From this week’s reading, I’d like to respond to Artful Design Principle 6.19, Chapter 6, which proposes:
Design for two levels of gamification:
- Peripheral: built around the main experience or interaction
- Core: the primary interaction and experience, core mechanic & resulting gameplay & dynamics
As a game designer, this principle stood out to me because I have always had questions about the role of gamification in fields outside of the entertainment industry. For example, games like Minecraft have been adapted for educational purposes, such as to teach kids about creativity and science.
This principle makes me wonder if gamification is an effective way to motivate and engage individuals. Does it risk trivializing important tasks and goals by turning them into games? Does gamification truly enhance the learning experience? Or does it primarily serve as a superficial, short-term motivator that may not lead to meaningful, long-lasting engagement?
Gamification can be seen as a form of behavioral manipulation, linking behavior-based rewards to real-world outcomes. The core of the game represents the behavioral loops and arcs that a player encounters in the magic circle of gameplay. The peripheral would include both the interactions that players have in game, but also the real world environment that impacts the player’s status and abilities.
For example, if a company overly gamifies its employees’ tasks, it may lead to a focus on earning points rather than the quality of work, potentially trivializing important job responsibilities. The peripheral encompasses the impact on the employees’ real-world job performance.
Or gamification that overly simplifies medical information or self-diagnosis could trivialize health concerns and lead to misinformed decisions.
The gambling industry heavily relies on gamification to create addictive experiences, which has ethical implications related to addiction.
Overall, these examples demonstrate how the core and peripheral aspects of gamification affect both the primary experience and real-world consequences of its user. There may be ethical concerns around using game mechanics to influence behavior due to this interplay between the player’s reality and the game space. There is also a potential risk of trivialization, as gamification might oversimplify or reduce complex tasks to point-scoring. It’s important to strike a balance between making tasks enjoyable and not undermining their intrinsic value.
