In the age of buying experience, games becomes daily life

Gamification which has been actively utilized as corporate marketing strategy since the year 2010 was re-focused as fun-based motivation for users after growing online business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technological development accelerated the ‘age of experience’ which means that individual taste in experiences affects decision-making. Gamification, including the elements of flow, accomplishment, and social interaction has become part of daily life in various online and offline areas through direct and indirect experience. According to Hype Cycle, published by Gartner, gamification entered the 5th stage – ‘stabilization’ in 2022, moving in ten years, from the 2nd stage – ‘before popularization’ in 2012. The application and spread of gamification in various real life areas has evolved and become normalized.

Gamification, a tool for solving a city’s problem through being playable and sustainable

Gamification tends to extend to not only corporate marketing and education, but also visitor attraction and entertainment in the local community, and citizen participation. Providing ‘fun’ with gameful elements from the perspective of ‘motivation’, is increasingly an interesting factor for attraction to the local environment.

Locally-used gamification is broadly related to either solving social problems (living lab), or smart cities. The core of local gamification is to provide a platform for civilians to participate in as a fun way (Playable) and to improve the systems operated by the local community or social enterprise (Sustainable). The ‘SmartCity’ platform¹ in Amsterdam, Netherlands is operated as an open platform to solve city problems both online and offline. Group, ‘Play the City’² which seeks policy alternatives to various city problems through City Gaming, is a good example of attracting the participation of public servants, citizens, and professionals, and pursing alternative solutions to local problems.

1) An online communication portal for government, companies, schools, and local people. Local citizens directly share the projects, and the SmartCity experience labs are operated offline.

2) The ‘City Gaming’ of ‘Play the City’ supports various participations in city planning. Digitalized data based on local data and policy documents is provided through the network, and these data can be used for making games. Subjects included in data are housing, space development, climate change, social change, etc. Projects are conducted through policy-making, participation, structuring, and research, etc. The number of participants in the year 2010 was 4,902. People participated in 185 city games in 20 cities from three continents and nine countries in a total of 42 game sessions of ‘Play the City’. (source: https://www.playthecity.eu/)

From citizen education to local tours. Expansion of local gamification

Social trends surrounding city and space started the new urbanism of the 1980’s, reflecting the uncontrolled city expansion. During the 1990s, sustainability became the worldwide agenda, emphasizing the locals and those people’s participation rather than ‘central urban’ versus ‘rural’. In local policy decision-making, a top-down approach changed into a bottom-up one. Citizen participation became a prerequisite for local planning and administration.

Many models of citizen participation in local areas are based on meetings and participatory workshops and problem-solving, not on unilateral delivery by lecture. Also, game-based citizen education is being developed. In various local development businesses, originally dominated by professionals, local people started offering opinions and content. During this kind of process, gamification for driving participation becomes more important. There are some examples. ‘Eunpyeong Korean Village’ located in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul covers village history and stories, through the use of an app and local tour. ‘Gohan Wildlife Reasoning’ located in Gohan-eup, Jeongseon-gun, Gangwon province, implements gamification designed to utilize the village resources to promote the region and attract visitors.

Gohan-eup, Jeongseon-gun in Gangwon province was the largest coal mining area in Korea and is now closed and unused. To revitalize the village, an escape game using the setting of side streets was developed for attracting the visitors. (Source : http://www.tournews21.com/)

In addition, gamification is used to seek solutions by assessing various local problems, and utilising the participation of citizens and professionals. Living Lab projects to find and solve local issues, or deriving solutions through workshops, are relevant examples. My company, Ggurim, conducts the planning and operation of local revitalization research and citizen participation programs. We have used educational board games to deliver necessary knowledge and information, and have developed a gamified citizen education curriculum. 

In the local area, gamification and play attracted much more mutual understanding and participation than stereotypical expert explanations. Companies usually use online gamification, but local communities usually use face-to-face gamified interaction by arranging opinions and experiencing the local environment. Through this, local citizens naturally learn the value of ‘together’ in a gamified way. They can easily participate in and exchange opinions between each other through the medium of the game. I have experienced the core of these.

A game is a problem-solving activity approached with a playful attitude

Jesse Schell

The game, as defined by game designer, Jesse Schell makes the meaning of gamification more clear. Play becomes participation, and the result of its participation can be solutions to local problems. In this kind of virtuous circle, I expect the power of gamification is endless.

For more on the use of games and gamification in city planning, and the built environment, please enjoy these other posts from Ludogogy.

Gamifying Social Action towards Thriving Cities from Sofia Kavlin

Making a Small Vibrant City through Gamification also from GamiJournal

Review of ‘Ideas, Arrangements, Effects’

Co-creative Experiences – Serious Games for Spatial Planning from Micael Sousa

The post Making the Value of ‘Together’ Better: Local Gamification first appeared on Ludogogy.

You’re never too old to learn the magic of learning. But it’s easier if you learn it in childhood, because of the positive impact it’ll have on your schooling. If you’re a parent, then it’ll be too late to go back in time and learn to love learning yourself, but you can instil it in your child. In this post, we’ll take a look at some effective, easy-to-follow tips for doing just that. 

Don’t Make It Too Serious

Many children end up disliking school and learning because it all seems so serious. They can be having fun playing with their friends, but then when it comes to getting down to learning, the fun very much stops. It’s no wonder that so many kids have a negative view of learning! You can do your best to help this by treating education seriously but not too seriously. It’s more important to focus on the process of learning rather than on outcomes such as exam results. If they build good learning habits, then the results will come in time!

Learning done properly, of course, is more like play than ‘work’, and there are many off-the-shelf (OTS) games which can help to instill learning skills, such as critical thinking, as you and your family enjoy time together.

Cluedo has been used to teach propositional logic, deductive reasoning and computer programming for example, and all of those thinking skills are exercised when playing – even if you are not deliberately ‘teaching’ those things.

Cluedo (Clue) is available on Amazon

Pandemic is, rightfully, very popular, for its engaging cooperative play and asymmetric player abilities. Playing allows the practice of problem-solving, as well as encouraging cooperation and strategic planning.

Pandemic is available on Amazon

Encourage Their Interests

It’s unlikely that your child is going to be interested in every single subject. They’ll have a natural affinity for one of them, even if they don’t fully know it themselves. You can help to inspire a love of learning in your child by gently encouraging their interests and passions. If they’re interested in the universe, for example, then this may involve watching documentaries or listening to podcasts on the subject. You never know what a little encouragement might lead to!

And what about making those less favoured subjects a bit more palatable. Maths is often dreaded by many children, and an engaging game might be just what is needed to get them to practice those skills, maybe without even realising it.  City of Zombies is a favourite in our house, which still gets played regularly, even though we’re all now past the age of needing to practice arithmetic skills. Defeating zombies, and saving the human race, by practicing, and showing off, your addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and squaring skills, just never seems to get old somehow.

City of Zombies is available on Amazon

Fun Field Trips

Some children can learn all they need by sitting in a classroom all day. But many kids find that boring. It’s not learning that they dislike, but the method of learning. Of course, you can’t change the entire educational system all on your own. But you can ensure that your child has access to other forms of learning. For example, by signing them up for the residential trips that their school organises. It’s much more fun to learn on a fun field trip, after all! You may also organise your own day trips to museums, art galleries, and other interesting places from time to time. 

And on days where going out just isn’t an option, how about bringing those hubs of knowledge to you, with games themed around art, museum collections and more.

• Wingspan – with beautiful cards representing the birds of the world, their habits and nests.
• PARKS (and all its expansions) – to appreciate the beauty and variety of America’s National Parks
• Museum: Pictura – features 180 of the worlds most famous paintings and gameplay where you must curate them by ‘domain’ or ‘period’

Wingspan is available on Amazon

And,of course, I can’t miss the opportunity to introduce my very own Museum of Impossible Objects – a tool for creativity, imagination and learning.

PARKS is available on Amazon

Ask Their Thoughts

Finally, look at asking for their thoughts and opinions. There’ll be times when you’re very much the teacher, but there’ll be other times when they should use their own minds. Simply asking their thoughts about something is a good way to get their mind working. The earlier they begin using their brains, the more they will develop. 

The post How to Help Your Child Fall In Love With Learning first appeared on Ludogogy.

Benefits of Games-Based Learning for languages

Games have the innate ability to make learning enjoyable and immersive. Not only that, but play is the way we all acquired our first language, and the ‘rewards’ we will have received for learning well -social (parental) approval, ‘winning’ over our peers (by having more capability), and increased agency (to communicate), are very similar to well-designed gamification.

By integrating games into language instruction, educators can tap into several benefits. Firstly, games increase student engagement by transforming the learning experience into a dynamic and interactive adventure. Learners become active participants, eagerly exploring linguistic challenges and developing their language skills. Furthermore, games promote motivation by providing clear goals, feedback loops, and a sense of achievement, spurring learners to persist and progress.

For instance, language learning apps like Duolingo and Memrise employ game mechanics to make the process fun and rewarding. These gamified platforms leverage points, levels, and rewards to motivate learners and track their progress. Duolingo’s ‘streak’ mechanic is particularly effective at keeping players on board. There are reported instances of people taking breaks from their own wedding receptions, to ensure they do not spoil their lengthy streak. You can read an analysis of Duolingo’s gamification (albeit from a few years ago) by Dirk van Diepen of Octalysis at https://ludogogy.co.uk/article/duolingo-review-how-to-apply-gamification-smarter/

Gamification Techniques in Language Learning

Platforms like FluentU and Rosetta Stone adopt gamification elements, but are sometimes criticised for relying too heavily on extrinsic motivation, and using simplistic mechanisms like points, badges and leaderboards.

So what does good gamification look like, and how could it be employed beyond digital apps, in say, face-to-face learning settings?  Here are some ideas.

• Quests and Missions: Designing language learning activities as quests or missions, where challenges are represented by milestones or levels, creates a sense of progress and achievement.
• Storytelling and Role-Playing: Integrating narrative elements into language learning, encourages the exercise of creativity, which in turn can give a sense of ownership and relevance to the content
• Collaborative Challenges: Foster collaboration and teamwork by introducing group challenges or competitions. This encourages students to work together, communicate in the target language, and support each other’s learning.
• Immersive Technology (or scenarios): Utilize interactive technology tools to enhance language learning. For instance, virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) can create immersive language environments, allowing students to virtually explore foreign cities or engage in language-specific scenarios.
• Story-based Progression: Frame language learning as a story-based progression, where students unlock new chapters or levels as they acquire new language skills. Each chapter can present them with challenges or tasks that require the application of their language knowledge. This approach adds a narrative element and keeps learners engaged and motivated.
• Time-based Challenges: Set time-based challenges or competitions where students race against the clock to complete language-related tasks or exercises. This injects an element of urgency and excitement into the learning process, motivating students to think quickly and apply their language skills under pressure.

Remember, when gamifying language learning in the classroom, it’s crucial to align the gamification elements with the curriculum objectives and ensure that they support language acquisition. The beating of ‘the game’ must not get in the way.

Speaking and Listening Skills through Interactive Scenarios

One powerful application of games-based learning is the improvement of speaking and listening skills. Immersive game scenarios provide learners with authentic contexts to practice their language skills. Through interactive dialogue options, voice recognition, and role-playing, learners can simulate real-life conversations. Language learning games like Lingua.ly (now defunct) and Tell Me More enable learners to engage in virtual conversations with virtual characters, enhancing their speaking and listening abilities. Such interactive game scenarios foster confidence, fluency, and cultural understanding. However, they can sometimes be let down by the technology they use, with some users reporting poor speech recognition among other problems.

Reinforcing Grammar and Vocabulary through Gamified Exercises

Games-based learning and gamification offer innovative ways to reinforce grammar and vocabulary acquisition. Language learners often find grammar exercises dull and monotonous. However, by transforming these exercises into gamified activities, learners can actively engage with language rules and structures. Platforms like Kahoot! employ interactive quizzes, timed challenges, and rewards to make grammar and vocabulary practice enjoyable. Gamified exercises not only consolidate language knowledge but also provide immediate feedback, allowing learners to identify areas for improvement and track their progress.

