when we discuss what makes games compelling, we certainly do discuss feedback. But what we dwell on is the game systems, the core loop.
If you really want to gamify something, you need to make the core loop be something to explore and master. Buying an airplane ticket or staying at a hotel isn’t something you “master.” Piling up points is not good gamification.
The feedback exists to give cues to the user that they are learning something. It isn’t food pellets for rats to reward them for pushing a lever. Good gamification will be less Skinnerian and more like getting an A in class as a recognition of how well you mastered the subject.
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Raph Koster (via brunosetola)
I was emailed by a client this week who took the time to point out that “gamification” was an important trend for 2011. Now she is lovely and smart and does great work for her company, but the comment made me cringe. I made games for 5 years, I am a *terrible* game designer. But compared to the advertisers who are taking a shot at it, I’m Sid Meier.
It’s another way the media world has shown up, ready to share with everyone how the professionals do it, like the bedroom coders, writers and artists of all ilk needed - or wanted - a helping hand. They’ve taken the most obvious mechanic - points for doing something - and decided that was what was going to be important.
I couldn’t tell you how many points you get for jumping on a bad guy in any Mario game - can’t tell you that, because it doesn’t matter; anyone who thinks it does hasn’t even begun to grasp why those games are so popular to begin with.
Frankly, I don’t know that they’d be able to.
(Source: raphkoster.com, via brunosetola)
