As the Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2013 draws to a close today, myself and Lee found ourselves at Dundee College's Gardyne Campus for the second-annual Learning Through Gaming event. Attended by personnel from the Scottish gaming and education (all levels represented) sectors, this proved to be a highly worthwhile array of presentations in regards to how games can be used to teach learners in multiple disciplines. However, what I did notice was the recurring term that many people love to use and give meaning to, but not a term I necessarily agree with. That term is "gamification".
I am a firm believer that games should be in education, and for those who attended and witnessed the passion that Chris van der Kuyl, CEO of brightsolid and Chairman of 4J Studios, expressed for this area, I share that enthusiasm. Games are a great tool for assisting in the learning process in education: they provide collaborative and creative engagement with the learner in a way that traditional classroom methods (reading lengthy books) cannot match.
But do we have to define the transition of including games into education as "gamification"?
Gamification is a hotly-debated topic in the games industry. With individuals trying to pen a universal definition for the term, it leads me to wonder whether the meaning of gamification will be lost. Many can agree that gamification is the implementation and use of game-like elements in an environment not originally built for games. Take, for example, the classroom. My time at school was spent predominantly with my head in a book, expected to read screeds and screeds of text in order to understand a small aspect of the course. I was never the strongest reader, nor did I find it enjoyable (I actually blame school for my lack of ambition to read). But putting a game - or some form of interactivity - in place of the book (rather than reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I would much have preferred having Digital Adaptations' The 39 Steps) can help to explain the term "gamification" a bit better. Well, that's as far as I'll go to try and defining it.
I would question these people who try to define gamification: why do we need a definition? Gamification sets out to achieve an intrinsic motivation in the individual playing the game. When placed in a classroom, it is intended for the game to provide the "edutainment" value that will see the learner want to play more - not because they want to play the game, but because they want to learn more about the designed subject matter.
But wouldn't defining "gamification" constrict the effect it's trying to achieve? Derek Robertson of Education Scotland (another speaker from the Learning Through Gaming event) argued that when we name things, we try to give it a meaning and run the danger of achieving a "plateau" effect. This is what I fear can happen if we try too much to define "gamification". We construct a restrictive environment based on rules and regulations that must be conformed to in order to achieve the "desired effect" of gamification. For a technique designed for intrinsic motivation, we should approach developments in this field intrinsically: not feel forced or restrictive in design.
To me, meanings can become meaningless very quickly, especially if they don't need to exist, and that is where I personally stand with gamification. It shouldn't need to be defined: any development of gamification should be accepted for what it is and not what it should be. I feel that this is an area I'd like to look into further, and my research can begin with similar enthusiasm shown by Kuyl and Robertson.
I would like to note also that I plan to follow this article up with some more definitive piece of research. But that's for another day!
What is your position on the topic of gamification? Should it have a universal definition? If so, what should it be?
Andrew Reid
Managing Director
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