Gamification lecture

Today's lecture was focused around Gamification and why it is so important and how its used today and the possibilities of the future. Gamification basically means making a game out of something to make an activity or task more fun or to feel some sort of achievement from doing something they would usually hate.A good example of this are things such as loyalty cards, at petrol stations, supermarkets, restaurants and even by travelling abroad.  By incorporating some sort of reward scheme it make people feel like they need to aim for something, by going to a certain petrol station can use a loyalty card, the more they go and use that petrol station they will get a discount or they have points that will add up so they can use it on something else like shopping. Jesse Schell has a speech on Gamification and how the future can possibly go with this idea. He talks about how literally everything will have games to influence people, watching the tv playing mini games to get bonuses, recycling to get bonuses and points to reduce tax etc. he goes into depth about the possibility of everything and he comes to a conclusion that because everything is monitored and tracked.. will we become better people? will we look at things in a different way?
Another speech was looked at was by Kane Mcgonigal, a games design who makes online games. She talked about how online game could influence people to face real life situations and change the world. Shes goes on to talk how many gamers play online games and how many hours a week they do this for. She then goes on to talk about why people play online games, because they get a sense of achievement and sense of doing something good that they couldn't normally do or are afraid to do in the real world, and then talks about how these people could change the world if they somehow could get that sense of achievement and rewards like they did in a game. All very interesting ideas, and definitely starts discussions for how Gamification can affect the future but also how it can improve the future and make changes that matter to the world.

After the lecture the class got into groups and the task we were given was to think of Gamification could be used now. We began to look at resources such  as Waste, Fuel and Electric and possible ways to reduce the wasting these resources. So we looked at how we could reward people for cutting down on their electric, or cutting down on fuel and ways to save waste. One example we developed was how we could save on electric. We looked at having a top up system where people add funds for that month, if they didn't use all that electric over that month and saved some then this would rollover onto next month but also they would get a bonus which would accumulate over the year for rewards such Solar panels or wall insulation as this would reduce costs of electric and gas bills even further. Again this idea needs to worked upon so people of all ages would be interested in helping reduce bills and not just the 'bill payer'  such as using visual representations of your virtual house, if your efficient and saving recources then your virtual house would look nice and clean. if you aren't efficient then your virtual world would look bad and kids could see his want to improve there virtual world by turning of lights, power switches etc.

Referances:
1. Mcgonigal, J, (2011) Reality is broken: why games make us better and how they can change the world. New York, NY: Penguin Press
2. TED. (2010) Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html
3.Schell, J. (2008) The Art of Games Design: A book on lenses. Boca Raton, FL CRC Press