My presentation from Gamification 2013 at Stratford providing some historical perspective on and mapping of the gamification discourse.

1. cultivating ludusthe rhetorics of gamification
Sebastian Deterding
MAGIC Lab, Rochester Institute of Technology
Gamification 2013, October 4, 2013
c b

2. <1>
fight!

3. a heated discourse,still

4. Gabe Zichermann
»Gamification presents the best tools
humanity has ever invented to create and
sustain engagement in people. [...] It’s a
proven approach using breakthroughs in
design and technology to vastly improve
the world as we know it – and deliver the
organizational success you desire.«
the gamification revolution (2012: xvii)

5. Ian Bogost
»Gamification
is bullshit.«
gamification is bullshit (2011)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4294/persuasive_games_shell_games.php

6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigdurian/2188050654/sizes/o/in/set-72157603736067356/
fending off the colonizers

7. ludification of culture
games
play
cultivation of ludus

8. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigdurian/2188050654/sizes/o/in/set-72157603736067356/
social regulation

9. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigdurian/2188050654/sizes/o/in/set-72157603736067356/
taxation

10. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigdurian/2188050654/sizes/o/in/set-72157603736067356/
instrumentalization

11. Johan Huizinga
»Summing up the formal characteristics of play we
might call it a free activity standing quite consciously
outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’, but at the
same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly.
It is an activity connected with no material interest,
and no profit can be gained by it.«
homo ludens (1949: 13)

12. Roger Caillois
man, play, and games (2001)
»Play is an occasion of pure
waste: waste of time, energy,
ingenuity, skill, and often of
money«

13. Roger Caillois
man, play, and games (2001: 6)
»There is also no doubt that play must
be defined as a free and voluntary
activity […]. A game which one would
be forced to play would at once cease
being play.«

14. PJ Rey
»Gamification is a mechanism for de-coupling
alienation from capitalist production […]. By masking
work as play, capitalist production moves
exploitation out of the work places and infiltrates our
leisure time. Play loses its innocence. It is no longer an
escape from the system, it is just another branch of it.
Waste is no longer wasted. Playbor is part of
capitalism’s effort to colonize every last moment in the
waking day.«
gamification, playbour & exploitation (2012)

15. Ian Bogost
»More specifically, gamification is marketing
bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to
capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and
to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless
wasteland of big business. [...] it takes games – a
mysterious, magical, powerful medium that has
captured the attention of millions of people – and it
makes them accessible in the context of
contemporary business.«
gamification is bullshit (2011)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4294/persuasive_games_shell_games.php

17. strategic training

18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Leon_Gerome_Pollice_Verso.jpg
symbolic politics

19. planning & simulation

20. countercultre

21. What is the proper place
of games in society?

22. <2>
the ambiguity
of gamification

24. brian sutton-smith
»It is the intent of the present work to bring some
coherence to the ambiguous field of play theory by
suggesting that some of the chaos to be found there is
due to the lack of clarity about the popular cultural
rhetorics that underlie the various play theories and
play terms.«
the ambiguity of play (1997: 7–8)

25. brian sutton-smith
»The word rhetoric is used here in its modern sense,
as being a persuasive discourse, or an implicit
narrative, wittingly or unwittingly adopted by members
of a particular affiliation to persuade others of the
veracity and worthwhileness of their beliefs.«
the ambiguity of play (1997: 8)

26. brian sutton-smith
»As the term is used here, the rhetorics of play express
the way play is placed in context within broader value
systems […] The popular rhetorics are large-scale
cultural ‘ways of thought’ in which most of us
participate in one way or another, although some
specific groups will be more strongly advocates for this
or that particular rhetoric.«
the ambiguity of play (1997: 8)

27. a clash of rhetorics

28. gamification rhetorics
• A community of practice and main
application area
• A supporting academic discipline with
main theories and main proponents
• Reference non-game analogues & game
genres
• A conception of games & game design
• A moral politics of play

29. Roger Caillois
man, play, and games (2001)
LudusPaidia
play
improvisation
exploration
tumultuous
immoderate
game
skill, effort
strategizing
ordered
rule-bound

30. elements of A gamification rhetoric
• A community of practice and main
application area
• A supporting academic discipline with
main theories and main proponents
• Reference non-game analogues & game
genres
• A conception of games & game design
• A moral politics of play

