Gamification is …

Classic Donkey Kong arcade game.

Gamification is using elements traditionally thought of as “fun” or game-like to promote learning and engagement. In a real situation, learning to be safe is serious business but placing a person in a safe environment and letting them gain experience through trial and error in an online simulation brings an allowable element of failure into the situation. Leadership training programs are typically boring, dry and highly politicized, but leading a guild in World of Warcraft and gaining experience rallying the troops to succeed on a raid is engaging, fun and leads to transferable leadership skills. Playing a board game is usually reserved for family fun night but when properly configured and used in a corporate setting, insights can be gained that could not otherwise be possible.

All of these examples use game elements and techniques to engage, inform and educate.

To put it simply, “gamification” is the process of employing game thinking, elements and mechanics to engage people, promote learning, drive participation and/or solve problems.

Elements from games are making their way into marketing programs in the form of advergames, and customer loyalty programs, game elements are making their way into corporations through badges and avatar-based interfaces and making their way into learning and training environments through the leveling up of learning experiences, storytelling and leaderboards.

The influence of games and game elements is growing at a rapid pace. The gaming industry is growing in both financial size and in terms of the audience it is reaching. According to BusinessWeek, the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play game industry is over $3.8 billion. Additionally, 26% of people who indicate they play games are over fifty which is an increase from 9% in 1999.

Learning professionals must understand the growing trend of applying game-based sensibilities to the development of instruction through assignment of points, creating time-based activities, leveling up of learning experiences and other techniques. The elements of interactive design that are buried in good instructional design strategies need to be surfaced and applied to the creation of online and face-to-face learning events and to creating compelling interactive experiences.

As gaming concepts become more mainstream, organizations have begun to leverage games for instruction. While the concept of using games for learning is not new, the emerging growth of the “gamification” of traditionally non-game related content is growing at a high rate.

The growing use of avatars, the increasing popularity of massively multiplayer online role play games (MMORPGs) and the addition of point systems, badges and leader boards in realms such as economics, retail sales and finance is leading to a proliferation of gamified collaborative and learning techniques. This is not a waning trend, rather it is gaining momentum and acceptance in more and more fields.

Learning and development professionals, teachers and college faculty must follow that trend or be left behind. But more importantly, they should be leading the trend because our knowledge and experience creating engaging instruction translates extremely well to GAMIFICATION.