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Gamification: Understanding The Basics
Part 1
All of us heard about how games can become addictive and a way of escaping reality. I was supporting this idea too, that they are only a form of escapism and nothing good can come out of playing games. I have been playing games since I ever got my first console when I was 10 years old.
And of course, we can hold many judgements, moral debates on how addictive they are. But I would like to dive into the basics of games, on how, contrary to popular belief, they fill in genuine human needs and help us become better people. And also, how gamification can be applied in designing products better products.
The fact that so many people all over the world are ready to spend (in total) 3 billion of hours a week playing games is a sign of something. A sign that the reality we’ve built is broken and the virtual world offers more of what we need. A sign that reality isn’t able to provide us what we need.
Games provide rewards that reality isn’t. They are teaching, inspiring and engaging us in ways that reality is not. And unless we do something dramatic in the next decades, half of the population of the planet will spend a lot of energy and devotion to the game world. So we can play around this trend and design products that can help us to improve ourselves.
I finished reading Jane McGonigal’s book Reality is Broken and would love to share some thoughts I learned and what we can do better about gamification.
Data that will give you a bigger picture
Let’s start with some statistics from one of the biggest gaming markets in the world, which is US. The research says that:
- 69% of all heads of household play computer and video games;
- 97% of youth play computer and video games;
- 40% of all gamers are women;
- One out of four gamers is over the age of fifty;
- The average game player is thirty five years…
