One of the happiest states your brain can be in is a psychological state called “flow.” It’s when you’re engaging a series of challenges that are neither too hard nor too easy and scale to keep you challenged. The idea isn’t new; J.R.R. Tolkien thought heaven would be a lot like a video game.

Flow is critical to good gaming and without it video games don’t have much of a point. Video games are unique in that they exist only to keep your brain in this happy state of rewarding difficulty. If only other things in life were more like video games….

Or maybe they are.

Currently, I’m teaching myself German on duolingo.com, a free online language learning website. Duolingo’s aim is to translate the internet by offering people a powerful language learning tool for Deutsch, Francais or Español! It’s a heavily “gamified” product with a vertical progression skill, coins earned for lessons learned and even hearts!  That’s right, three hearts and you lose one for messed up translations. Lose your all your hearts and you have to try again. Sound familiar?  Did you like that link?

So what is Gamification?  It’s a process that has started popping up everywhere.  Like duolingo, it’s any occasion when principles learned in video games are used to make other other activities more engaging and feel more rewarding.

A more specific definition would be that gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-gaming systems to improve user experience and encourage engagement. To gamify any activity is to attempt to make it into a habit, even an addiction.

Gartner Inc., a company specializing in IT research and advice,  has identified four principal means of driving engagement using gamification techniques:

1. Accelerated feedback cycles: Gamification increases the velocity of feedback loops to maintain engagement.

2. Clear goals and rules of play: Gamification provides clear goals and well-defined rules of play to ensure players feel empowered to achieve goals.

3. A compelling narrative: Gamification builds a narrative that engages players to participate and achieve the goals of the activity.

4. Tasks that are challenging but achievable: Gamification provides many short-term, achievable goals to maintain engagement.

Sounds just like Skyrim to me.

Recently, many high tech businesses have started buying up start ups that specialize in gamification and so far there has been some notable success on the market. 

The idea has a lot of potential. Maybe gamification could make filling out your taxes an enjoyable past time! Or maybe it will be used by hyper competitive high-techs as a gimmick, a fad, then fade away like a gasoline fire.

Is gamification just a firework strategy? A big bright explosion swallowed by the night?

My question to everyone is in what settings or programs or areas have you seen gamification occur?  Did it make the experience more enjoyable or productive? Have you started using any gamified products like Nike+ or Foursquare?

Tags: duolingo, flow, Gamification, gamify, Legend of Zelda, Link, technology, Tolkien, video games