June 9, 2012

Chess and Gamification

#3 in "Gamification Chess", #1 in Amusing Chess Pictures

Say what you will about will about IE students, but we do not rest on our laurels.  Upon seeing that we were #3 in the Google Rankings for "Gamification Chess", we decided that we would not stop writing about the subject until we are #1.  You've been put on notice Game Craft.

Anyways, while I am hoping this post isn't too esoteric, the fact is that studying the game of chess has historically been a rather dull activity.  While this may seem odd given that you're studying for a game, the fact is true.  The tried-and-true method has always been to study the games of former masters, while at the same time delving deep into books upon books of theory.  I can honestly say that after the 20th book discussing the benefits of 2... exf4*, I nearly gave up on the game out of boredom.


However, thankfully the chess community developed ways to gamify learning about the game.  Using elements of gamification, Conventka offered software to make the study of tactics interesting.  Building on this and on the concept of collective intelligence, Chessgames.com has gamified the study of chess even further... by implementing a ranking system as well as puzzles everyday for its members.  Similarly, it has provided a social platform that enhances gamification so that studying games and tactics is no longer a monotonous activity.

As a user of the aforementioned systems, I can honestly say that it has kept me in the game much longer than I would've been without said services.  If it can maintain my interest in chess, imagine what it can do for society as a whole.

* +10 points to whoever can tell me what this basic opening is in the comments

June 7, 2012

Fly to San Francisco with GAMEON!

The GSummit SF 2012



The 3rd gamification summit is taking place in San Francisco this year. G-summit 2012 is the only global event that gathers Gamification leaders & fans in one space. Leaders are the pioneering firms that provide a platform to gamify your web (such as Bunchball), as well as companies in various industries that have adopted the concept of gamification and are making the most out of it (such as health & education). Fans are those that have interest in this field, support it, but are still not convinced in the returns from spending $ to install it in their business.



This year’s summit is taking place from the 19th till the 22nd of June 2012. If you don’t have the time to fly over to SF to personally attend it, or maybe you cannot afford it, GAMEON will fly you there. We will be covering all the events taking place on the days of the summit, and making our best to communicate with presenters and organizers to get updated on the hottest and most up to date topics in Gamification.

The video below is a GSummit 2011 Recap, may give you an idea of what to expect in the 2012 summit:


Event information:

This year’s summit will feature various speakers, interactive ideation sessions, and workshops. Out of the 3 summit days, 2 will be dedicated to conferences, and 1 full day will be dedicated to a workshop.

A glance on the program

Guest speakers will be from companies such as ORACLE, SAP, SALESFORCE … the keynote, will be addressed by JP Rangaswami & Dave Anderson, the first being the Chief Scientist at Salesforce.com, and the second the director of MileagePlus at United Airlines. The audience will enjoy several success stories and experience the best practices that drive engagement among the various sectors of branding, finance, publishing, and health … attendees will also take part in the social networking event, where they will have the chance to share their thoughts and ideas with visionaries, authors and experts in the field. Last but not least, you will have the chance to participate in a hands-on gamification workshop on day 3. To know more on registration, kindly check the table below.


STAY TUNED on GAMEON, WE WILL UPDATE YOU DAILY ON THE HIGHLIGHTS OF the SF 2102 GSUMMIT.


 Sources: www.eventbrite.com, http://fora.tv/conference/gamification_summit_2012, www.youtube.com

June 5, 2012

Gamification in the Social Media

Foto do perfilEven if you're not an expert in games or social media, you might have seen such names as FarmVille, FourSquare or Nike plus. These are all examples of games that utilizes social media as a "scoreboard" for the progress of players in each game. So how is this different from the old loyalty games so normally utilized by airlines and hotels. In these social games there are no real financial reward. Of course using foursquare you can obtain access to some special discount, but that is not the main goal of the game.
So, what is attracting players to these social games? What researchers have found out is that there is another kind of reward system that players value more than the common financial reward. What researchers such as Dan Pink found out was, that in most cases people would be happier with recognition than with actual financial reward. In other words people were looking for status.


So, what better place to display your status or performance in a game than in your social application such as Facebook. Its a way of making it public! Not long ago, a player needed to go to the arcade to see what were the highest scoring players in each machine, but now everything is informed through social media.
What game developers, such as Zynga (creator of FarmVille and CityVille) realized was that this information could be very useful in developing a game. If we analyze FarmVille, there is actual no money output. No actual financial return for players. You can put money in the game, but there is no way to obtain any actual financial return. All the player can achieve is virtual reward and display that award to his friends. By analyzing the success of these games, we can assume that there is really something else that these players are looking for, and it is not money.