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Gamification: where did the games go?

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Taking World of Warcraft into the classroom

I recently spoke to a teacher about his wish to add a touch of gamification to his classes, just to make it that little bit more interesting for his 15 years old-ish students. It immediately got me thinking about the possibilities. I think there is something to learn from World of Warcraft. Here’s why.

The specific case of the teacher I talked to was a bit limited; he only had the same group of students for 2 hours every week. This is something to consider for every case: what are the limitations? Realize the boundaries of your specific context. In this case the teacher taught a group of 25 students two hours of physics on a weekly basis. Finally, of course, you have to work with the existing educational system. This is a rigid system which can’t be changed in a few weeks time. This means that the approach you have to take concerns adding a layer of engaging game elements over an existing structure. You can’t go and revisit the entire structure just like that. These constraints determine the base you have to work with.

I came up with the idea of building something around creating skill sets and appealing to the different interests and needs of the students. Most of us are familiar with the phenomenon of World of Warcraft. After all, it’s no stranger even to the US Senate. But besides hitting the news, WoW also offered a basis to structure educational skill sets on: the skill trees (or talent trees). And I have to say ‘offered’, because as of the latest game expansion, Mists of Pandaria, the skill tree system was overhauled in something more simplistic which denies some forms of diversity and progression, which is what we are actually interested in.

There are other games which use similar skill tree systems (try the one below here), but the public familiarity with WoW helps to visualize the general idea.

When you play WoW you gradually level up as you kill monsters, do quests and all that. From level 1 to level 10, 20 to 50 and so on. As you level up you gain skill points which you can spend in different skill trees. The more skill points you spend in a single tree, the more specialized you become in that specific tree. For example, a warrior can spend his points in a tree which revolves around two-handed weapons, or in a tree that focuses on dual wielding weapons, or sword and shield. What skill tree he specializes in defines his skill set. We can take this to the classroom – not the weapons, the skill trees!

Following the regular system of progression through course material you could structure this in the way of a tree. At the foot of the tree you have the base where the most basic, introductory material is placed and going up the tree you go through more advanced material until you reach the top, which indicates the final exam you have to pass. Different trees could focus on different aspects of the course material. For instance, one tree could focus on the base and another on more advanced material, both still leading towards the same final exam (creating different but equally difficult exams based on different skill trees might be too much to ask and is much harder to standardize). The challenge then is to offer different paths which are supplemental to a student’s interests and needs which lead to the final goal: passing the exam. But, you can also offer more than this single final goal.

In an attempt to appeal to the curiosity of the students you can also offer smaller side branches at different sections of the tree. These can indicate small nuggets of knowledge, interesting bits and facts, which the students (or at this point ‘players’) can unlock, earning them some form of reward or prestige and driving the innate completionist and explorative behavior. These are not relevant to the final goal, but help to share knowledge and avoid a linear path of progression.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with an existing educational structure. It is not a complete change of the educational system, but instead proposes to build up from an existing context. Gamification should be carefully applied when you attempt to create new behavior or supplement existing behavior. Does it fit the purpose you have in mind? Have you taken in the constraints of the context? What are the characteristics of your audience? These and many other questions should be asked and answered first. But when you answer them, you might find some room to add a little something which makes certain activities more engaging.

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Playing Away

People are not playing games on Facebook like they used to.

Financially speaking, games are contributing less and less to Facebook’s bottom line. For instance, the overall payments from the social games giant Zynga have declined 20 percent since last year. According to market research data supplier Superdata, Zynga is having a hard time.

On 23 October Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg lamented on the role of gaming to the social network. Zuckerberg also pointed out that, although Zynga seems to be drowning, many other social game companies, such as King.com, are actually picking up speed. In an attempt to revive itself, Zynga recently released The Ville – a social game that is a kind of metacommentary on its own Farmville series. But this game too has been affected by the company’s hardships. Zynga already shut down its Boston office and is planning to close down offices in the UK and in Japan. It also just laid off over 100 employees in Austin, Texas. Zynga has fewer monthly active users (MAU) now than it did two years ago, even though total traffic is up. Zynga’s monthly active users have declined from 162.4 million players down to 147.8. That means Zynga is gaining monthly active users while losing on daily active users, which is representative of their focus on player acquisition and traffic rather than player retention. The company continues to struggle to retain players after their initial acquisition. Zynga’s market share of Facebook’s gaming MAU has remained steady at just above 30 percent. But in a dynamic environment such as Facebook, where small game developers are growing at rates equal or faster than Zynga, it will ultimately see its market share stagnating or declining. On a more positive note, that might just leave room for aspiring enterprises to pick up on social gaming and start attracting users with their new, innovative and more engaging services.

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The Rise of the Engagement Manager

Badgeville CEO Kris Duggan thinks engagement strategies will be the next big thing not just in approaching costumers, but in fact in approaching business in general. This is why he wouldn’t be surprised if the next step was for companies to start appointing Engagement Managers.

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Sharing Files

The use of digital rights management (DRM) on digital content and devices is a controversial issue. Content providers and publishers claim that it is needed to fight copyright infringement while those opposed to it argue that there is no evidence of it aiding in that matter, but instead it serves to inconvenience legitimate customers.