Cultural Understanding and Language Immersion – Virtual Worlds & Simulations

Language learning is not solely about vocabulary and grammar; it also involves understanding cultures and communities. Virtual worlds and simulations offer immersive environments where learners can explore different cultural contexts while practicing their language skills. Platforms like Second Life got on board early,although it is unclear whether this platform is still used much for language learning and Cambridge International (exam board) among others have designed immersive language learning environments in Minecraft Education Edition. These experiences promote cross-cultural awareness, enhance language comprehension, and facilitate authentic communication. CultureAlley, when it started, took a different approach to immersion, taking its cue for the vocabulary you want to learn from what was written on your Facebook wall. It’s offering now includes live classes, many different games, and is embracing the opportunities of AI.

AI is probably going to be revolutionary in the way it impacts learning in the next months and years.

Some more examples of language learning games

WordBrewery: This game focused (the project has, sadly, closed) on vocabulary acquisition by presenting learners with sentences from real-world sources, such as news articles or literature. Players must identify and understand the meaning of unfamiliar words in context, gradually expanding their vocabulary while enjoying the game’s immersive interface.

Muzzy BBC: Designed for young language learners, Muzzy BBC combines captivating, animated stories with interactive language learning activities. Children can engage with the characters, explore different language environments, and practice vocabulary, listening, and comprehension skills.

Language Guardians: a family card game for all ages, this can be played in whatever language is chosen for a particular session.  Playing a bit like Uno, it works to help language acquisition through repetition and practice and through challenge and social learning.

LingoBee: LingoBee is a mobile app that utilises crowdsourcing and social networking to gather material for ’situated’ language learning from its users. So learners are exposed to curated material, and can comment and rate that material, and learn from each other in relevant contexts.

Language Hunters: This interactive game combines language learning with cultural immersion. Language Hunters employ traditional games and activities to teach (and preserve) indigenous languages, emphasizing oral communication and community engagement. Players learn by actively engaging in conversations, imitating sounds, and playing language-based games.

Limitations and Challenges

While games-based learning and gamification offer exciting opportunities, it’s essential to be aware of potential limitations and challenges. Firstly, selecting appropriate games and gamified elements aligned with learning objectives can be a complex task. Educators must ensure that games facilitate language acquisition rather than distract from it. Additionally, technical limitations, such as the availability of devices or internet connectivity, can pose challenges for implementing games-based learning and gamification, especially in resource-constrained environments. Moreover, measuring the effectiveness of games-based learning can be challenging, as it requires robust assessment methods that go beyond traditional exams or quizzes. Assessing language proficiency and progress within game-based contexts may require innovative evaluation approaches.

Despite these challenges, the benefits of games-based learning and gamification in language teaching are undeniable. They have the potential to transform language learning experiences, engage learners on a deeper level, and foster a love for languages. By embracing these approaches, educators, learning designers, and workplace learning facilitators can create dynamic and interactive language learning environments that resonate with their students.

To Conclude

Games-based learning and gamification provide a fresh and effective approach to language teaching and learning. By harnessing the power of games, educators can captivate learners’ attention, enhance motivation, and promote active participation. Whether through dedicated language learning games or the gamification of traditional language exercises, games offer unique opportunities to reinforce grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening, and cultural understanding.

The post Play, Learn, Speak: How Games Transform Language Learning first appeared on Ludogogy.

So, with those ideas in mind, I launched and experiment in February 2023 to create and play a game, using LinkedIn as the game platform.

From a recruitment perspective this has obvious advantages, as I was able to use the game platform itself to invite participants, and I did so using a LinkedIn Poll. Many of the people who answered the poll were already 1^st degree connections, but as one of the main mechanisms for running the game was the group chat facility, I then asked those who were not currently connections to connect with me, being careful to stress that disconnection is possible, and that this was not a ’fishing’ exercise.

By the time the game began, three days after the original poll was launched, 25 people were on board and had been added to a group chat, entitled simply ‘The Game’, so as not to give the game away before it started.

The idea behind the game

There were a number of intentions behind the game. The first was to act as an experiment – to see how well this subversion of a non-game platform would work, to get feedback from participants, and to act as a springboard for potential future game / learning applications.

It was also intended to be a learning game, and I spent some time deciding on appropriate learning outcomes. While this is by no means the only option, I eventually decided that an appropriate outcome for this first experiment would be for participants to learn about the platform itself. So the game was designed to  introduce the different ways of posting on LinkedIn and ideas about how to garner engagement.

Using LinkedIn as the platform inevitably meant that there would be a social element to the play. The group chat meant that a group of players was convened, but even if the players had been playing singly in some way, the game was ’about’ using LinkedIn, so another outcome was networking, either through the chat, or by sharing posts, and commenting.

Finally, I decided to get players to reveal something of their own interests, which was achieved through the ‘topics’ of the game, see below, so the hope was that there would also be subsidiary learning around things that members of the group found interesting, but which others might not have come across before.

Mechanisms used in the game

The overarching mechanism of the game was a simple overlay of a narrative ‘alternate reality’. In the group chat a message was sent to all participants to start the game. It informed them that they were part of a Resistance movement, which was opposing the actions of a totalitarian organisation ‘The Council of Erudition Purge’, which was attempting to destroy all repositories of human knowledge, and that LinkedIn posts and articles were under threat.

Inspiration for this idea was taken from such real-life events as The Cultural Revolution in China, and  continuing policies of supressing access to information and opinion, which happen across the world, and from one of my favourite novels ‘Farenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury.

Farenheit 451 is available on Amazon

They were also told that they had the opportunity to find posts or articles, and to pitch for their preservation. Because the resources of the ‘Purge Resistance’ were limited however, not all items pitched could be ’saved’, so only those which got the most public approval (measured via ‘likes and comments’), would make it into the safety of the Resistance archives at the end of each ‘mission’.

At the start of the game the only facilities available to Resistance members were the group chat, referred to during the game as ‘Resistance HQ’; and the ability to comment on a ‘Mission Post’ (an ordinary post with a single image)  – which you could imagine as being a kind of ‘noticeboard’ where the comments contained the pitches of the Resistance members for the articles and posts each one of them wanted to ’save’.

The initial briefing (posted at ‘HQ’) also hinted that it would be possible to gain more facilities throughout the game. This is actually the fundamental mechanism of ‘progress’ in the learning aspect of the game. In each ‘mission’ a new feature of LinkedIn will be introduced, which players will be encouraged to use to ‘improve’ how they present their pitches, or to attract more engagement.

