Selected productions Serious Games Interactive © Serious Games: Press start to play Now is Digital, 15th June ‘11 Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, PhD CEO, founder Serious Games Interactive Gamification

My Background MA Psychology PhD Games & learning Mixing industry & research European Research projects: SIREN, PlayMancer, Vistra & GaLa Computer games Global Conflicts-series Playing History-series +20 games for clients

 Serious Games Interactive (SGI) was founded in 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Covered in most major news outlets and won numerous awards.  Develop serious games that combines playing, learning, communication and story-telling.  We are a cross-disciplinary team of 18 people with strong roots in research.  Range of different client: Amnesty, Unicef, Kaplan, WWF, The Danish National Museum, World bank, LEGO and European Schoolnet. Company background

What is serious games… ”A solution that use game mechanics and game technology for more than entertainment"

What is gamification… ”Integrating game dynamics into a site, service, activity, community, content or campaign, in order to encourage a certain behavior, attitude or skill."

What this is about…

Serious games VS gamification Serious games are about developing new, finite and unique solutions based on game mechanics VS. Gamification about developing new structures and incentives around existing experience.

Serious games VS gamification Product vs. meta Ex.: School - Learning games vs. incentive activity structures Ex.: Health - Rehabilitation game vs. weight-loss app Ex. Corporations - Onboarding game vs. customer service tool

Agenda Why games matters? Why gamification now? What is gamification Who have done this? How to get started?

Game industry growing fast… EUR 15bnEUR 30bn EUR 75bn 2010

We invest 3 Billion hours every week in playing games Everyone…

Source: Mr. Toledano

Agenda Why games matters? Why gamification now? What is gamification Who have done this? How to get started?

The attention economy Gamification signals a greater shift… Fight for attention & relevance Need for engaged users Need for user permissions Getting more creative in user interaction

The pre-history of gamification Cash incentives 1900s2000s1980s1930s Coupon codes Loyalty systems Virtual rewards

Cost and status Source: Gabe Zichermann Value Cost

The power of computers… Read… Listen… View Representation – we can really only ‘show’ things Simulation – We can represent, track, interact and manipulate Doing & experiencing

Why gamification now? Digitalization & Virtualization constantly increasing. Tracking, feedback and reward structures easy to embed. Games are increasingly becoming omnipresent

Agenda Why games matters? Why gamification now? What is gamification Who have done this? How to get started?

What is gamification… ”Integrating game dynamics into a site, service, community, content or campaign, in order to encourage a certain behavior, attitude or skill."

Haven’t we seen this before? Cybernetics Behavioural economics Control theory Behavioural theories Behaviour change Game theory Sociology Psychology

How gamification can work “A game is a pastime with formal and predefined set of rules for the progression of a game session, with built-in and quantitative definitions of success and failure.” - Jesper Juul Active Challenge Win condition Rewards AchievementSocial status

The key rewards (they overlap)… Status Access Power Stuff The most effective reward and it cost designers nothing. Taps into social nature of people. Powerful for progressing people and support status. Eg. VIP access to special areas or voting. Effective incentive comes in many shapes like kicking people, voting for changes etc. Both be virtual and material. Both can free or costly. Probably the least effective incentive.

How gamification work Experience systems Short- and long- term goals Rapid, frequent feedback Other people Rewards for effort Uncertainty Source: Tom Chatfield [2010]

When it works… Flow Meaningful Relevant

Pitfalls Everyone = no-one? It’s difficult to engage everyone - women, elderly, hip-hopper, casual, hardcore etc. Pseudo victory: Rewards are not achievements - it needs to be meaningful. Not just 'badgification or pointification'. Participation bandwidth: Need to be interesting and engaging enough to draw people away from something else. Unintended consequences: When you engineer behaviors you may make mistakes that leads to unforeseen results. Undermining intrinsic values: By providing external rewards for something that should be intrinsic you risk undermining inner drive.

Agenda Why games matters? Why gamification now? What is gamification Who have done this? How to get started?

Case: Eksperten.dk

Case: British American Tobacco

Case: Ribbon Hero 4 months after release Downloads Challenges played Microsoft Office seen as innovative, interesting and cool. Source: Microsoft Office Lab through Gabe Zichermann

Case: Speeding control

Case: Nike+

Case: Farmville

Case: Car dash boards

Agenda Why games matters? Why gamification now? What is gamification Who have done this? How to get started?

First steps… Identify your target behavior change Create game challenges around those targets Create good feedback loops for rewarding right behavior Create status/achievement system for recognizing winners A creative process that requires understanding users, games and business..

It appears to be working We have always been doing this But its more triggy than it appears Now we have identified it’s more powerful. Bring the engagement to the product – not the other way around The Wrap-up

Contact details Serious Games Interactive Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen