The Truth About Gamification: The Ugly, the Bad and the Good
The Truth About Gamification: The Ugly, the Bad and the Good
The Truth About Gamification: The Ugly, the Bad and the Good
By Andrzej Marczewski
October 13, 2021
Summary
Some tried to continue to carry the torch, and still do, but many fell to the side - either jumping to the next exciting technology in the hype cycle, or moving on to other interests naturally.
In 2021, what is the real truth of gamification now? Well, let's see if I can't get some discussion going by offering a few of my truths! The Ugly The worst thing about gamification in 2021, is that people still don't understand what it actually is.
With many experts disagreeing amongst themselves what it should be - so of course the wider public have no idea! Hot on the heals of that, is the number of people still selling "Quick win" solutions and "Magic bullets" off the back of the word gamification.
More often than not, when you scratch the surface you discover that what that really meant was when they had no users engaged, they now had 4 engaged! Another issue is that there is still so little hard evidence of what works and what doesn't work.
We all still work off case studies from 2013 with very few new public case studies getting quoted in presentations.
Which brings us to The Good Whilst there may not be much data on what does and doesn't work from a mechanics and implementation perspective, there is plenty of data that proves gamification and serious games work in everything from employee engagement to healthcare and beyond.
Seeing my work being used to help with such serious topics, rather than just to make companies more money, made me smile for days! Gamification is still here, this is good, it means that it is still in with a chance of maturing, with the pretenders and gold rushers dropping off and the real experts still slogging away.
Reference
Marczewski, A. (2021, October 13). The truth about gamification: The ugly, the bad and the good. Retrieved December 02, 2021, from https://www.gamified.uk/2021/10/13/the-truth-about-gamification-the-ugly-the-bad-and-the-good/