The first ‘mission’ post asked players to go off and find posts on related to ‘Happiness’ and to pitch them in the comments. After three days the ‘mission debriefing’, containing details of the ‘saved’ posts and anything else of interest that had happened in the first mission was written up in an article, which I intended to add to, after each mission to maintain a full log of missions.

Mission Two – Coolhunting

Mission 2 asked players to go Cool Hunting. They were tasked with going of and finding articles and posts they perceived as ‘Cool’.

A very important part of the second mission post was that it introduced the idea of ‘R&D’ – and that instead of going and finding articles they wanted to save, players could dedicate their time to working towards increasing the capability of the Resistance by ‘inventing’ new ways of using LinkedIn.

This increase in capability had already happened between the first and second missions, without the need for players to do anything, and the ‘new technology’ which had been discovered was images with clickable links. The mission post itself used an image with a clickable link, and the link took players to a YouTube video page explaining how to create a post with an image with a clickable link.

The decision was made to not explicitly mention ‘R & D’ until Mission Two, so that the instructions to play the game were scaffolded in a similar way to the ‘learning content’, only introducing one or two ideas at a time.

So, in the second missions, players could find and pitch ‘cool’ content or spend their time in R&D. In order to take the R&D option, players would post information about the ‘research’ topic in the HQ group chat. In the case of the second mission, R & D were tasked with developing video capability – in other words, finding and sharing info, best practice and ‘how tos’ about using video on LinkedIn. Under game rules it was necessary that three people should do this, so that the development be successful.

Extended capability now meant that players had the choice to pitch as they had done before, using comments in the mission post, or they could use the new technology to create their own posts (complete with clickable image links),and reference those in the mission post comments. It was made clear that if they took this route then ALL engagement (on their own posts and on their comments on the mission) would go towards the adjudication of their success – a good strategy to potentially double their points for the mission.

Once this mission was completed. The mission debrief for mission two (scroll further down in the article) also introduced something new – medals. And the Resistance was able to award medals not only for successfully saving articles and posts, and for contributing to successful R&D development of video capability, but also recruitment! The fact that players would want to / be able to bring others on board after the game had started, was not something I had considered in the game design.

Mission Three – Problem solving

Having developed video capability, the second mission debrief was also delivered as suitably revolutionary address, which I link here for the sake of completeness but with some embarrassment, having made a bit of a hash of it. This, of course also meant that players were now able to deploy video posts as well.

If this had been a full-blown, fully tested, actual implementation of a learning game rather than a somewhat impulsive experiment, it would have run to around 15 missions, allowing time for R & D time to ’discover’ more types of LinkedIn posts and to explore things like searches, profile features and so on. It should be noted that I’m not a LinkedIn ‘expert’, so the intention was never to explore LinkedIn social marketing ‘strategy’ or similar, but simply technical reality.

The experiment needed to end at some point, not least so I could draw some conclusions and write this article. So, I decided to make Mission Three the last mission.

The Resistance were tasked with either pitching posts related to ’Problem Solving’, or working in R&D on Hashtags and Tagging Connections – to discover how those are best used to drive engagement.

What happened

The game was played over three rounds, and lasted just under two weeks.  Those that chose to get involved, got very involved, at least over the first two missions. Of those who were not so actively involved, some were still posting messages of encouragement, or other messages pertinent to the game’s narrative, indicating that they had decided to accept the alternate reality, ’the magic circle’ of the game, but not so much as to join in with active play. Others still chose to ‘lurk’, remaining in the chat, but not messaging or taking part in the missions. Some people left the chat during the game.

Mission three was a ’failure’, in that very little activity took place. But given that Mission Two was very active, I wonder if the announcement of the imminent end of the game went some way to dissuade people from playing further. I hope that sharing this article will encourage further feedback.

Intention vs reality

From the perspective of the game designer and gamemaster (both me), some aspects of the game ran as I had expected and achieved what I wanted them to, and some did not, but that is always to be expected from a very early prototype, which this was.

I expected / wanted there to be more discussion in the ‘HQ’ regarding strategy of play, sharing of existing knowledge of ‘how LI works’ and that ‘R & D’ activity in HQ would spark these kinds of interactions.

I further expected / wanted the outcomes / learning of HQ conversations to be reflected in the way that people addressed the core loop of the game.

This was because these two things represented the core ‘learning’  aspects of the game – peer learning through curation and practice of what has been curated. If this had been designed as a set of learning activities without a game overlay, the fundamental instruction would have been ‘Find out what you can about how LinkedIn features work, share it with a group of people in chat, and then use what you have found to make posts.’

So I believe that the simple action of overlaying a narrative did serve to keep people engaged for longer with this fundamentally not especially interesting instruction.

However, there is a price to pay for overlaying narrative, and that is clarity. To a greater or lesser degree, the narrative obfuscates the simple underlying instructions, and it is certainly true that some participants reported and/or displayed confusion about what they were supposed to be doing. But then again, it is unlikely that without the narrative there would been any engagement with the activities at all – so this needs to be balanced, to achieve clarity while still maintaining the integrity of the magic circle.

Time to Play?

Many participants reported lack of time as a reason for non-participation, or participation dropping off over time. In my mind, the tasks involved were not very time consuming, and were to a certain extent just asking people to do what they were already doing – finding and commenting on posts on LI. However, that is not strictly true. I was asking them to find specific kinds of posts – which would take time. Maybe this could be mitigated, by just asking them to pitch posts they have already found (interesting) recently. This in turn, would mean that there might need to be more attention paid to the narrative for each mission to make them sufficiently different from one another to maintain interest.

It should also be recognised that ‘R & D’ is potentially more time consuming, so maybe the rewards for that should be greater. In this first prototype, Gamification did not feature heavily – beyond the awarding of medals, so that would be something to consider for version 2.

Missions lasted three days in this experiment, mainly because my feeling was that longer timescales would dilute engagement and because one of the major mechanisms was ‘engagement’ which on LI, apparently requires lots of interaction with a post in the first hour, never mind three days. Many people feedback that they would have like longer for each mission. This means that for a game of LinkedIn, in particular,  I would have to think carefully about which ‘algorithmic’ aspects should have an impact and which shouldn’t, and that it would probably only be appropriate to include ‘engagement’, in terms of the viral type algorithmic ‘engine’, if a game were designed to be played and completed over an hour or two, rather than over an extended time, like this one.

