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The problem with gamification of education, for the environment and most other things is that everything is isolated and players don't care much about their Achievements because it's not connected to something larger they care about. How would you solve this problem and gamify life in a meaningful and realistic way? |
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This is the mother of all gamification questions. I've started doing this in my own life recently. I'm developing a pencil and paper RPG where I play myself in the game of Real Life. I started by creating a character.
I will update The Game later with attributes, monsters, allies, NPCs and the all important HUD (aka the feedback system). With the flexibility of the RPG concept of quests, the player can adapt The Game to any goal (lose weight, quit smoking, environment-friendly lifestyle, education, etc.). Game on! GM, I admire this RPG framwork because you incorporate existing productivity web sites. My friend Mallika Chopra runs a website called Intent.com that's similar to the Dignity Game. Re BigHugeLabs, I often use their Mosaic Maker on my blog (www.textislepatchworkblog.com), because I take a lot of crappy iphone photos of my recipes. When I combine the crappy photos into mosaics, they make better images, at least at the blog entry level. |
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I was going to wait before sharing this with you but... Here you are asking (and I already noticed that you had the domain gamifylife.com :) ). I've been consciously working on the solution to this questions for over 3 years, but probably much longer than that. Here's my answer: First, people need to define the "levels" (goals) of the game. We already have websites like 43things but... they're lacking something. Here's my process for defining goals/levels (straight from Brian Tracy). Write (at least) 10 goals you want to complete within a year. Now, of all the goals listed, which goal would have the greatest positive impact on your life? Circle that and brainstorm how you can accomplish that goal. Now you have a "level" and "stages" (steps) for your personal game of life. Now what you need is a community of people all working on that same process (but maybe not on the same goals, when the community is large enough you'll have symmetry). You get points for helping people get closer to accomplishing their goal. Also, within this community, people have a wall of life achievements and things they're skilled at. The achievements and skills helps the system use an algorithm to match people up (or, before that, makes it easier for people to search ;) ). Points within the system are used like a currency as well. I would keep the system invite only and people would have to use points they earned helping others to invite more people into the system as an investment of sorts. If the person performed well, they would get their investment back (and some), if not, they would have just lost those points. I think it's also important to combine this system with offline interactions (meetings, phone calls, etc.) Once you have the community and system in place, you can have challenges between friends or people on the system (push up challenges, weight loss challenges, etc.) I JUST setup a "mock" system using Elgg 2 days ago... :) What you call Gamify Life, I call it Pwning Life (gamers understand that instantly). To relate that to education, the environment, etc. The ONLY education a person really needs (beyond basics) is that goal setting skill. Once a person has a clear understanding of what they want and what they need to do to get it (and a burning desire to make it happen), they'll learn WHATEVER they need to learn to accomplish their desired goal (if the goal is truly what they desire). As to the environment (or anything else) if there is a organized group (tribe) of individuals that passionately share the same goal, what they accomplish will be increased exponentially working together in concert. Early stage goals people have will be similar (figuring out your career, money, relationships, spirituality, etc.) but as a person progresses through The Game (of life) their goals will change (solving social issues, teaching, politics, etc.) People who have been in the system longer will be able to help the n00bs. I also plan on this being a fee based service. Perhaps once a person is invited (or people under 18) it's free, but if they can't afford it... BOOM! There's the first quest you need to complete. :D Earning enough money to stay a part of the community. ;) One last thing. I believe it needs to stay really intimate. It shouldn't be like Facbeook where a person has 500+ friends. 20 friends would be a lot, because you should intimately know these people and be genuinely interested in seeing them accomplish their goals. The stronger each individual in the network, the stronger the network. Here's my line, what more powerful, a network of 700 million people virtual farming, or a network or 700,000 people (or even 700) exponentially DOMINATING life? I could talk about this all day. It's all I think about. :) |
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It seems we are all seeing the same structure of how the game would work. At the end we have seen it work on games like WoW or Oblivion. The question is... How would you track the progress for activities that involve creativity or innovation or even interactions with people outside of the game? I think the main problem in real life is that, in general, people are not sure if what they are doing is right so they lose motivation. In games you know that what you are doing is right because the game gives you a feedback that confirms you are doing fine, and you know the game is designed to be beaten. A game must offer a guarantee of success if the rules are followed. If, lets say I choose a crazy entrepreneurial project as a goal to play the game (miltownkid structure); a crazy idea against the odds, which could be achievable or could be an over optimistic goal. The game wouldn’t be able to offer guarantee of success. The only way I see it could work would be giving people a structure of rules within the arena they want to play. Example: I want to start a cosmetics for Women Empire. Then the game would offer quests and tests related to that arena but regulated by certain rules and suggestions to offer a guarantee of success that would motivate players. This would put too much pressure on the game as there would be infinite goals and arenas to play in, and also lots of tracking systems to gather progress information. Another option would be for The game offering general predesigned goals (business success, sports success, everyday survival, superstardoom) with a series of competitions, tasks and quests already build with a series of rules so it would have some degree of control over the information and progress. This would be essential to offer live feedback to the players, which is the essential fix of real world (this would work like tv shows that selects and builds talent, offering games which are already organized with rules and boundaries ex: the apprentice, x factor). I’m trying to come out with solutions to these questions all the time, as It will happen someday. I live in London if anyone is interested in brainstorming about this more often and coming out with solutions, let me know. @ShehataNation First, no game guarantees success (I mean, unless it's some kids game for the Wii). You "know" you can be successful, but it depends on the game and definition of success (ie. beating the game on the hardest setting, or being the best WoW player on earth). You might know what you need to do (practice, practice, practice!) but there's no guarantee. Second, "crazy" ideas against the odds would "normalize." The "Cosmetics for Women Empire" wouldn't fit into the 12 month time frame, plus there are even basics for the "crazy" goals (network, creating a personal mastermind group, etc.) |
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Hey Nathan, I'm going to throw my two cents on part of this question that you brought up: education. Education differs between countries and even between the levels of education, (e.g., high school, vs Bachelors vs Masters, etc.). It also depends on what values a person grew up with. For example, did their parents teach them that education is important, or was it just this "thing" that you had to do? I always took school seriously and always considered my report card my "score," however, my Masters program was less about "score" and more about getting things done, dissolving the walls between school and real life, thus schools would need to choose to participate in this game if it were made. Thus, we would need to get agreement to play from a variety of people:
This kind of shift is not taken lightly. It's going to be 20-30 years until gaming on this scale is fully accepted as there are some families out there that don't even game. I would recommend doing this on a very small group of schools first, and maybe only in grades K-6. If grades WERE converted to some sort of public score, I'm concerned about class hierarchy (cliques) and other things. We have enough of those in schools already. If you are serious in looking at converting the traditional learning experience into a game, I'll point you to Florida Virtual School's "Conspiracy Code" game. This is more of a private player experience and not a public display of score. A scope for education would need to be defined before we could continue this discussion. A single class example is posted above. Once a scope is defined, we can continue the discussion. It's late and I'm rambling. :-P |
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hi Nathan, virtual worlds how SecondLife or Opensim Grids are great places, where many education projects are running already. Also the Global Kids' Online Leadership Program dos give a lot of ideas to this theme. Greetings Tesira |
