Gamification Nation Podcast

Welcome to this week's episode of A Question of Gamification. And this week's episode is all about game addiction. In fact, I had a question this week, can gamification lead to game addiction? My name is An Coppens. I am the show host for The Question on Gamification, and also the chief Game Changer at Gamification Nation. Now, I often receive the question, what about my kids, they are always playing Fortnite or they are always playing X-Game. At the time of Pokemon Go, it was Pokemon Go. Today its Fortnite, tomorrow, it may be a new game. And the thing is, game trends will come and go. The one measurable that you always need to look out for is do your kids do anything else but play video games or computer games or tablet games? If they do, then you're probably fine. Can gamification lead to addiction? I guess it could. So the honest answer is that anything where we're rewarding people and making them feel good, which is releasing positive chemical reactions in both the body and the brain can have the impact of achieving addiction. So I suppose the grassroots ingredients are there. Now, when we look at gamification, most of the time, we're speaking about business applications or applications that are not focused purely on entertainment, namely work, fitness, health. Now, I know people who are totally into using their Fitbit, and they would often come out with saying, "Oh, I'm addicted to my Fitbit" and "Oh, I'm addicted to my health statistics, etc." But not to such an extreme that nothing else matters. And this is where I would draw the line. The place when something becomes an addiction is when the person has to achieve beyond all else beyond all other reason. The fact that the World Health Organization has recently approved game addiction as a real ailment or real addiction is sort of to make the point that anything in too many doses or too much will be detrimental to someone's health, be detrimental to someone's well being, both mentally and physically. And those risks exist. The risk with gamification is that, yes, you may do something for a certain time, for longer,  more often, you may be more committed. But so far, I have yet to come across a situation where gamification has become an addiction. Gaming can be an addiction if nothing else exists beyond the game. That means no more social life, no more friends, no more work. In fact, the game always comes first. That's when it gets to that point where you have to win, and would even go as far as potentially ringing the support line of your favourite game, to say, Hey, I'm about to do serious damage, if I don't get a life, or I don't get my points back, etc. That's when we're really talking about a serious situation. In those cases, it's important to work with the individual to make them aware that something is wrong and to also seek professional help to help them through this. This is not something you should tackle on your own or the individual on their own. Like anything, most of us do things for the greater good for and we design for gamification and for games, we want people to become better. We wanted to have every great and positive intention. We also still want people to have a life outside of what we build. So we don't want them to play all of the time. We don't want them to be stuck in a game. And I think if your children go through phases where one game is so all-consuming and all-absorbing if they're still playing with friends, if they're still enjoying, play sports if they're still inviting friends over to come and play the same game, it's okay. Now if we look at the benefits of gaming, and that is something I often get asked about by parents is like my kids are always playing, and they're always looking into this, I want to limit their time. Think about it this way. For a lot of introverted kids, gaming is a way of releasing creativity. In some cases, some of the kids manage teams, manage guilds, run missions,

Welcome to A Question of Gamification, a podcast where gamification expert An Coppens answers your questions. Welcome to a question of gamification. My name is An Coppens. I'm the show host and chief Game Changer at Gamification Nation. And this week's question is a build on last week's question of what are the processes that we use? What are the deliverables that we have? And this week is what is the reality of a gamification project? Because last week, we went through the five steps in our process phases: business specifics, user research, gamification design, development and support. And this week, I want to delve deeper into what is the reality like in a gamification project. We just finished a major project which took us nine months to get to where we are today.  I'd love to say it was a smooth and easy process and everything worked according to plan. But hey, that's not reality! In fact, we had from day one, a delay of a number of months, thanks to lengthy terms and contract negotiations and setup negotiations. That's something which in a lot of cases, and a lot of projects is forgotten about. Procurement typically has a say about everything. Commercial terms, we may have a say about too. In gamification and game design, what we aim to do and how we work is that we aim to retain the IP which is what makes it a win/win for everyone. That way we're not limited because of one game design that we used for one client, which would tie us down to never ever be able to use that again. It would be crazy for us to sign away. Let's say the intellectual property for a crossword or an unlocking of content game mechanic, and then to never be able to use that again with future clients. When we are looking at game design and intellectual property, obviously, anything like branding, graphics narrative that we take from the client or that the client already has, even content that the client already has,  that is retained by the client. We just put that into different shapes and formats. Always expect to have negotiations in terms. That is one thing. The reality of a project may mean that you spend a lot longer in the procurement and negotiation of the terms phase. Originally, we had nine months, and then that got shorted down to five months thanks to the lengthy procurement process. That meant some of our design processes had to really work concurrently and in very rapid succession. I remember doing the business scoping phase in two weeks, at the same time, we launched the user research phase, which had already been started, but because nothing had been signed off, we didn't have access to the client's people. So yeah, there is a lot of factors in there. Did it compromise the level and depth of research? Absolutely. And, you know, that's the reality. You know, I'd love to say for every project, we do user research with 10% of the target audience, or idealistically, that's fantastic. In reality, we may only get a fraction of that because of time, because of the budget, because of the due date. I come from the broadcast sector and in the broadcast sector, you often have a go-live date where the promotion has already started for a program or a movie or a production to go-live on a certain date, even a channel at times. Everything else has to backwards fit into the timeline. Sometimes that's not too dissimilar to a lot of our game design processes and project. Often the client has a very definite time. I recall one of the board games we designed, there was a definite conference date. So we had to work backwards from there and say, okay, which printer can still deliver in what time frame? How far can we push the deadline before it has to go to print? And how quick can we work then to make sure that we deliver, so it's fine. And it's a great achievement when we do deliver in those very sharp deadline situations, but sustainably over the long run, we can't do that for every single project.