Other potential barriers

Although I haven’t received explicit feedback to this effect, there is another potential barrier which has long been on my mind, which may have contributed to the falling off of activity in the game, or people not engaging at all.

Of necessity, ‘playing’ in LinkedIn, means you are playing in a public space, and not just any public space, but one where you may have created a very specific ‘professional’ persona. So there may have been a reluctance, once the reality of the game was revealed, for some people to expose themselves by joining in. I also, personally, have to face the potentially awful possibility, that, given that activity dropped off so markedly after mission two, that it was my disastrous attempt to give a competent video debriefing and /or the fact that I was wearing a revolutionary style red beret and ‘Free Ferris’ badge in said video, that some people found cringeworthy enough to disengage altogether.

Lessons Learned

A (non-exhaustive) list of reflections I will take away with me to consider possible new games in LI and other ‘non-gaming’ platforms will include:

• Complexity of instructions – how to make something ‘gameful’ without too much obfuscation?
• Time available to players – what can I expect and how can I introduce ‘play’ into actions already done – to add no time at all. Maybe in this case that could mean sharing posts they already noticed, or even promoting their own posts?
• Limitations of the platform – e.g. HQ was a great idea, but linear chronological chains of messages are hard to navigate.
• Perceptions of fairness – I bent/waived the rules because they didn’t impact the learning, but some players dislike that.
• Gamification – Rewards for play/learning, and how they can be implemented on the platform.

Do You Want to Try It?

I remain encouraged, despite a drop-off in play. For a first prototype, this game did pretty well. So, what hints do I have for somebody wanting to do the same? Indeed, maybe a more fundamental question is ‘Why would you want to do this?’

The 70:20:10 model (and indeed my own OLCM) tells us that only a fraction of learning goes on in ‘formal’ learning settings. We are learning all the time, from everything we do. If you accept this idea, then it makes sense to apply deliberate design to ‘everyday’ activities to ensure that the learning derived from them is optimised, and indeed that it has desirable learning outcomes.

If you further accept that play and games provide effective pedagogies, as well as a way to engender engagement in activities,* then gameful design is a great approach to choose.

*(you may not accept this, of course, in which case stop reading now. Bit late in the day for this warning, I know,  but you’ve probably saved yourself 40secs or so).

The potential for ’non-gaming’ platforms to have ’gameful design’ applied to them is probably limited by your imagination, but here are a few general principles to get you started.

• Consider the platforms available to you and then think about them in terms of the ‘experiences’ they offer rather than the ‘tasks’ they help people to carry out. For example, LI offers the experiences of ‘gathering together’ in groups and group chat, the experience of ‘social approval’ through likes and comments, and ‘creativity’ through all the different ways you can post.
• What do you want your (learning) outcomes to be? How does a platform potentially allow ‘delivery’ of learning through e.g. peer sharing of knowledge, through activities that could be constructed from the ‘experiences’, content sharing and delivery
• Do your learners already know how to use the platform, or is there an additional learning curve. One compelling reason to widely used platforms and resources to design playful learning, is because your learners DO already know how to use them, and in fact use them all the time – e.g you could use your company email platform to run an ‘alternate reality’ game where scenarios instructions are delivered through emails – with minimal instruction, because everyone already knows how to use the email client.
• Narrative overlay is the easiest place to start. It relatively easy to make something gameful, by a simple reframe. This ’invitation to the magic circle’ can be all that is needed to make an ordinary activity into a compelling game.

Thanks to All Involved

Although I won’t mention you by name here, just in case you don’t want me too, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those who were involved in this little experiment with me. I couldn’t have done it without you. You can ‘out’ yourselves in the comments on LI when I share this article, if you wish.

The post Resisting the Purge – LinkedIn as a Game Platform first appeared on Ludogogy.

Prologue

Why did Steve Jobs say that he would trade all of his technology for an afternoon with Socrates?  Also, in presenting the i-Pad and iPhone4, what was his real intention about his comment, “In Apple’s DNA, it’s technology married with liberal arts.”  Although he was famous for laying down the law to employees, what’s the real meaning of liberal arts to him?

After the announcement of the Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab at the Davos Forum in 2016, there has been new-normal chaos, mixed with the game between AlphaGo and Lee Sedol, COVID-19, and the wave of liberal arts, making our predictions for the future more blurry. In the world, many countries which have suffered economic downturns started shutting down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Korean entertainment phenomena such as K-Pop or professional e-sports games have seen growth. Why is that?

This article aims to review the reasoning in many fundamental areas of human life, which has led to the  foundation of the ‘liberal arts’, and to figure out why, following the release of the personal computer during the ‘information revolution’, games have been increasingly applied in many areas, beyond simple play, including economics, business, human resources and administration.

This will be expected to contribute to gamification literacy in the fourth industrial revolution following COVID-19, which should narrow the generational discrepancies in detail and increase the mass understanding of gamification as a potential future catalyst of change.

Disintegrating life

Until the agricultural revolution, work, learning, and play were united in human life. Fathers and sons hunted outside the cave to get food, to learn the method, and play with some fun and tension.

In agricultural societies, people sang a song of labor when working and learning. This period was one which combined work, learning, play, and self-sustaining clothes, food, and shelter.

Men were able to harvest and manage all the agricultural matters, and women were also able to make clothes and food. At that period, producers and consumers were the same. In this labor-centric era, there were many children who were more diligent or lazier. But they still stayed in the house without being kicked out. There wasn’t a separation between employment and unemployment.

The industrial revolution and the advent of machines changed every lifestyle. The highest value sought in industrial society was commodification to create mass consumption for mass production. Rapid industrialization and urbanization focused the population on factories and schools. The 3S principles – Simplification, Standardization, and Specialization fully led to the Scale of the Economy. Productivity enhancement, including Taylorism, Fordism, Time Study, and Motion Study naturally excluded the area of play. Afterwards, recreation became just a sub-sector or sub-concept for production.

So, through the process of productivity increase by mass production during the industrial era, life was just divided into work and learning. And, learning was a tool to work, and work was labor which people did not to want to do. The play was missing. After missing the play and dividing into production/consumption and employment/unemployment, the natural environment was damaged. The value of existence for human beings was collapsed. An unknown mass population was deprived of each identity, and the endless division of labor was not just a loss of value but a loss of life. We killed as we divided.

Recently, the reason why extreme selfishness and anti-humanity harm have been spread out has been related to these changes. On the opposite side, liberal arts started emerging slowly.

Towards the Archetype

Following the Asian financial crisis at the end of 90’s, why hasn’t the unemployment rate improved?  The opportunities for full-time jobs have decreased, but the gig economy has been more popular. The wage gap between full-time and part-time jobs has been higher, so it has revealed some fairness issues and social conflicts in Korea. Also, in the economic downturn, the agenda about basic income and flexible working has been continuously discussed. Misunderstandings around how the sharing economy works  e.g. Uber or Airbnb, have gradually disappeared.

What’s the meaning of these changes?  And where will they end?  The meaning emerges from the Archetype, an attempt to recover the value of life before the industrial revolution. The global population (about 8 billion) cannot accommodate hunting or agricultural life in 8 thousand or 0.8 billion population. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic over two years, the sky with 1% of normal flights  looked like the autumn weather in the year 1960~1970. Despite the forced stop, the contemplation based on social distance reminds us of the missing memory and value.

I am glad that there is still a generation with the memory of agricultural society. In vague memory, there are still values like neighborhood, relationships, sharing, and thoughtful consideration. This memory disappeared by the division of labor and decomposition through the industrial society, so it’s a missing piece.

In the latter part of industrial society, integration, convergence, and consilience are technically possible. It’s a network effect. Like social work and village community, there seems to be social cohesion. Relationship recovery is linked to sharing and thoughtful consideration. Sympathy, sharing, and fairness are frequently discussed. In addition, the appearance of prosumers which weakens the separation between production and consumption, and the gig economy mixing employment and unemployment have proliferated. Despite the earlier appearance of COVID-19, remote work and learning concentrate on one place – home. During this, play becomes gamification.

Likewise, organizing the network is recovered, and efforts to recover the identity of specialized individuals from many unknown people are increasing. Recent relevant books cover this kind of demassification. An analog lifestyle can be transformed into a digital one. Artificial intelligence, robot, and big data technology in the fourth industrial revolution can process more than if work depended on human memory and hand. If the fifth and sixth industrial revolutions will be expected in the future, a lifestyle system with 10 billion population may be returned to that with 0.1 billion population. The problem is whether the original value of life, order, thoughtful consideration, and caring will be recovered. Apparently, there is a hope of a liberal arts rennaisance in our current chaotic real life.

The GDP per capita of Korea was over USD 30,000 a few years ago. As Easterlin’s Paradox indicates, it’s still early for us to share meaningful empathy with neighborhoods. However, as Northern European countries show, there are still big gaps among countries and continents. Finally, the possibility of recovering towards the archetype by sharing social value is effected by a small starting wave of liberal arts.

Through the second and third industrial revolutions, worklife gradually changed to include occupation, employment, and starting a business. The evolution and implementation of concepts such as learning being variously, life-long, remote, self-driven, and virtual become clearer because of the social shock of COVID-19 and the fourth industrial revolution. It’s a recovering force towards the archetype. Surely, that archetype means a well-mixed life with work, learning, and play. This is why gamification is necessary.

Epilogue

A middle school student (Age 15, third grade) and a retired professor (Age 67) took a gamified hiring assessment. created by Benchmark.games (Hungary) and published in the Korean market. This gamified solution is to assess the qualification of a potential organization member regarding leadership, motivation, communication, conflict management, etc. The result was that a middle school student who didn’t understand any company business, did better than the professor, who had  20 years of business experience and 20 years of marketing lecturing in every assessment field. For sure, the manual in this assessment mentions that the score is not important, but there is that must be reflected on considering the current period of digital transformation we are experiencing.

Gamification includes the transformational process into a game, or procedural meaning. As mentioned before, society after the fourth industrial revolution seeks the recovery towards the archetype. Highly civilized development and rapidly increasing population cannot reproduce the past life in agricultural or primitive societies. However, our way of life seeks concurrent value. For adequately mixing work and learning in this process, including play as a catalyst is critical.

Regarding what the result of the gamified test between the young student and old professor means, that inclusive point is coincidentally the diverging point between analog and digital. This is the colliding point between the addictive young generation and the old-fashioned parents’ generation. Artificial intelligence, robot, and big data technology will be expected to exceed human artistry and creativity. However, in the strong artificial intelligence era, humanism as human’s unique characteristics has a priority. Gamification already has been spread out in economics, business, administration, the education sector, etc. As a part of life, the value and status of play has been recovered through gamification. To make gamification a justified recovering force towards the archetype, the value of liberal arts focusing on human value is important. Probably, I think that this is why Steve Jobs missed Socrates.

The post Gamification – A Recovering Force Towards the Archetype first appeared on Ludogogy.

This is available to read in full at https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3474663

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

The post Purpose Increases Pleasure in Serious Games first appeared on Ludogogy.

It can be accessed in full at https://ejournal2.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijee/article/view/8590

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

The post Learning Models in Educational Game Interactions: A Review first appeared on Ludogogy.

This article is adapted from a paper by Xavier Wilain (2022) Contrasting Students’ engagement during game based-learning. Paper presented at the Games and Serious Games Syposium, Geneva on 30 June 2022. Proceedings, p14-17. It has been made available to Ludogogy by M. Wilain.

Abstract

This research aims to measure students’ perception of their emotional engagement in game-based learning activities and compare them in regards to two types of games: a synoptic board game, Strategious© which has been created independently by the author and a diagnosis card game which the author adapted for one of the modules he is teaching at the Swiss Hotel Management School of Leysin, Switzerland.

Following a deductive approach within a pragmatic ontology, this is a case study of the Swiss Hotel Management School of Leysin.

Participants filled a questionnaire adapted from the Flow model (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) and the PENS framework (Ichaman, 2016), and cross findings were put in relation with Toda’s gamification taxonomy, published in 2019.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is available on Amazon

The quantitative data collected by closed questions on a 1 to 5 Likert scale was analyzed using general proportions and cross-tabulations. The results showed players felt positive emotions as well as negative emotions with a board game. This was also confirmed by the PENS framework showing a better experience with the board game. Therefore, for game-based learning activities, serious board games can be qualified as emotional rollercoasters, whereas diagnosis card games can be qualified as emotional ice-breakers.

It was discovered that there were both generational and geographical variations in the emotional responses to the two games.