31. What is the proper place
of games in society?

33. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigdurian/2188050654/sizes/o/in/set-72157603736067356/
rituals

34. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigdurian/2188050654/sizes/o/in/set-72157603736067356/
Passage rites

35. »limen«
Latin: border, threshold

36. Victor Turner
»In liminality people play with the
elements of the familiar and
defamiliarize them. [… I]t is the analysis
of culture into elements and their free
or ludic recombination in any and every
possible pattern.«
from ritual to theatre (1982: 27–8)

37. http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaroncorey/38954571/sizes/o/

38. http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaroncorey/38954571/sizes/o/

39. http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaroncorey/38954571/sizes/o/http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrccos/14440106

40. liminal
premodern
natural rhythms
religious
collective
obligatory
instrumental
reproduces order
improves means
liminoid
modern
decoupled
secular
individual
optional
autotelic
changes order
questions ends

41. Premodern liminal modern liminoid

42. »More specifically, gamification is marketing
bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to
capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and
to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless
wasteland of big business. [...] it takes games – a
mysterious, magical, powerful medium that has
captured the attention of millions of people – and it
makes them accessible in the context of
contemporary business.«
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4294/persuasive_games_shell_games.php
the (old) modern liminoid

43. »Gamification presents the best tools
humanity has ever invented to create and
sustain engagement in people. [...] It’s a
proven approach using breakthroughs in
design and technology to vastly improve
the world as we know it – and deliver the
organizational success you desire.«
the (new) liminal

44. paidia
ludus
(new) liminal
liminoid

45. <3>
the rhetorics
of gamification

46. the rhetoric of feedback

47. Aza Raskin
»The one secret to changing
human behavior?
Feedback loops.«
the behavior change checklist (2011)

48. the rhetoric of nudging

49. the rhetoric of exploitation

50. The rhetorics of status

51. the rhetoric of reinforcement

52. the rhetoric of performance

53. the rhetoric of wellbeing

54. the rhetoric of pleasure

55. the rhetoric of learning systems

56. the rhetoric of expressive systems

57. the rhetoric of cultural form

58. the rhetoric of playfulness

59. <4>
conclusions

60. paidia
ludus
(new) liminal
liminoid
Feedback
Nudging
Reinforcement
Cultural form
Industrial
Playfulness
Expressive
systems
Learning
systems
Status
Exploitation
Performance
Free playfulness
Pleasure
Well-being

61. challenges
of the new liminal

62. Implicit theory of social changeResponsibilization of the self
issue#1

64. When discipline is reinforced,
revolution cannot fail!

65. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-
business/small-painless-behaviour-change

66. Johan Huizinga
»First and foremost,
all play is a voluntary
activity.«
homo ludens (1938/1950: 7)
Cf. Caillois 2001, Suits 2005, Pellegrini 2009, Burghardt 2005
issue
#2

67. Lopez 2011

68. Heeter et al. 2011, Mollick & Rothbard 2013

69. Edward Deci,Richard Ryan
»An understanding of human motivation
requires a consideration of innate
psychological needs for competence,
autonomy, and relatedness.«
the what and why of goal pursuits (2000)

70. challenges
of the liminoid

71. Theodor W.Adorno
»Amusement is the extension of
work in late capitalism. It is sought
out by him who wants to escape
the mechanised process of work
only to become fit for it anew.«
dialectics of enlightenment (1969)
issue#1

73. empowerment and self-determination
issue#2

74. Technologies of the self ...

75. Help me focus

76. Help me meditate

77. …are technologies of control

78. sebastian@codingconduct.cc
@dingstweets
codingconduct.cc
Thank you.

79. A blind spot

80. the rhetoric of fate

82. Jane McGonigal
»Reality doesn’t motivate us effectively.
Reality isn’t engineered to maximise our
potential. Reality wasn’t designed from the
bottom up to make us happy. Reality,
compared to games, is broken.«
reality is broken (2011)

83. »What if we decided to use
everything we know about
game design to fix what’s
wrong with reality?«
Jane McGonigal
reality is broken (2011)

84. Let’s fix this!

85. the ludic fallacy

86. the ludic megalomania

87. the solutionist samsara

88. sebastian@codingconduct.cc
@dingstweets
codingconduct.cc
Thank you.