Friday, March 4, 2011

What attracts us in games?

The "gamification", or use of game mechanics for other applications, is one of the big buzz of the moment. In January 2011, held also the first Gamification Summit. The gamification is essentially asking what draws us in both games then extracting the basic revenue to be applied outside the fun. At the heart of this process is the idea that the dot gain, the acquisition of status, are driving fun enough to encourage users to use a service.

Typical example, Foursquare, mobile application which recommends to his friends various places in the city, one who advises being more able to get vouchers or coupons in some places recommended (those with a partnership with Foursquare). On this point, the gamification stands out for example "serious game" that also seeks to use the game in economic and educational spheres, but which often takes the appearance of a video game "classic" (hence its frequently high cost of developing, actually).

Inspiration gamifiées applications, these games are rather minimal, "social", "casual" Farmville which is the most famous example: a simple interface (web or mobile application), minimum rules, immersive character, etc.. And most importantly, a strong involvement with reality: Farmville is considered a game "gamifiant" because it forces you back into the game very regularly if you do not want your crops wither.

According to devotees of gamification, the concept will soon become part of the design of any website. As a result, many services as BigDoor Badgeville or begin to bloom, offering their clients "gamifier" their site or service: that is to say, most of the time, provide a reward to people who do what 'they are proposing.

Various theories are available gamification often within well defined key points that may fit easily into a PowerPoint presentation. And for good reason: the essence of this project is to extract a small set of mechanics (a term that keeps coming back) easily manipulated and used. The word "mechanical", so often used, clearly shows: it leaves Tech News Buzz in the art (as the design of a game, whatever the pessimists, is an art) for the engineering , social or economic.

Priebatsch Seth (who holds the position of "head ninja" to SCVNGR, development firm pervasive games on smartphone), and lists four basic characteristics of gamification at its conference on the Boston TEDx "layer that covers the game Tech Buzz News "(while stating at the outset to keep the other three in his possession, just to maintain a competitive advantage over its competitors!).

Priebatsch begins by castigating gamifiées applications that merely provide points and coupons for each action. For him, things are more complicated than that (but, admittedly, not much). Here in any case, the four dynamic game by allowing him to influence the behavior ... "In good, bad or in between" The appointment dynamic participants are expected to travel to virtual places specific, specific times and at a pace determined.

This is the principle of Farmville, where one must constantly watch his back harvests following a precise timing. If designers decide to change the rules and hold their 71 million fans that they return to the game every 30 minutes, it would upset the country's economy, notes with humor Seth Priebatsch.

Status. Join the club of the best, happy few, is a mechanism known to all followers of the gamification. The growth dynamics. It involves a series of progressively, until the goal. Success here is measured by the performance of subsequent tasks fragmented. This principle is reflected in a classic game like World of Warcraft, but also with the professional social network LinkedIn, where you gradually complete their profile relying on a percentage system.

Finally, the collective process of discovery. In this dynamic, a whole community gathers to work on an issue and win a challenge. Digg, the collaborative news aggregator famous, is one example. But it also shows the limits of this kind of practice. Indeed, says Priebatsch, causing the service, there was an "honor roll" of the best contributors.

However, it proved faster than the top seven "players" were doing their utmost to maintain their status, primarily by recommending stories discovered by others instead of seeking their own. The Digg team then had to resolve to remove the "honor roll". All News Tech Buzz does not use the same bulleted list to define the gamification.

Amy Jo Kim, an expert on online communities and cofounder of the gaming company Shuffle brain, the gamification consists of five characteristics: Collecting, Earning points; Incorporate a feedback mechanism, promote exchanges between players, allow customization of service. Of course there are other lists: Technology Analyst Ray Wang in Software Insider, offers two.

The first, fairly standard, consists of five points (Intrigue, Challenge, rewards, status, community). The second is more original and funnier as these are the seven deadly sins ... that could be used, according to Wang, as a guide to "good practice" of gamification! CONCEPT widely criticized What do contemporary theorists of the game? They are rather reserved, to say the least ...

So, Raph Koster (often mentioned in our columns), which takes even more to dot the i's on his own book, "A Theory of Fun" is mentioned in an article for Entrepreneur. com to illustrate the thesis of gamification: "I feel a little uncomfortable criticizing an article that will certainly help to sell my book ...

