Gamification burst on the scene several years ago, capturingthe imagination and attention of many in the industry. Peering into theproverbial crystal ball, four respected thought leaders in the field weigh inon where they believe gamification is headed.
Karl Kapp
Karl Kapp is aprofessor and assistant director at Bloomsburg University’s Institute forInteractive Technologies, and author of the authoritative book The Gamification of Learning and Instruction. An early proponent ofgamification, he has observed a host of changes over the years. One of the mostinteresting, he said, is the diversification of gamification methodologies.
“Originally, gamification was mostly about points, badges,and leaderboards, but it has changed to include additional game elements suchas story, feedback loops, and the freedom to fail,” Kapp said. He pointed outthat vendors have developed a myriad of ways to apply the concept ofgamification. One of the most common entails the user playing a short gamebefore being introduced to content. Some approaches are competition-based, wherethe learner must answer a question before a co-worker; and others arebadge-based, where the learner gets rewarded for certain activities. Heanticipates that the trend of gamifying different applications will continue togrow.
Kapp foresees the expansion of gamification in three keyareas:
- The growth of more game-like system interfaces
- An increased focus on performance
- Introduction into the fields of virtual andaugmented reality
“As gamification continues to grow, our order-entry systemswill become more gamified, our learning management systems will become moregamified, and the use of game elements to engage employees will continue tobecome infused with other systems,” Kapp said. “Increasingly, I expectgamification to be linked to business systems and operations, with the gameelements directly tied to an employee’s performance. The third area of growth Isee in gamification is in the area of virtual and augmented reality. I thinkgamification will have a large impact there.
“I’m excited about the future,” he concluded.
Carol Leaman
Axonify is aCanada-based vendor and leader in the gamification market. “When we first startedout about five years ago, even the name ‘gamification’ was in its nascentstage,” CEO Carol Leaman said. She added that the field has evolveddramatically over the past five years, with a growing body of research availableto support claims of its effectiveness.
“We know that gamification works. We know that gamemechanics can drive human behavior due to what is commonly referred to as thedopamine effect,” Leaman said.
She admits that the concept of gamification is still relativelynew, and a lot of businesses are thinking carefully before diving in. “It’sstill very early in that evolution of companies embracing gamification as atechnique to drive engagement and participation,” she said. However, shebelieves the positive data emerging from recent studies will motivate and encouragecompanies to take a closer look.
Leaman is confident that gamification will continue to grow,fueled in part by the explosion of technology that permits users to accessgames at their convenience, on their mobile phones. She predicts that businesses“will experience increased penetration, with gamification a key part of thelearning experience.”
Andrzej Marczewski
Andrzej Marczewski is a UK-based gamificationexpert and author of the book Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play: Gamification, Game Thinking & Motivational Design. He is oftenasked about what he believes the future portends for gamification.
He offered the following response:“In my view, we will not speak about gamification within the next fewyears. It will be spoken about in the same way social media or digital is, justanother part of various strategies. In the case of gamification, it will becomepart of a standard set of tools for experience design.”
Marczewski believes gamification willcontinue to thrive. “The future is bright for gamification, I feel, because thefuture for games is also bright,” he wrote. “Where they go, we are sure to headto eventually.”
Juliette Denny
Juliette Denny, managing director at Growth Engineering, is amazedthat gamification has become a trendy buzzword. “Playing games is not new, andgamification has been around for a long time. It’s just that the learning anddevelopment industry suddenly decided that it’s new,” she said.
Several years ago, the UK-based vendor introduced a playfulform of gamification to make its clients’ online corporate compliance trainingmore engaging. “We never got into gamification because we thought it was thebe-all and end-all of learning technologies,” Denny said. “We wanted to producelearning technologies that would inspire learners to take their personaldevelopment seriously and really invest in themselves.”
Although she has observed an uptick in the gamificationmarketplace, she believes many companies are doing a poor job of engaginglearners. “What we’ve seen is a lot of people who say: ‘We’ve got badges. We dogamification.’ But I think that’s missing the point,” she said. “People havebadge fatigue. The badges need to mean something. They need to have emotionalresonance in the mind of the learner in order to drive behavior.”
In the future, Denny hopes companies will focus on moreinnovative ways to present content. She maintains that when workers have funwith learning, they will strive to learn more. “Life is too short for boringlearning,” she said. “If the world could come together and create more excitingeducation, then we could change the world.”
She said engagement is especially important to today’syounger workers, who often leave their jobs if they perceive a lack ofconnection. She quoted one of Growth Engineering’s key mottos: “Fail to engageand you’ll be engaging with failure!”
When considering the future of gamification, Dennyechoed the words of Marczewski. “We solidly believe that in two to five yearswe won’t be having conversations around gamification, because everyone willhave an element of gamification that means something to them and their brand,purpose, and vision,” she said. “Gamification as something new will cease toexist.”
