HeartRate Games

• 2011-05-22 0 notes

  Thoughts about “Exploitationware”

  As part of my intermittent quest to understand gamification, I read Ian Bogost’s excellent critique of the term. http://bit.ly/jFNULl

  I also sat in on yesterday’s terrific Video Game Studies Colloquium at the University of Washington, at which similar views were expressed by some of the participants. http://bit.ly/kt1s8H 

  Here are a few thoughts from the perspective of a former corporate marketing guy (Apple, NEC, Medtronic) who is now building a game company.

  1. Gamification as a buzzword will soon be extinct. Waiting is probably the best strategy for those who perceive that the term is being exploited.

  The term’s value will weaken from overuse and misuse. Gartner, for example, recently made the forecast that “50% of innovation processes will be gamified” by 2015. Gartner is a company that packages corporate marketing hype, so I take their prognostication as a sign that we’re close to the peak of the gamification wave.

  http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1629214

  The field of corporate gamification will evolve. As marketers assess results from gamification campaigns they will focus on leveraging discrete elements of gamification that work and discard the elements that don’t work. This refinement of marketing process will result in the elements achieving their own buzzwords.

  As with other fads, the term will start to seem dated and will gradually be dropped from use by marketers and consultants.

  The following are a few examples of buzzwords that were once abundant in tech PR and advertising but are now past their prime.

  Middleware

  Artificial Intelligence

  Multimedia

  2.  Rather than fighting it head on, academics might do better to embrace the term by helping non-gamers to clearly define what it means.

  I sense a lot of hype is being generated about concepts that are either impractical to deploy or that were not intended to be “gamified” when they were designed. Game studies academics have a unique opportunity to influence marketers by clarifying what gamification actually is and what it is not. They could:

  • Lay out various definitions of gamification and evaluate them.
  • Explain the roots of the concept.
  • Define what a game is and is not.
  • Explain whether the concept of a “game layer on everything” is a bunch of bullshit.
  • Establish a bright line between what gamification is and isn’t. For example, is a Prius dashboard an example of gamification? If so, why, and is an analog speedometer therefore also an example of gamification?
  • Establish whether the intent of the designer is one criteria to determine whether something is gamified or not.

  As part of a corporate engagement strategy, game academics could establish and promote ethical values and a code of conduct for marketers to follow when using game elements in marketing or other business processes. To my knowledge this doesn’t exist, so even a draft document would be a significant contribution by game academics to helping ensure gamification isn’t misused.
  
  3.  Stop complaining about corporations being evil and engage them on their terms.
  
  As I write this I’m sitting at a cafe in Seattle that is a “high end” Starbucks: an experiment in delivering higher-quality products, and a broader range of them (including beer and wine), in a space tricked out with much better furniture than you see at a typical Starbucks.
  
  I happen to think Starbucks shares a good deal of blame for the creeping homogenization of global culture. I also believe the company contributes to our national epidemic of obesity with every venti caramel latte it hands to customers.
  
  Is Starbucks evil, and if so, why am I giving them my money?
  
  Those are questions for another colloquium. Suffice it to say that I enter into purchase agreements with Starbucks because it suits both of us. 
  
  My point is that whining about evil corporations doesn’t get one anywhere. Everyone makes bargains with people or entities they don’t like. Corporations are merely networks run by humans who are each looking after their own self-interest. These humans can be engaged and influenced.

  I sat in on yesterday’s colloquium because I need to understand games inside and out in order to run my business. I know from personal experience that game academics have a tremendous amount of insight to offer those in the corporate world who wish to integrate game elements into business processes. As Bogost and others have said, leveraging games to improve non-game processes is hard. 

  Because marketers are engaged with just about everyone, the inevitable evolution of gamification offers game academics the opportunity to broaden their influence in the world by engaging with corporate marketers instead of reviling them to their peers in academia. 

• 2011-05-10 0 notes

  Gamification Articles, Studies, & Events

  James Riggall from HITLab Australia offered up a few links to Gamification-related articles, talks, and papers. Mentions the cynicism among some in academia about the concept being marketing-speak. Again, when Gartner reports that 50% of future innovation will be gameified then I think we’re close to the peak hype.

  Nothing here exercise-related, I believe.

  
  From: James Riggall <jamesriggall@gmail.com>
  Date: May 9, 2011 9:45:17 PM PDT
  
  Subject: Gamification Primer
  
  Hello All,
  
  I’ve been involved in email correspondence with one of Angela Thomas’ PhD students over the past week or so.  He is working on a PhD project which will involve using gamification in primary schools to help with the teaching of persuasive writing.
  
  During the course of these discussions, I have sent a number of emails that have included links to content on the web that concerns gamification and gives (in my opinion) a good overview of some of the major trends in academia at the moment in that space.
  