But if you really want gamifier something, you need to place the center of system something to explore and master. Buy a ticket or sleep in a hotel, these are not things that mastery. Earning points is not good gamification. " Ian Bogosta, another famous analyst of contemporary play world, is even more severe.

And to show his disapproval of the concept, why not express it in a game? Bogosta has created the "Cowclicking," a Facebook application that allows the player to click on ... a cow. "Last year, announced he sarcastically on his blog, the phenomenon of social play Cow Clicker has captured the imagination of all, giving players the opportunity to click on a cow every six hours, and even more often.

"And triumphantly launched its new concept," vachification "(" cowclickification ")," the application of the mechanical click-cow services that do not click the cows. "" When you vachifiez you give your audience a good reason to use your poor website, application or service. " Jane McGonigal, who has made in its various research and in his latest book, Reality Is Broken, championed the transformation of everyday experience into play is less polemical, but has warned fans at the gamification his speech at the Summit Gamification: the game according to his theory is based on the desire to "overcome unnecessary obstacles." Therefore, the use of game mechanics in daily life should not be designed to facilitate the task, but must instead make it more difficult ...

The game designer pervasive Margaret Robertson who coined the phrase "pointification" (see Hubert Guillaud's article, "Rediscovering the joy of playing"), concludes from his side: "There are things that should be pointifiées. There are things that should be gamifiées. There are things that should be both .

And there are many, many things that should be neither one nor the other. "GAMIFICATION LA, A NEUROSCIENCE too simplistic? Finally, gamification based on a particular model of the mind of the player, that the essence of the game is to grant a graduated series of awards to push him to continue in business.

This might be called the model of "dopamine", a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure often caused by success. Now it turns out that the attractiveness of the reward is perhaps not the main engine of the game A recent psychological experiment suggests that the problem is (as always with the brain) a lot more complicated than in al air.

This research shows that subjects are better able to solve a puzzle after watching a funny little scene. This would put them in condition to solve the problem creatively. For one of the researchers: "The humor, this positive state of mind, down there in the brain, the detection limit connections weaker or more distant in order to solve puzzles? This research and others suggest that the attractiveness of the puzzles and finding their solution goes beyond the 'dopamine-reward'.

The idea of doing a crossword or a Sudoku site status in the brain that is entertaining in itself a nice loophole. "In other words, the old theory of the" magic circle "dear to Huizinga, that News Tech Buzz Game is separated that of a real fine line and difficult to be tamed, retains its value.

The game actually sign the entry of a new state of mind (one is tempted to say: a new state of consciousness) in which the gain and loss are only minor elements. GAMIFICATION NEWS AND CURRENCIES Yet, perhaps should we not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Whatever the shortcomings of gamification, it seems to be an experimental ground for Another growing field, the new currency (see the current folder by Jean-Michel Cornu).

For in fact, using a system of "coupons" for "badges" or points to beat is the de facto currency. The " virtual currencies "are not new. Second Life was probably his brief success in the Linden dollar, all Tech News and Buzz has heard of" gold farmers "World of Warcraft. But perhaps the gamification she managed to put forward a aspect of online games, which so far remained a little background (Second Life) or was frankly illegal (WoW).

In a previous article we mentioned the idea of John Robb, who said that online games of tomorrow will not move forward until they themselves become economic system that benefits players, allowing them to flourish in a system more transparent and fair than the current Buzz Tech News. It was actually a system of gamification brought to its ultimate consequence.

Since then, Robb has continued its deliberations and issued a draft "open source company," based on these ideas. At the heart of a "métamonnaie" ("metacurrency" not to be confused with the other project Metacurrency) capable of rewarding objectively and transparently the work done by the user.

Exactly the equivalent of "badges" or points of gamification. As an illustration of his concept, he launched today "PictureThis", a sort of Open Streetview where everyone is invited to photograph their environment, receiving shares of the company in recognition of images sent to the site.

Viewed in terms of currency, gamification takes a whole new interest: it helps us to understand that money is not only a trading system, but also has a cognitive and emotional dimension that expresses the game much better than the traditional economic thinking.

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