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Ed Webb

Ian Bogost - Gamification is Bullshit - 4 views

www.bogost.com/...gamification_is_bullshit.shtml

gamification bullshit games gaming bogost

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • 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, where bullshit already reigns anyway
  • The title of this symposium shorthands these points for me: the slogan "For the Win," accompanied by a turgid budgetary arrow and a tumescent rocket, suggesting the inevitable priapism this powerful pill will bring about—a Viagra for engagement dysfunction, engorgement guaranteed for up to one fiscal quarter.
  • I realize that using games earnestly would mean changing the very operation of most businesses. For those whose goal is to clock out at 5pm having matched the strategy and performance of your competitors, I understand that mediocrity's lips are seductive because they are willing.
  • Ed Webb on 08 Aug 11
     
    via Kirk Battle on Buzz
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Brett Boessen on 09 Aug 11
     
    Bogost seems to be getting more and more irritated by the gamification pseudo-movement. His response to McGonigal's book was contrary but professional. The exploitationware piece was critical and pointed, but I thought still civil. This is...angry. And that really comes through in his comment to the gamify.com guy's post. I'm mostly in agreement on the substance of his objections to much of gamification. But I wonder why this movement toward such vehemence? Do you suppose he's now fielding more annoying offers to help design game-like systems? Is Cow Clicker kindof backfiring, leading people to him as a designer instead of away from him? I don't know. But he sure is pissed, that's clear.
  • Ed Webb on 09 Aug 11
     
    I have no inside knowledge. But I suspect his irritation increases in proportion to the hype. The tone here is caustic, but the content is on the money. If you agree with him, and if you love games and their potential, you can understand the rage, I think.
  • Brett Boessen on 09 Aug 11
     
    I don't know -- rage, really? Isn't the "games vs. gamification" tack ultimately more of a both/and thing than a conflict? I'm not sure why having gamification exist necessarily entails an undermining of what games are. I suppose there's the question of educating non-gamers on the great potential of actual games, and perhaps policing a boundary between the two concepts. But just as I don't really want the local police to become enraged when I cross a line, I find this kind of response (and again, I've seen Bogost do it far better and with greater restraint elsewhere) off-putting to say the least. One comment on his post referred to Bogost's "war" against gamification; I'm just not sure that's the most productive approach to addressing its rise.
Ed Webb

Excessive internet use linked to depression, research shows | Technology | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...essive-internet-use-depression

internet addiction socialmedia bullshit idiocy

shared by Ed Webb on 04 Feb 10 - Cached
  • a small proportion of internet users were classed as internet addicts and that people in this group were more likely to be depressed than non-addicted users.
  • The mean age of the 18 internet addicts, 13 of whom were male and five female, was 18.3 years.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 04 Feb 10
       
      They found 18 adolescents who are somewhat depressed? Astounding!
  • Ed Webb on 04 Feb 10
     
    I call bullshit. Yes, you heard me - bullshit.
Ed Webb

All the World's a Game, and Business Is a Player - NYTimes.com - 5 views

www.nytimes.com/...-and-business-is-a-player.html

gamification bullshit

shared by Ed Webb on 24 Dec 12 - No Cached
Erik Hanson liked it
  • Bryan Alexander on 03 Jan 13
     
    Interesting. No mention of Jane McGonigal. The badges were cute.
Brett Boessen

The "Rattomorphism" of Gamification | Critical Gaming Project - 3 views

depts.washington.edu/...-rattomorphism-of-gamification

games design production consumption theory criticism

shared by Brett Boessen on 21 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • the revelation born out in long term studies is that ultimately it backfires. Over time, people engaged in activities that are structured by and sustained through operant conditioning grow to resent or hate those activities, and their creativity in approach as well as their productivity declines.
  • Ian Bogost has done an excellent job identifying gamification rhetoric as bullshit, and suggesting many of its products are exploitationware. In light of Kohn’s work we are compelled to add that the logic of gamification is the logic of corrosion
  • If the goal is to get users to simply DO something, then the logic of gamification may not read as corrosive – just effective
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • But if quality of action, emotional engagement, and development over time matter at all, we should be concerned about the corrosive conditioning the techniques of gamification entail
  • The problem is that there is no such thing as a “game layer,” if we understand “game” to mean something more than an assemblage of techniques we find in games
  • What we are really talking about here is more like a “reward layer,” or more abstractly, an activity “feedback layer” that draws its inspiration from techniques associated with games, and thus evokes expectations of gameplay
  • Erik Hanson on 23 Nov 11
     
    The final bit is what I said to Bogost when he was in town earlier this year, shortly after his post in the link. If there's an upshot to "gamification" as a movement and idea, it's that our feedback systems are woefully underdesigned. Not everything needs to be made "fun," but clear goals and feedback could make a lot of things less un-fun.
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