Artists’ and content producers’ views on the topic have been divided as well. Whereas many artists are not fond of DRM, some are actively discouraging it. The Humble eBook Bundle can be considered as an example of doing just that. It is a way of experimenting with a new publishing channel and method, as well as with new formats. One of its most notable proponents, the science fiction writer, blogger and journalist Cory Doctorow explains that the bundle is a way to show the big business that delivering digital content doesn’t have to be difficult and expensive. The initiative is proving wrong the idea that without DRM and high prices no-one’s making any money. Basically, you can choose what you want to pay for thirteen works of fiction, novels and comics from award-winning authors and artists. The list includes significant writers such as Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow. Every item bought separately, the collection would cost about $157. The eBooks are compatible with computers and mobile devices, and the system lets you download them in many formats, including pdf, mobi and ePub. If you wish, you can also donate something to Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Child’s Play Charity and/or Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) as part of your purchase. Also, if you think Humble Bundle deserves something for their hard work, you can leave them a tip. By October 22, there are over 80,000 bundles sold with the average price of $14. With the bar set as low as that, why wouldn’t you too start saving trees and reading eBooks instead?

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Becoming a hero with zero

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The Meaning of Play

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Plunging in Blue Waters

On 8 October 2012 late at night, a British man named Richard Neill posted a long rant on feminine hygiene brand Bodyform’s Facebook page. It came down to how the company’s advertising campaigns over the years had been misleading him into thinking that women’s periods were always joyous and adventurous times, involving things like bike riding, rollercoasters, dancing and parachuting. Not to mention the infamous blue water and wings.

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Creative Copying

Unlike many other creative endeavours, clothing designs are not eligible for copyright protection. Copies of dresses worn by celebrities at big events – such as Kate Middleton’s dress of her wedding to Prince William in April 2011 – can be made widely available only days after they have first been showcased in public.

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Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

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Angry Birds joins CERN

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Storytelling Across Cultures

Illustrated books are a great way to reach children. This is probably why Plain Ink decided to use this medium to promote multiculturalism, as well as help educate children in under developed countries.

The project begun in Italy, which lacked illustrated children’s books with multicultural themes despite welcoming the fourth highest number of immigrants in Europe each year. Using the power of storytelling, Plain Ink’s illustrated books spread the message of intercultural mutual respect and acceptance. But Selene Biffi, the founder of Plain Ink, did not stop there. Using the profits from the first book sales, she produced The Village Changemakers, a comic released in India, aimed at teaching children about personal hygiene, food security, clean water access, sanitation and communicable diseases prevention. Reaching out to local doctors, teachers, development experts and of course children the project was a success. Such a success in fact that Plain Ink is now producing illustrated books for Afghanistan as well. Biffi hopes that increasing awareness and educating children will make a significant difference to increasing the rate of development in these countries. Plain Ink has managed to spread its message across two continents; reaching and educating children of different cultures and educational backgrounds. It is truly interesting to see that the powers of storytelling can reach so many people despite any differences in cultural background. In other words, the power of a story can move and inspire across any culture boundaries. 

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Tweaking Dolls into the Future

Modding is an activity where users customise some of the characteristics of a product or service, be it a computer game, a bicycle, an IKEA table or their Twitter account. As such, paradoxically enough, modding is an activity which could only be born in the era of mass production.

But what if modding at large is just another cultural phase on our way deeper into the 21st century? What if we could mod all kinds of things prior to purchasing them and have these customised products delivered to our doorstep? That might still seem like a hazy dream to many, but there are already promising new leads in that direction. Take, for instance, the idea of designing an avatar, a kind of digital doll, to the very last detail, and then having it 3D printed, assembled, dressed up and shipped to you – and you’ll have a Makie, a unique action doll created by you. If you thought that would be the end of modding, think again. Makies are designed to be modded and upgraded, both virtually and physically. Virtually speaking, there is no limit to what the doll can look like. The Makie character creator resembles those of games, with its selectors and sliders to shape the eyes, nose, cheeks, smile, jaw, hair and eyebrows. Important detail: you can choose elf ears too! In the physical doll world, you can change their clothes, apply make-up, swap the eyes and change their hair. And there is empty space in the skull for DIY electronics – like a Lilypad Arduino – and in the back for batteries. MakieLab says they are also interested in experimenting with Bluetooth, RFIDs and nearfield tags, among other electronic add-ons. So, in addition to having your digital creation move about and strike a pose, if you are dedicated enough a hacker, you might make him or her do the same in the real world. The Makies exist on the bleeding edge between the physical and digital realm, as Wired’s Tim Maly so nicely puts it. In the future, Makies are supposed to be game-connectable, which makes us over here at Engagement Design very excited. Digital Makies can roam around a virtual reality, which on the future will look more like a playspace allowing Makies to play games with each other.

In this case, what happens in a virtual world does not stay in there, but will affect the physical dolls and vice versa. According to MakieLab’s CEO Alice Taylor, this will be done via embedded data or “data-freckles”. These are unique patterns of dots on the doll, which will allow MakieLab to identify them in photos.

