When I was a kid, I was always liked to play - like most children. I used to make up games with my action figures, set up scenarios around the house and garden and then act them out. I would set little rules up to dictate how the action figures could move and interact with each other and their environments. I never knew how each scenario would play out, but I always knew who would win. It was always the good guys, or Storm Shadow. In that respect, the rules made no real difference, unless they Read more [...] Play, Games, Fun, Imagination and Grown Ups
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When I was a kid, I was always liked to play - like most children. I used to make up games with my action figures, set up scenarios around the house and garden and then act them out. I would set little rules up to dictate how the action figures could move and interact with each other and their environments. I never knew how each scenario would play out, but I always knew who would win. It was always the good guys, or Storm Shadow. In that respect, the rules made no real difference, unless they Read more [...] 
A question I get asked a lot is, “Why does gamification fail?”. Gartner said that by 2014, 80% of gamified systems will fail due to poor design. My question is, what is poor design? I had thought that it was really just implementing “thin layer” points, badges and leader boards to a system that was already not working. Whilst that is true, it actually misses out on some important extra factors.
So, with that in mind, here are some reasons that I feel will contribute to gamification not 
Hello and I hope all of you who celebrate Easter had a good time!
Just a quick note to say that this weeks blog will be a little delayed due to holidays and stuff. It will be about using some off my previous career related Gamification posts to create a potential strategy for employers. I hope!
Until then, you may enjoy some of the conversations that have come up around my posts over at Gamasutra
They are mostly the same as things here, but with a whole different audience!
Don't see 
A couple of weeks ago I put out an article that tried to define the differences between serious games, games and gamification. It was received very well, with a few people even asking for permission to use it in PhD course work.
The work I did was based on researching the "average" definitions of each term and then throwing a little of my own opinion in for good measure and I stand by them. I say this, because depending on how you look at them - I'm wrong, in fact most of us in gamification 
When you consider your career, unless you are a games developer, I am pretty sure Mario does not enter your thoughts all that much. However, this game (as with almost all other games really) can teach us a lot about how we can plan our careers and how businesses really need to reconsider how they handle the careers of its employees. This is not so much gamification as it is learning from games.
Games offer players a lot fo different mechanisms to understand where they are in the game, where 
Last week, some of you may have seen that I created a new page that tried to summarise the differences between gamification, serious games, real games and gameful design.
I posted the following chart to as a quick reference guide.
Anyone who has read my blogs will know that I am a little against the constant arguments about what gamification is and what it isn't, so this may seem a little hypocritical. Here I am defining it after all. Well, things change and whilst I still think that excluding 
2012 draws to and end and so I present a summary of my blogs for the year!
2012 was a heck of a year for my self discovery. I had not realised until now just how many blogs I had written, covering subjects from video games to social media to gamificaiton and Harry Potter. I was also interesting to see that my switch from heavily blogging about Social Media in 2011 to blogging about Gamificaiton was almost total! Not all of it was good, some was plain wrong, but this synopsis of 2012 really shows 
Another great conversation with my friend Scott Sinclair and another batch of inspiration for a blog. This time about why social is really the key to gamification.
Let us look at one of my favourite video games of all time, Batman: Arkham City. Without going into too much detail, you are Batman and you have to uncover a plot to take over Gotham. For me, this is one of the most complete single player experiences I have ever had.
How Does a Game Progress?
The way the game works is exactly what 
Let me expand on this.
A discussion started on twitter when I mentioned in passing to a couple of gamification people, that really gamification is often a benign form of manipulation. It became an interesting chat, fast. I suppose I expected that! However, when you look at the definition of manipulation in the Oxford English Dictionary you get these two definitions
handle or control (a tool, mechanism, information, etc.) in a skilful manner
control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly