What is Gamification, Really?

Hello Moses,

Nice to see you here. And thank you for the elaborate comment.

I totally agree that narrative and story are not native to games, and it is not core to the game development. In fact, it pretty much develop in parallel with games throughout human history. Humans play games since they were cavemen, and they also huddle around a fire and tell stories.

However, I think narrative/story can make the game/gamification more appealing and relevant to a particular individual. If someone can relate to the story, it make the game much more meaningful. We can certainly make a game that help people recycle, but if the narratives can give purpose and meaning to why they are doing what they do, whether it is to save the polar bear or save our future. Moreover, if the story is able to capture the attention of the players, the game can be much more engaging. Because the players invested emotionally into the game, and they want the rest of the story (e.g. Clippy in Ribbon Hero 2 by Microsoft).

Since the narrative is not essential to the game/gamification, we can actually leverage this fact by having the same game but use different narratives to relate to different players personas.

And yes, pure reward systems and loyalty programs should not be confused with gamification. In my simple diagram, there should probably be an encompassing circle for strategies that’s designed for behavior modification but does not use game attributes. I think these are outside of the gamification circle, but inside the persuasive design/behavior modification circle.

Ultimately, terminology and what we call thing will probably change over time. But to make communication efficient it does help to put down some definition.

Thank you for the conversation. I think this is definitely helpful to move us to a better understanding of what kind of game attributes are truly tie to games. I hope to see you next time.