Welcome to this week's Question of Gamification. My name is An Coppens and I'm the show host for a Question of Gamification. And this week's question is one that on occasion crops up more from our competitors if nothing else. Occasionally, also from clients, but it's something we do always answer for clients in proposals. And that is: what is involved in our gamification design process? How does it work? What are the components? What are the deliverables? It may be one question split into a few elements. And I want to tackle that from the ideal project perspective in an ideal world where everything runs smoothly, where you have unlimited resources and unlimited timeframes, etc. Because the reality of any given project may be different. And I'll come back to that next week. The official steps in our process are understanding the business specifics. Now in this business specifics phase, we want to know, why do you want to gamify this project or this process? Why do you want to do this now? What else have you tried? We want to understand the reason behind it.  Then we also want to understand the success measures. How will you know that the project achieves what you wanted to do? How will you know that the project has been considered successful? Does that mean higher numbers recruited? Does that mean higher numbers in sales? What is it that you want out of it? Are there soft measures? Is that increasing confidence, increasing retention of knowledge, deployment in reality? Whatever the success measures are, we want to unlock those in our business specific phase. The other exercise we occasionally do, maybe not all of the time is the Moscow exercise and Moscow. It's a city, but it's also an acronym. And the M stands for: what must be included in the gamified process? What should the gamify process include? What could it include? And what Won't it include? So MSCW and the o's are the bits in between that make it Moscow: what must it have? What should it have? What could it have? And what won't it have? That sort of outlines the scope of a project, because not every project will need everything. Sometimes we also need as a measure of how we can get to good enough? How can we get to a project that will deliver but maybe not, you know, a project that has everything, all bells and whistles on it?  Often budget may drive this but also constraints of software that we have to work together with. That's sometimes gamification tools, sometimes it's actually existing software already in place. It could be existing constraints within a business. We recently quoted for something where people were hired and needed to be on-boarded very quickly into service and it needed to be done remotely. People had no access to the internet, but they did have access to some standalone computers, and it could be envisaged to have maybe some tablets without Wi Fi access, with the games uploaded on it, so that they could still onboard and learn the processes. There is an example with a lot of constraints to it. So in those cases, the must have, the should have, could have and won't have is absolutely essential. The other measures in the business specifics are key performance indicators, the current processes and the current experiences people have, then the as-is process and the to-experience. Because if you want it to be vastly different, we want to map that out. It comes from good process mapping and process analysis. Knowledge, I learned in my consulting days, are sort of to blame for this type of work. But we do want to understand, how does it currently work? Because if we're going to make changes, are we making changes that are so far removed up, we are potentially hitting rejection, or are there maybe processes that could be improved, and we should just go with the process. And in those cases, we also need to buy-in, of the users engaging with those processes. Finally, in the business specifics phase,

