Gamification vs. Serious Gaming

Hi Riannedh,

I'm founder & CEO of engaginglab, a german company that researchs and develops 'game-design thinking' architecture.

You're correct saying that (almost) everybody says something different. Often it's the same between game-dynamics and game-mechanics.

For our customers we have these definitions (but sometimes we are also confused ;-) ):

Gamification describes the whole idea of applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.

We are using the phrase 'serious game' for activities where 'serious content (real-wordl problems) are being put into a game to make it more easy to understand and more enjoyable to solve. For example: fold.it.

Here in germany we are often facing the problem that Games are being equalized with 'being shady' in the context of productivity or work. Because of this we are using the phrase 'motivational design' when talking with businesses instead of gamification.

For me there are two (main)approaches of gamification:

Serious games: Building serious content into a game --> this approach allows us to bring complex context into playfully understandable rules and goals. The purpose of this approach is to enable everyone to solve complex questions through simplistic games.

Motivational Design: Bringing ‘game-design thinking’ to the real world --> enabling people to tap into and harvest their intrinsic motivation by constructing a ‘game layer’ to improve workload completion. Essentially, putting fun into everyday activities.

Hope that this explanation helps a little bit :-) But because of our research we are adjusting the definition permanently.

Bye, romrack