Continuing on my favourite topic, I thought it pertinent to provide a few reviews of videos relevant to marketers interested in gamification. Before embarking on a gamified campaign construction, it’s important to really understand the underlying mechanics and how they will affect consumers.

Here are 3 of my favourite gamification video presentations from 3 experts in gaming:

1. Jesse Schell: When Games Invade Real Life

In this near half-hour presentation, Jesse Schell (author of The Art of Game Design and owner of Schell Games) discusses the success of current games, especially those on Facebook, as well as the future of gaming and gamification of everyday life.

Schell touches on a number of psychological “tricks” employed by game designers to ensure engagement, including price anchoring, Free-To-Play game designs, financial investment and social competition. He also proposes that games are becoming more embedded and reflective of reality as a result of consumers being so far removed from reality.

Good game design by marketers, Schell argues, can improve reality for everyone by encouraging people to do the right thing (like brushing their teeth, for example, or riding the bus) while building relationships and ensuring repeat business.

2. Seth Pribatsch: The Game Layer on Top of the World

Seth Pribatsch, Chief Ninja at SCVNGR, presents the argument that while the last decade was focused on the building of a social layer on the world, through digital connections like Facebook, this decade is set to be about building a game layer on top of the world. Pribatsch notes that this game layer already exists, in the form of frequent flyer programmes for example, but that it’s a cluttered market that isn’t yet filled with “fun” games.

In his talk, Pribatsch covers four game dynamics that can be used to create fun programmes in a marketing context:

1. Appointment dynamic (eg: Happy hour)
2. Influence and Status (eg: Gold credit cards)
3. Progression dynamic (eg: Providing opportunities to level up)
4. Communal discovery  (eg: Working together to achieve something)

3. Tom Chatfield: 7 Ways Games Reward the Brain

“People spend about $8 billion dollars a year on virtual items,” Tom Chatfield, a game journalist theorist, explains. That’s a pretty telling statistic. And, what’s more, it’s achieved through a system of gameplay that rewards the brain. Chatfield goes on to describe just 7 ways that games reward the brain and how these can be used outside of the game context:

1. Experience bars and progression stats
2. Multiple long and short term aims
3. Rewards for effort
4. Rapid, frequent, clear feedback
5. An element of uncertainty
6. Windows of enhanced attention
7. Other people

If you enjoyed this post, take a look at my posts on Gamification: What, why and where and Gamification: 3 More Mechanics that Drive Behaviour