Welcome to a Question of Gamification. My name is An Coppens. I'm the show host, and also the chief Game Changer at Gamification Nation. And today's question is: how does a gamification or serious game project stand up in cost, benefits and impact in comparison to a big name game like a World of Warcraft, FIFA,`Grand Theft Auto, Fortnite, you name it, any popular game that people are playing these days? The first answer to this question is that it is a question of budget and resources. Typically, the bigger name games have more budget available than most corporates are willing to pay us for a gamified process or gamification or a serious game, which is the first given. Most budgets in the corporate sector are relatively limited. And the second part is the resources available. So in gamification studios, the majority of us work in quite a lean production team, and we adopt quite a lean methodology to get to the end results. In the larger studios like Blizzard and EA who produced some of the fantastic games that we all love and would love to aspire to create someday. They work with bigger teams. They have many more stages of inputs. We, for example, have a game designer, a graphic designer and a developer at the core of what we do.  We don't necessarily have a story writer, a narrative writer, a level designer, several versions of graphical asset designers, several developers and in-house access to a wider skill set. So whilst it is something we'd love to aspire to, realistically, the budgets that we are given to work with don't allow us to get us there. Does that mean that the benefits of what we create are compromised? Well, actually, not always.  First of all the bigger studios are creating for fun and for lasting engagement and to commercially making the most out of any given game that they dream up and create. Whereas for us, the measures of success are different. Yes, it should be fun to engage in, if it is a serious game. In gamification, the purpose is always the business objective first. The benefits of a serious game and gamification is typically whether it has hit the objective that it was designed for. And the first objective is usually not, it has to be super fun. In most cases, well, it has to attract people to join the organisation if it's for recruitment, it has to improve sales numbers if its sales related, it has to improve skills if it's training related. So that's the first thing, so the objective is different. It should still in terms of fun aspects, and levels of wanting to play again be engaging enough. But some games, you will not replay over and over in a gamified setting. For example, if you're dealing with a game for recruitment, then obviously this is not going to be repeated over and over again by the same person. The intention would be there that the person may play it for a number of times, over a short space of time, even a week, or to gain access to the highest level so that they gained interview or they gain the skills that they need to prove to deliver. In some sense, the purpose is different. So the reusability for any one player is limited. Can it be reused for many more players? Yes, of course. That's a given. The other thing, if, for example, and I'm thinking about recruitment games that are built for competency testing, for example, once you have the result, would you go back again, it's different, it's a different kind of game than a game of Fortnite, a game of FIFA or where you have levels and other types of things that you may want to create. They actually are so much harder, there's much more to earn for so many more levels, so many more interactions and the multiplayer experience. For us, it's back to that question: does this make sense for the purpose that we're building? For some learning related experience it may make sense. And that's where simulators for quite some time have played a big part in training and for pilots,

Welcome to a Question of Gamification a podcast where gamification expert An Coppens answers your questions. Hi, and welcome to this week's a Question of Gamification. This is An Coppens your show host, and also the chief Game Changer at Gamification Nation. This week's question is, how can you get started with gamification? Now, for me, that's a double question in one. For some people that means how can I get started for building a career in gamification? And on the other side is how can I get started and put gamification into practice for my organisation? So those are very frequently asked questions we come across. So to tackle the first one, how can we get started in a career in gamification? Well, the first thing I would say is to look to become an intern. Ask organisations like my own, and see if you can, first of all, translate an existing regular game into something that can be used for businesses. That's typically how I asked interns to apply for positions within Gamification Nation. The other thing to do is to start reading up and start following the main people that have shaped the nature and landscape of gamification. More and more degrees and master's programs offer and include an element of gamification. So if you are studying game design, that is for sure, fantastic grounding, and look for those organizations or those Institute's and universities that offer gamification as modules, as part of masters, or degree programs. I know in the UK, there's a number of universities, like for example, Coventry University has some elements of gamification and game design as part of Surrey University, Birmingham, there's a number of them. So do your research and find out from those of us working in the industry, how did they get to where they are now? So to share my career track into gamification, so first of all, I always wanted to be a game designer. So as a kid, I was really obsessed with puzzles and crosswords and was making games from when I was the age of seven or eight years old. And so if you have that passion, then you probably have a good inclination that it might be something you want to do. Then look for a career in game design. My parents told me at the time, and this is many, many moons ago, that game design was not for girls and there was no career initially, you know, you better get a real job. So I guess I took a normal degree. I studied international marketing and I also added a degree or an MBA in change management to it. And then only in the last 15 years did I add a diploma in game design, and I studied everybody that was a somebody in the early 2000s, 2010's. So, at that time, Gabe Zicherman was a key speaker, and I think a lot of his work in terms of books ond courses. He had a number of courses on Udemy, were excellent, and I would still recommend that you visit them. The other person I studied and read most of the works from was Mario Herger. And he had a course called Enterprise Gamification on Udemy. So another one that I pretty much absorbed. And then Yukai Chou, who I mentioned in last week's question of the week, who I did always level one, two, and three, Octalysis framework certifications with and then I read extensively all the books of the likes of Andrzej Marczewski research that came out and at the time, the biggest research was coming out of Canada and the `work from Lennart Nacke and Gustavo Tondello. I quite like and I still follow both guys. I've had the pleasure of meeting everyone at the stage of the various organizations and often spoken on the same stages, the Coursera course by Kevin Werbach. I mentioned that last week. Also useful materials. In terms of the learning space, a number of people to mention are Karl Kapp and he has courses on LinkedIn. And he also has a number of books on gamification and on Game Design and simulations. I highly recommend his field book in gamification is probably the best and most grounding book for anyone in the learning space.