Context

This research assessed how participants perceived their emotional engagement during game-based learning activities, focusing on 2 game types. One game was a one-hour board game based on talent management, negotiation and strategic thinking. The second game was a 10-minute diagnosis card game on entrepreneurship, with famous entrepreneurs, their companies, and keywords from the module.

These games have been selected for this research because the author had already included them in one of his modules, called “Entrepreneurship in Events” in the final of the Bachelor of Arts in Hospitality and Events at the Swiss Hotel Management School, and he always wanted to know which type of game students preferred. The research was approved by the DEAN of the Swiss Hotel Management School.

Targeted issue

This research fits within a theoretical framework made from the model of Flow developed by Csikszentmihalyi (1990), which is defining eight emotions people feel when confronted by a task. The optimal emotional state has then been defined as the state of Flow. Jesse Schell (2015) further developed this theory by applying it to game design, saying that in order to keep a player engaged, a good game should constantly adapt the difficulty of the task to the evolving player’s skills. These two authors made a great contribution to the theoretical framework of serious games, but Melker (2015) suggested that more specific comparative researches were still needed to precisely differentiate between types of games. However, even if the theory of Flow developed by Csikszentmihalyi (1990) was thoroughly applied to game design by Schell (2015), it has still never been used to measure players’ emotional engagement when playing a game. Therefore, in the search of an effective measurement, the author decided to associate the theory of Flow with the recognized measurement, called the “PENS framework”, as the “Player Experience Need Satisfaction” applied by Ichaman (2016) and presented here below in figure 1.

Findings and Proposed solution

There is indeed a clear preference for synoptic board games but these findings also confirmed the importance of having a clear purpose and aim to support the integration of such game-based learning activities and diminish the students’ anxiety, relying more specifically on Mitgutsch and Alvaro’s Game System (2012). Moreover, the warning given by Toda et al., (2019) about the need of defining a clear purpose to game-based learning applies more specifically to generation Z students if it concerns a synoptic board game, and more specifically to generation X students if it concerns a diagnosis card game.

In regard to students’ culture, a greater care and purpose is needed for Americans students in case of synoptic board games, and for Middle East students in case of diagnosis card games which can be used as ice-breakers. Finally, such game-based leaning activities have revealed to be more effective with European students, in driving their perception to their emotional engagement.

Relevant innovation

Concerning the tool used to collect relevant data, in the search of an effective measurement, the author decided to associate it with a recognised measurement in the name of the PENS framework, as the “Player Experience Need Satisfaction” applied by Ichaman (2016) and presented below in figure 2.

Concerning the results of this research, the students showed a general preference for synoptic board games such as Strategious© which was included in this research. Board games produce a greater play experience in game-based learning activities (Hardin et al, 2019; Huang et al., 2019; Nakao, 2019; Sousa 2020). Going deeper, the author found that Autonomy and Relatedness were indeed more important for students when perceiving their emotional engagement when playing the board game than the card game. However, the research also revealed that students in general perceived a greater negative emotional engagement with synoptic board games. Therefore, the researcher has qualified game-based learning with a synoptic board game as an emotional rollercoaster with important emotional consequences on both sides. Furthermore, the diagnosis card game is safer although it generates less important emotional reactions from students, so it can be a relevant and safe emotional icebreaker.

Project outcomes & results

Therefore, the researcher qualified game-based learning with a synoptic board game as an emotional rollercoaster with important emotional consequences on both sides. Furthermore, the diagnosis card game is safer although it generates less important emotional reactions from students, so it can be a relevant and safe emotional icebreaker.

The cross-analysis revealed that students from X and Y generations  perceived greater positive emotions (Arousal, Flow, Control, Relaxation) than students from generation Z with the board game, who are genuinely accepting more easily this type of game-based learning. However, with a diagnosis card game, students from generation X were the ones perceiving less emotional engagement. The author then saw a confirmation of the idea that each generation has its own socio-psychological perception (Vlada, 2020).

American students were more critical towards the synoptic board game as the results showed 20% of higher negative emotions with this type of game-based learning activity. This contradicts the report of Metaari (2020) which shows that the American continent is the first customer of serious games in the world and suggests that Americans would be more used to such activities, also supported by Ferreira et al. (2016).

Conclusion

The researcher has qualified game-based learning with a synoptic board game as an emotional rollercoaster with important emotional consequences on both sides.

The diagnosis card game is safer although it generates less important emotional reactions from students, so it can be a relevant and safe emotional ice-breaker.

With a diagnosis card game, students from generation X were the ones perceiving less emotional engagement whereas American students were more critical towards the synoptic board game.

The researcher suggests further researches to be conducted with different types of games and bigger samples to be able to create and share more exhaustive guidelines on how to integrate all types of games efficiently in learning.

The post Card Games or Board Games? first appeared on Ludogogy.

Video games are highly interactive and can be played by oneself or with others, encouraging players to explore and discover different approaches to meeting a goal, handling opponents in clever ways, and even forming alliances, to name a few. These skills can often be translated to real-life events, allowing players to integrate their newfound insights into places like school or work. In this article, we explore the ways in which video games can help you navigate the workplace:

Gaming enhances strategy skills

Businesses always rely on strategic planning to ensure their resources are maximised, while minimising the impact of their weaknesses. As part of making processes more efficient, it’s essential for staff to set proper goals and targets so that everyone in the workplace can have a clear direction. With these values in mind, strategy and simulation games are great options to enhance the decision-making process. For example, the real-time strategy (RTS) game Anno forces its players to strategise and react quickly to situations happening around them. As found in a review on video games from Procedia Computer Science, RTS players outperformed first-person shooter (FPS) players in terms of cognitive flexibility, with the added association that RTS improved with professionals’ decisions and risk assessments. Being able to make informed choices without feeling overwhelmed is a valuable skill in the workplace, allowing workers to be more independent and organised in their work.

Gaming encourages a continuous learning mindset

Many technologies and systems change to adapt to new standards set over time. This often calls for employees to readjust their work styles, and upskill to keep up with the current advancements, requiring them to learn new proficiencies and competencies. LHH’s tips on continuous learning discuss how important it is to show employees the benefits of continuous learning for lifelong employability. This learning mindset benefits companies financially, and also helps current employees stay relevant in the market — even allowing them to undertake advanced job roles. Through playing games, people can better understand what roles they would want to prioritise, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. For example, the well-known role-playing game Elder Scrolls: Skyrim allows players to gain experience points and improve their abilities through skill trees of their choice, depending on what perks they want. By developing their prowess, workers can progress better in the workplace.