  As some of you have shown an interest in this topic over recent weeks, I thought it would be worthwhile to pass these emails on to you.  Feel free to disregard this if it’s not of any interest to you.  Likewise, if you think the emails may be of interest to your colleagues, feel free to pass them on to other interested people.
  
  James
  
  ————— Forwarded message —————
  From: James Riggall <jamesriggall@gmail.com>
  Date: 8 May 2011 23:21
  Subject: Re: A Few Gamification Links
  
  Hello Again Damon,
  
  It seems gamification related stuff is coming my way daily at the moment.
  
  This one is a masters thesis on the topic, published a couple of days ago.  No idea if it’s actually any good (I haven’t read it myself and probably won’t read it closely, to be honest), but even if it’s some kind of disaster, you should gain value from skimming the reference list.
  
  To link directly to the document, you can use this:  http://is.gd/IpQnLF
  
  My source is a comment on Rock Paper Shotgun:  http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/05/08/the-sunday-papers-169/#comment-683905
  
  James
  
  On 7 May 2011 23:17, James Riggall <jamesriggall@gmail.com> wrote:

  Hello Again,
  
  You may also enjoy this Extra Credits video from a couple of days ago.  Much lighter than the last few videos I’ve sent you, but it’s good content.
  
  http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3167-Gamifying-Education
  
  James
  
  On 6 May 2011 11:00, James Riggall <jamesriggall@gmail.com> wrote:
  

  Hi Damon,
  
  Richard Bartle’s talk from yesterday has been posted online here:
  
  http://www.livestream.com/digitalshoreditch/video?clipId=pla_00b6e544-94d6-4ee5-b3a6-d7f256c77486
  
  The recording quality is pretty low, but it’s watchable enough that you can get the content out of it.
  
  James
  
  On 5 May 2011 02:02, James Riggall <jamesriggall@gmail.com> wrote:
  

  Hi Damon,
  
  I enjoyed talking with you the other day. 
  
  The purpose of this email is mostly to pass on some materials that you may find useful when you’re thinking about Gamification and how you might structure a research topic around it.
  
  As I mentioned when we met yesterday, gamification is quite a contentious topic in academia at the moment.  The marketing guys in industry love it, business schools are getting interested and it’s starting to make in-roads into other faculties.  All of that said, some influential thinkers who work in fields such as videogame theory, media studies and philosophy tend to be quite a bit more cynical about gamification as a general concept.
  
  What follows are a few resources that I think give a good overview of gamification from some influential game designers and academics.  This should flesh out that side of the debate for you quite nicely and bring you up to speed with a lot of the threads of my own thinking on the topic as well.
  
  Jesse Schell @ DICE 2010
  
  Jesse Schell’s DICE presentation from last year.
  
  http://www.g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-presentation/
  
  This is a provocative, rather than descriptive talk.  Schell doesn’t really commit to any of the ideas that he puts forward in this talk, but is really putting forward some contentious ideas to spark discussion.  It’s a fun talk to engage with.
  
  And, Schell succeeded in sparking a lot of discussion.  The reaction to this talk is one of the first times that gamification really leaped into the foreground of the various videogame blogs.  The guys at Critical Distance have put together a critical collection of the various responses to Schell’s talk.
  
  You can find that collection online here:
  http://www.critical-distance.com/2010/04/21/jesse-schell-design-outside-the-box/
  
  Jane McGonigal @ GDC 2011
  
  Jane McGonigal gave a talk a couple of months ago about gamification titled “We don’t need no stinking badges: how to reinvent reality without gamification”.  Her talk isn’t necessarily negative about gamification itself, but it does give valuable insight into some of the ways through which gamification might be used more effectively; or, perhaps more specifically, how the term might be redefined to make it more useful.
  
  http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014576/We-Don-t-Need-No
  
  This talk was part of a gamification day at the Serious Games Summit (serious game is another term that videogame academics sometimes take issue with =P).  I’m not as familiar with other talks in the series, but you may find them to be of value as well.
  
  There’s a list of the talks that occurred on the day is available here:
  http://schedule.gdconf.com/sessions/track/Serious-Games-Summit
  
  Note that this is just the schedule.  Not all of those will have videos available online, those that do, you should be able to Google for and find fairly easily.  You might also find Googling the names of the various speakers to be a valuable exercise.
  
  Ian Bogost on Gamaustra
  
  Today, Ian Bogost wrote a few pages about gamification on Gamasutra.  His analysis sums up a lot of my own misgivings about the fundamental concept.  He’s one of the more vocal cynics in the community, but his voice carries a fair bit of weight.
  
  http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34470/Feature_Gamification_No_Exploitationware.php
  
  It’s important to be aware of the various criticisms that people like Bogost are making, as it will help you to recognise where the strengths of an idea such as gamification lie and where the weaknesses are.  Hopefully, being aware of both sides of this debate will give you the tools you need to design and implement some really interesting learning tools.
  