If you have been a regular listener of our podcast then you know we have been a bit radio silent… Show transcription: In this episode, I give you the honest truth of why it happened and how taking part in a challenge like this helped me get started again I should say, apologies for being away. Yes, I did go radio silent on you for some time. And I guess it was my own self-consciousness that sort of got the better of me. I intended to set out and do way more podcasts. And I did. So we have, I think five or six, listed on iTunes, under a question of gamification. And we're back. So the reason why I stopped: I was self-conscious, I had some negative comments, and people complained about the sound. Hence we've invested in a new sound system.  This is our first time trying it. So please be kind, I'm still learning to ropes.  I had already recorded four or five different things without any sound whatsoever. It's definitely a learning curve. But we're back. Now, one of the things that struck me and I suppose it's a question beyond maybe gamification, but relevant in the gamification perspective in terms of me overcoming it with a challenge. I became a bit self-conscious, which often has to do with stepping outside of our comfort zone. And for me, podcasting or video recording doesn't come natural. You would say, that's a surprise. Maybe, for some of you that have seen me speak live and know that I speak on a regular basis. It may even sound a bit bizarre. But yes, it's the reality. I'm actually a very private, introverted person. And, you know, putting myself out there, is always a stretch. In fact, I'll tell you a story. Way back when I was very small, I think I must have been seven or eight. I was probably the superfan of a particular radio show which also shows my age a little because radio shows were still a thing. But on Sunday morning, the Belgian and then it was still the Belgian national radio in Flemish had a show. And it was called whispers out of the paper on the walls. In Flemish, it was called 'Er komt geluid uit het behang' which doesn't translate very well. Anyway. Long story short. Basically, I was their super fan, I used to write in letters, yes, snail mail, those things then did exist. Letters with suggestions on how to make the show better, I asked questions, etc. And then I was invited to the big offices of the radio, in Brussels. And I mean, as a super shy kid, I was totally out of my comfort zone. And although I was a super fan, I was probably the quietest kid in the room. And the producers actually found that really strange because they couldn't get their heads around how could somebody be so into a show and then not be able to speak up and say stuff. For me, podcasting is sort of overcoming that challenge. If nothing else of me wanting to rather be inside outdoors and hide behind the computer. I mean, I would make a great developer. And you know, it's what attracted me to games in some form as well. Because I could play without having to have, other people around me, I could just do them. The same with reading books, which was one of my favourite things to do as a kid. It was my private escape into fantasy land and into a fantasy world. I've been blogging three times a week for the last five years. And podcasting is a relatively new medium or a new part of my life if nothing else. It's a medium that I've started to listen to on my travels I've listened to a lot, I've also taken to listening to audiobooks a lot.  I see the value in it, and I see why it's important for people to do it. But what has made me come back, because I could have happily left 'the question of gamification' podcast die and be overtaken by others in this space. I am back to share more on gamification and answer more questions. I want to make this a little bit more interactive: send us your questions, and I'll aim to answer them to the best of my ability and with my perspective on it.

Podcast 8: Where to find inspiration for gamification? In a question of gamification this week we are honoured to have the company of Margaret Burnett distinguished professor in Computer Science at Oregon State University. She has carried out research in relation to gender inclusiveness in software use and developed a research methodology to test for potential stumbling blocks your users may face.

Podcast 7: Where to find inspiration for gamification? In this podcast I share where you could find inspiration for gamification design. Feel free to share your ideas too.

Podcast 6: How much does gamification cost? This must be by far the most frequently asked question, but also the most difficult to give any straight answer to. Because there are so many dependencies and so many follow-on questions that need to be answered first. In this podcast we give some insight in what will be the key questions you need to find answers to and what to take into consideration.

Podcast 5: Does gamification have to be digital? Very often it has been assumed that gamification is by default a digital initiative, but we find that it doesn't have to be and in this podcast we give a number of examples of no-tech or low-tech options. We also discuss what to take into account when choosing a digital solution.