Gamification... your ideas and suggestions..

[joe90]

At work im currently doing a side project off my own back looking at gamification. My company does large scale enterprise software, and we are moving into the 'social' space.

Im not 100% convinced its going to take off, and don't even like the word gamification..

My Company sells software to insurance, telecom, government, etc etc, and is used a fair bit to automate processes and also in call center style enviroments. Think BPM software.

Im not asking you to do my job, as I have been gaming for almost 30 years now, just other people may have some magic ideas that I have not come up with.

So what sort of things would you like to see to 'gamifiy' your work.

Obviously there are the 'points' like xbox live, but other ideas for games, I would expect these to be non live games, i.e more like 'chess/Frozen synapse/football manager' style games than 'cod' etc.

Or any other ideas, or comments on gamification in general.

[joe90]

no ideas at all

[Flabio]

Have you read 'Reality is Broken' ?

[charlesr]

I know of companies using rewards that employees can send each other for being particularly helpful or whatever, to say thanks. These then add up and can be used to grab company branded tat (umbrellas, sports bags etc)

[joe90]

Yep.. this is more internal to the enterprise, rather than keeping customers.. Im now developing a game that you can use your points on in a web browser. Not a fps, more a farmville style game.. However the balance has to be allowing the users to play, and work at the same time.. so I may look at turn based games with points etc..

not read reality is broken, will look it up..

[chopemon]

Gamification where you just rewards tasks with points is cheap and worthless. I'm a game designer and I hate gamification.

If you have a problem in life, deal with it like a real person and stop looking for achievement points to pop.

From Tim Rogers: "One “gamification” expert goes so far as to say that “reality is broken”, and that only games can “fix” reality. This expert wrote a book which magnificently proves that at least one person on earth has held more conversations with psychologists than grocery baggers. Depending on my mood, I’ll shrug and go either way: half of the time, I’ll agree that reality is broken. Of course it is: why can’t I just be happy all the time? Why do I get hungry? Why do I have to keep going to the bathroom? Why won’t the girl I like just marry me already? I’ve asked her like ninety-two times."

I would suggest three things (this isn't directed at you per say but anyone that thinks gamification will change something):

1) Identify why you need gamification. If your workers are unproductive and hate their jobs, find out why. Gamifying their job will not help if they are generally demotivated, not achieving their career goals and feeling that what they are doing is worthless. Managers often want to try a new solution to fix a workspace problem but what they actually need to do is really look at why their employees are unhappy and really do something about it.

2) If your employees are happy and productive, hire a game designer. Not a social game designer. Cityville is not a game. It is a spreadsheet that exploits people with poor impulse control. Hire someone that makes real games. Real designers know that there is more to games than awarding points and how you make a game rewarding and something that you want to invest in. They will be able to design a game system for your office and work with your enthusiastic employees to really achieve something. Actually, hire the Dark Souls team. They'll make you some real workers.

3) Watch this talk and recoil in horror.

Sorry if this seems ranty but gamification has the potential to be a blight subjected on people by advertisers and managers and I think we need a Robert Muldoon up in this bitch.

[superstarbeejay]

Absolutely agree, great post

[Golgo]

Yep, that's a telting - a AAA telting - and no mistake...

[joe90]

You know what.. I mostly agree, however you are missing the point, Enterprise loves this ****e, its ticks a box, and can make a difference on sales. Most stuff in large scale business enterprise software is needless, but that is missing the point.

For example 'The Cloud', what a load of pants, but we were one of the first on the bandwagon, and thats important in all the 'reports' that come out from, Gartner, Forrester etc. As a business you need to exploit these made up things, to keep one step ahead of the game. Also adding gamification is cheap and very easy, so why not do it?

Again, with the game design you are missing (what I have failed to mention), Our software is used by huge huge companies and for example look at a call center. They have huge turnovers of staff, and the target audience are 18-25 year olds, and they love the pointless social media stuff, they suck it up, hook line and sinker.

Your points (based on the 'call center')
1) Because the job is ****e, with high staff turnover, people lacking in motivation, and no interest in the job.

2)Correct, you would want to expolit these people, and keep them busy while attempting to sale stuff to the public.

So, yes. A game like that would work.

Its an intresting subject, but you are not looking from the angle of business software, and basically money (sales)

[Flabio]

Its an intresting subject, but you are not looking from the angle of business software, and basically money (sales)

Of course we're not. This is a forum for videogame fans.

[chopemon]

So are you looking to award staff points to earn rewards/increase their motivation?

Unfortunately I can't remember the article I read about this in but that is a negative thing rather than positive. I don't want to say too much because it was a while ago that I read it and can't quote it but rewarding certain staff members over others causes dissent, low morale and a fractured workforce. Maybe it doesn't matter in the environment you are talking about due to high turnover though.

I have no experience in the type of work you do but talk of tick boxes, pointless media stuff, needless software and people sucking it up sounds counter to everything about creating a motivated workforce in the companies you work with. It sounds like removing this stuff like a tumour would be better than gamification.

In an effort to be more helpful though, you should check out this blog: The Psychology of Games

In fact, anyone into games/development should get on it. You'll hopefully find it helpful and it will make up for the rest of this post.

[EvilBoris]

It's just how these types of businesses work, they'd rather pay low wages and the low motivation that goes with that and have a high staff turnover than actually pay a decent wage and have a lower staff turnover. Most of the service industry is like that