There is already an online community of creators, hackers and collectors sharing their wildest ideas and experiences, sparked by  MakieLab’s desire to maintain an open dialogue with their users. The makie.me website is now in open alpha, which means that for the moment, you can create a digital Makie for free and have one custom-made for you for £99. Later on, there will be more options available.

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Bad Things Piggybacking Bad Piggies

On 27 September, Rovio, the firm behind the hit game Angry Birds, launched a new puzzle game Bad Piggies. A paid version is available for the iPhone and iPad, and a free on Google Play for Android phones. Bad Piggies quickly became very popular, hitting the top spot in the App Store in about three hours, and still keeping that position two weeks later.

So the game is immensely popular throughout the world, although it can only be played on Apple and Android devices. This effectively has left a gap in the market. It seems now that illegitimate versions of Bad Piggies are disseminated through Google Chrome web store. In fact, these are not versions of the new game, but plugins that have “Bad Piggies” in their game description, so that they would match your search criteria. Over 80 000 people so far have risen to the bait and downloaded these free apps. Many of them originate from a mysterious maker of free flash games, playook.info. What is worse, though, is that installing some of these plugins requires you to give permission to the plugin to “access your data on all websites”, as online security company Barracuda Networks reports. What happened in the Barracuda test is that the game installed a plugin that started displaying additional ads in many popular websites. Users who let the plugin do its business run the risk of getting their browsers hijacked. When these users are browsing the internet with Chrome, the plugin transmits their web data to the creators of the plugin, allowing them to steal and sell the user’s personal information, such as email addresses and online credit card information. As Google Chrome is quickly becoming “the only way to surf the web”, it would be nice to trust its capabilities in protecting its users from malware, too. Also, the incident tells us something about the lure of games, and about using games as bait. It seems that the pull of a new hit game is so immense that people want to be involved in playing it, no matter what.

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Magic Staircase Makes it Easy to Forget about the Escalator

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GitHub and the Value of Chaos

Sharing is caring, the adage of social media goes. But, what happens when people use social media for learning or creative purposes? How is sharing information, ideas, and knowledge best done if you want to rely on online communities?

These are questions the American author Clay Shirky touches upon in his work. His two books, Here Comes Everybody (2008) and Cognitive Surplus (2011), discuss the potential that online tools have for reshaping and reinventing the ways we organise societies. Below is a quote from Here Comes Everybody in which Shirky describes the advantages of collaboration without coordination: “[Flickr] didn’t identify the Mermaid Parade as an interesting event, nor did it coordinate parade photographers or identify parade photographs. What it did instead was to let the users label (or tag) their photos as a way of arranging them. [...] The distinction between Flickr coordinating users versus helping them coordinate themselves seems minor, but it is in fact vital, as it is the only way Flickr can bear the costs involved.” In short, Shirky argues that social media lighten the burden of organising and coordinating, and empower masses by offering them the tools to organise themselves. In his most recent TED-talk, he develops this argument further. To do so, he uses the example of GitHub, an online community for computer programmers.

GitHub is the social network for programming that has emerged out of Git, a source control management system created by Linux-founder Linus Torvalds. Git and GitHub are based on the open-source principle. The term “open source” implies that everyone has access to all documents. In the case of software development projects, this is tricky. Even the slightest alteration to a piece of code can cause major disruptions. So, the classic solution for the management of these documents is a system in which only those at the top of the work chart have permission to implement changes. “It’s not hard to see the political ramifications of this systems," says Shirky. "It’s feudalism.” At GitHub every member has access to everything. Its principle is cooperation without coordination. Each change made by users is labeled; this allows for version tracking without version management. The inevitable chaos is fruitful, because the resources that this worldwide community draws from are much vaster than they would be with conventional project management.

Shirky compares GitHub to the first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions. Founded in 1662 by members of the Royal Society in England, Philosophical Transactions was the first peer-reviewed journal. It was meant to disseminate new scientific knowledge and describe the setup of experiments. The most important requirements were pace and transparency. All experiments were to be described in detail, and publication needed to be quick in order to be in tune with other researchers’ activities. “The book was too slow,” Shirky explains, “which is why they invented the journal.” The comparison is useful to a certain extent, because it shows how changes never happen because of a medium. They happen because of what people decide to do with a medium. Interestingly however, the Royal Society was far from open and transparent in its politics. Their website states that “from the beginning, Fellows of the Society had to be elected, although the criteria for election were vague and the vast majority of the Fellowship were not professional scientists.” So the Royal Society was not only aimed at an open exchange of knowledge. It was also an elitist group that people joined because of their affluence, class, and social standing. As such, Shirky could have chosen a better comparison. But his argument that open source projects bring along huge advantages is interesting. He states that open source could have enormous potential for a citizen-led development of legislation. If online communities could write law proposals together through GitHub, its version tracking functionality will make its shaping process not only manageable, but entirely transparent as well. Whether realistic or not, Shirky’s utopian dream deserves some attention, if only because of the tribute it pays to the principle of democracy.