Gaming improves teamwork

Teamwork is essential in many areas, be it the workplace setting or cooperative games. A key part of successful group efforts centres around communication, which is often built through team-building exercises. A study on team building by Brigham Young University found that teams that played video games (Halo or Rock Band) together for just 45 minutes before a team task saw a 29.3% improvement in productivity, compared to groups that didn’t play games. This cooperation was particularly successful, as video games are able to scale up their difficulty levels over time, increasing workflow and performance. Even simpler games such as the Overcooked series can replicate this environment, requiring communication and a good division of labour to efficiently run each game level. Gaming provides a great opportunity for company workers to not only bond but also develop their communication, task delegation, and teamwork skills.

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I tend to think of this principle frequently – basically, how can we get people to interact with a product, a service, or a concept such that they are introduced to it in the easiest possible way? The goal should be to make the first interaction happen so seamlessly that they feel it’s something simple and useful, which encourages them to dive further. After all, if something is too complicated, it’s likely to not generate interest or confidence.

In analogue games, you are interacting with the objects inside it directly, making it a direct application of the aforementioned principle of tactile stimulus. As soon as you are introduced to a game and its storyline, your resources and characters are all in your hands, both literally and figuratively. This is also why enthusiasts relish their collections, the meeples, the boards – they represent the experiences they had with these items. With that primer, I would like to to talk further about what makes the cardboard medium games uniquely powerful.

They are undeniably social

Sometimes games let us play ourselves – in party games, for example, we are not taking on new roles. We are bringing our own personality to games like Truth Or Dare, where mechanics like Disclosure are used in ‘Truth’ to reveal our true feelings about something (or someone). In many other games, we are required to step into the shoes of a different character, lending us to perspectives we don’t get to experience otherwise. Character sheets are used in RPGs to create personalities with some degree of control, and fascinating backgrounds that serve a purpose. Sometimes these backgrounds also lead to side plots that shed light into the psyche of the character. As a result, RPGs have been shown to improve social and emotional learning, and discussions on taboo topics.

When I talk about the social aspects of tabletop games, I usually start with Modern Art. The players operate as museums from fashionable cities like Milan and Paris, dealing in paintings from famous artists. In various rounds, through auctions and bidding, players have to buy and trade paintings, to obtain the most valuable collection and win the game. When I played this game a few years ago with absolute strangers, I was placing outlandish bets from the very start. It caused a lot of humorous frustration in the other players because of my unpredictable gameplay, keeping them on the edges of their seats. In just 30 minutes, we were all ablaze on the table. I also enjoyed listening to some commentary on the paintings from the players, and how they’d be proud to snatch it from my rogue grasp – which brings me to the next point.

Modern Art is available on Amazon

They are competitive – and fun

Psychologically, we are wired to feel proud of ourselves upon completing a task. One of the most important uses of gamification is making tasks fun so that we complete them. Achieving this becomes more convenient when we include the mechanics of competition into the mix. Anybody who has been to a long board game session can testify how intense it can get, bringing people to promises of ending their friendships.

Inside a room like that, everyone is playing to win, to explore a new tactic, and sometimes to induct newcomers into a favorite game. The atmosphere generates possibilities of competing, which is a psychological construct that motivates us to push on even when we are tired. It’s the reason gamification tactics like leaderboards work so well.

Self-improvement as a result of competition is the reason why we are more motivated to work out when our friends post their cycling journeys on Strava. In the same way, competing for rewards and resources brings a sense of urgency to a tabletop game. A classic example in this regard is Ticket To Ride. It has comparatively simpler mechanics and ways of completing the game, making its strategies more approachable to the rookie player. At the end of a game, it’s simple to ascertain what decisions and strategies could have been played better. Often, in Ticket To Ride, it’s easy to observe what a competing player did correctly, as this game’s progress and movement is visible on the board for everyone. We therefore compete better in the games to follow, and know exactly how to play the game. The sense of achievement we feel by making progress on something that’s fun is a central pillar of tabletop games culture, which is achieved by healthy competition.

Ticket to Ride is available on Amazon

They improve us

The evident connection of tabletop games with awareness is becoming more popular in recent years. It is a commonplace understanding that stories create deep empathy and connection with a setting and character. Games are essentially storylines with more choices and mechanics, at the end of the day. As a result, games are a medium that educates us about the intricacies of a situation by taking us through the experience, which is way better than a second-hand written account. Since first-hand experience is not always feasible to achieve, games fill in this gap.

Games can be defined and designed around a topic or theme, and playing it can inculcate a sense of curiosity and exploration. In the aforementioned games Modern Art and Ticket To Ride, some of the comments from newcomers have been downright amazing. They called Modern Art a crash course in understanding paintings – and that was not even the central part of the game! They said that apart from the auctioning, bidding, and social deception in the game, the conversations on common practices like layering and glazing gave them awareness they had simply not anticipated.

On the other hand, Ticket To Ride was applauded for introducing to them the geographies of the USA and Europe in a way they had not seen before. For people who do not get regular exposure to the cities in these continents, the knowledge is mostly based on what we hear about in the news, movies, etc. There is no reason for a movie to talk about a story which is based in Montréal, Atlanta, Dallas, etc. unless the story actually demands it. But since that is not the case usually, we might know their existence but not their location. After playing a game of Ticket To Ride, these very players were highly confident about the situations of such places on the map, even gaining secondary knowledge like their (approximate) distance from the coast.

Using board games for bringing a culture of experimentation, enquiry, and learning, is a severely underrated application. I’d like to make a callback to the first anecdote from the very beginning of this article –  that interaction with a MacBook that makes you just 1% more confident and aware about what the device feels like, what the wallpaper looks like, what the screen looks like, how the keys are placed. Just by achieving this, you feel a lot more optimistic about the product, as it opens a mental conversation inside you, with growing curiosity. Tabletop games introduce you to topics and people – sometimes in a deeper level, sometimes at a rookie level. The feedback mechanism wherein you express something and get a positive or negative response is short and fast in these games, and that’s what makes them an essential tool of the modern social learner.

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