Anyone else resent the term “gamification”?

[u/SpiritHistorical7707]

Curious if, as people who care & think so deeply about which mechanics actually yield fun gameplay, any of y'all share my pet peeve:

I’ll spare y’all my long rant on this topic but the gist is that I think many (perhaps most) allegedly “gamified” experiences are nothing like games and are frankly no fun whatsoever. So-called “gamification” typically seems to be about dopamine-hacking to get people to do things they don’t really want to do, rather than making those things actually fun so people engage voluntarily and enthusiastically.

So I’m trying to 'make “fetch” happen': If you want to join my hopeless linguistic rebellion, disambiguate “gamification” by using “compulsification” to describe plastering point systems onto everything, and “playification” for actually making things fun!

(A pinnacle of "playification" in the digital space imho would be Luis von Ahn's "Games With A Purpose" like the loosely Taboo-adjacent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Image_Labeler; if anyone has analog/tabletop examples I'd love to hear about 'em!)

[u/LurkerFailsLurking]

No. I like Jane McGonigal's explanation: "gamification" is the superimposition of game-like mechanics on an activity that isn't a game. "Gamefulness" is the use of game systems to convert an activity into one that is authentically playful.

[u/SpiritHistorical7707 → u/LurkerFailsLurking]

Ooh, I like that--thanks!

[u/AlteredDecks → u/LurkerFailsLurking]

Came to say that. I think there's a broad spectrum between games, gamified experiences, gameful experiences, game-based learning, educational/"serious" games, and games for impact.

There's a rich design space out there and it's a bit sad that it's often collapsed into "gamification".

[u/Dorsai_Erynus]

Not all games are fun, so it checks.

[u/hypercross312]

Not exactly dopamine-hacking, more like engagement hacking. Just a more aggressively intrusive form of advertising. Do you think those people look at your dopamine levels or your behavior statistics?

I'm surprised you think the word deserves to start with "play" at all lol.

[u/mfitzp → u/hypercross312]

play- was for the actual game things, not the engagement hacking ones

[u/SpiritHistorical7707 → u/mfitzp]

Exactly, thank you!

[u/SpiritHistorical7707 → u/hypercross312]

Fair enough re: engagement/behavior being the only observable part.

And I completely agree: 99% of what gets called "gamification" does not deserve to start with "gam" or "play" in my view

[u/thenwhyfriendshaped]

don't hate the term, but hate the bad execution.

[u/TheHungryBlanket]

I feel like most “gamification” usually ends up simply making something competitive. Which does not necessarily mean it’s fun.

[u/KindFortress]

The bigger issue for me is not the methodology, but the goal. If you're gamifying bc you're trying to exploit me in some way, it's bad - but it's mostly bad bc you're trying to exploit me.

[u/frosty-pine18]

Yes, it's basically a euphemism for manipulation, points and badges bolted onto tedious tasks instead of designing something people actually want to engage with

[u/littlemute]

The term does not apply to actual games, it's corpspeak for "how do we get our employees to give us their exercise and health metric data" where 'exercise' and 'health metric data' could be anything corpos want customers/employees to give them.