  Richard Bartle @ Digital Shoreditch
  
  Richard Bartle spoke on the topic this evening at a conference in the UK (I’ve just finished watching it).  It was live streamed but I don’t believe a video will be made available for download, so I can’t point you at a video to watch.  If I hear that the slides have been posted online I’ll shoot them your way.
  
  Someone did post a photo of his concluding slide to Twitter (http://twitpic.com/4t9ob4).  The gist of that is:  Gamification will not be ubiquitous after five years; the more it happens the less effective it becomes.  He does suggest that the next few years will involve a lot of people making a lot of money on gamification, but he sees it as a fad rather than a fundamental shift in the way the world works for the long term.
  
  The point in sending critical material such as this your way is not to discourage you from engaging with gamification, but simply to ensure that you’re aware of some of the more controversial claims that are tied up in the basic gamification concept.  For my own part, I truly believe that games have an important role to play in the future of education.  “Gamification”…well, that, I’m not so sure about.  It’s an open question though, and a field that warrants further investigation.
  
  Let me know if you’d like to chat with me further about anything.  Once I hear from you with some further details about what you hope to do, I’ll start talking to students and drum up some volunteers for us to sit down with and discuss the mechanics of the project in greater detail.
  
  I hope the materials I’ve linked above are useful to you.  :)
  
  Have a good one,
  
  James
  
  

  
  
  —
  James Riggall
  Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HITLab) Australia
  School of Computing and Information Systems
  University of Tasmania
  Locked Bag 1359
  Launceston Tas 7250
  Australia
     
  url: http://www.hitlab.utas.edu.au
  twitter: http://twitter.com/jamesriggall
  linkedin:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/james-riggall/21/4ba/16
  
  email: James.Riggall@utas.edu.au   
  phone: +61 3 6324 3976

• 2011-03-30 0 notes

  IHRSA 2011

  I caught up with cardio machine manufacturers at the IHRSA fitness industry trade show, March 18th in San Francisco.

  Feedback about the Market for Cardio Games

  Most cardio machine companies at the show are doing fitness games R&D or are in the market with first-generation game-enabled products. The consistent feedback I got from manufacturers is they’d love to have a stream of interactive cardio game content from independent game developers so they don’t have to create games themselves. Several of these indicated interest in participating in our upcoming beta test program.

  No one has cracked the nut of how to provide interactive cardio games that are fun to play, adapt the game play experience to the user’s fitness level and physiological state, and work with multiple brands and models of cardio fitness machines.

  Web-Connected Cardio Media Platforms

  The most significant development at IHRSA, in terms of its potential to spur the growth of cardio games in fitness clubs, appears to be broader market penetration of web-connected cardio media platforms.

  Media platforms offer a potential technology and monetization backbone for delivering a continual stream of new interactive games to cardio machine users. They don’t, however, solve the specific technical problems of game integration with cardio machine hardware.

  Here are some players in the media platform space who showed at IHRSA. This list doesn’t include media platforms by cardio machine manufacturers like Expresso Fitness.

  NetPulse

  NetPulse is the most notable cardio media platform with six manufacturing partners. NetPulse says these partners represent about 70% of the fitness club global sales. http://bit.ly/fWcJDp

  NetPulse is clearly also leading the pack in terms of venture funding, leadership team, board, and investors. Plus they’re in Silicon Valley.

  NetPulse is presently an add-on to existing fitness machines installed in clubs. They say they’ll eventually integrate their system into manufactured products.

  www.netpulse.com

  Webracing.org

  There were a few other media platforms at the show. Webracing.org has the closest thing to a platform that enables cardio games to work on multiple brands or models of cardio fitness machines. At least two rowing machine manufacturers showed off the Webracing media interface and a couple of rowing games.

  Their media interface isn’t as slick as some of the competition and they’ve got some smaller but interesting go-to-market partners.

  www.webracing.org

  PumpOne

  These guys have a nice-looking iPhone/iPad solution for streaming workout suggestions and personal training tips to gym members. No integration yet with cardio machines but they’re a good example of what independent developers can do with mobile device solutions.

  Their CEO told me they’ve been working on PumpOne for six years. I always like talking to entrepreneurs who never give up.

  www.pumpone.com

  DotFit

  DotFit is a web-based fitness tracking and coaching system. Gold’s Gym uses DotFit as their interface between trainers and members.

  These guys don’t yet offer integration with cardio machines. I have a Gold’s membership and have found DotFit to be primarily a means for Gold’s to promote nutritional supplements and other stuff I don’t want. 

  www.dotfit.com