This document summarizes a presentation about good and bad gamification. It discusses examples like Foursquare, Waze, Google News badges, and Ribbon Hero 2. Some key points made are: - Gamification works best when applied to problems that are highly relevant to motivate users. - Elements like goals, progression, badges, and points systems can engage users if implemented well. - Gamification may feel unnecessary or "over gamified" if not integrated thoughtfully into the user experience. - Fun comes from the overall approach, not just game mechanics. Creativity is important for good gamification.

1. Usable Gamification
Do and Don’t Do in Gamification
December 2011

2. About Me
Founder of Jivy Group, Playful
Shark & Ludus
Advisor & Mentor for startups
Teacher: Beit Berl, HIT
PhD student: STS @ Bar Ilan
Blog: www.dudipeles.com
Mail: dudipeles@gmail.com

3. The next 40 minutes
What makes
Things Good or Good and Bad
Bad Gamification
Gamification Questions

4. What makes a game good or bad?

5. What makes a game good or bad?
A good game is Fun

6. In good games Just from the look of it
You know what to do
A Fun game is usually Usable

7. What makes an OS good or bad?

8. A good OS works
Some would say it must be Usable
I would argue it must be Fun as well

9. What makes apps good or bad?

10. Same goes for web sites and apps

11. First make it work
Then make it Usable
Only then make it Fun

12. Gamification
The concept that you can apply the
basic elements that make games
fun and engaging to things that
typically aren't considered fun

13. Why do we need to make things fun?
• Emotional connection with site / product
• Fun allows learning
• Fun creates a positive attitude
• Just because its fun

14. If you know how, you can turn
anything in to fun
Fun and theme are not correlated
(Game based marketing - Gabe Zichermann)

15. Good and Bad Gamification
Important: the analysis presented
here is only my opinion, feel free to
agree or disagree

16. Foursquare
10M users, last round evaluation $600M

17. The Good a nd The Bad
• Super relevant • Very easy to cheat
problem to gamify –
Added motivation to
check-in.
• Mayor concept
• Great Badges System
• Great Point System

18. Waze

19. The Good a nd The Bad
• Super relevant • Gamification feels
problem to gamify – like “nice to have”
Added motivation to • Point System unclear
use, and report • No “social game”
• Baby concept (groups isn't fun)
• Progression • No clear goals

22. The Good a nd The Bad
• Great Graphics • Over Gamified
• Full RPG Progression • Relevant manly for
• Collection gamers
• Goals management • Even easier to cheat
• No “social game”

23. Google News Badges

27. The Good a nd The Bad
• Great badges system • No relevant problem
• Nice Video to gamify

28. Ribbon Hero 2

29. The Good a nd The Bad
• Facing one of the • Can be perceived as
biggest problem of all: a educational game,
Teaching users to use and not a gamification
a program application
• great approach
• great integration
with product
• Nice Video

30. Conclusion
• Sometimes Microsoft does it good and Google
doesn’t
• Gamification is good for certain types of
problems
• Creativity and new concepts makes good
games and good gamification experiences
• Fun is not only game mechanics it’s the whole
approach
• Too gamified can be bad

31. Interesting… What now?
• Learn more about game design and
Gamifiaction (links at the end of the
presentation)
• Use professional game designers to help you
design user experience
– There are tens of private game design studios in
Israel
– Each year 30 game designers finish training, hire
one

32. More about Gamification
http://gamification.co/ http://gamification.org/wiki/Encyclopedia

33. Books

34. Videos

35. Thank you
For more detail see:
www.dudipeles.com
www.playfulshark.com
www.jivygroup.com
Or just send a mail to:
dudipeles@gmail.com