Talk:Gamification

Per the Manual of style and external links guideline, we're not supposed to use internal inline links to external websites in the body of the article, e.g. [http://www.bigdoor.com BigDoor] (which looks like BigDoor). I'm removing a number of those. Also, linking to too many individual companies at the bottom in the "external links" section is disfavored, especially if there are a whole bunch of them or if those companies are only mentioned in passing. We could have a "see also" section or a "list of companies" section here, but Wikipedia strongly favors that any such list be limited to wikilinks to notable companies that have their own article, or at least companies whose existence and status as a gamification company (extant or defunct) can be verified to a reliable source. Unfortuately that leaves out a bunch of companies that just aren't notable or haven't been written about much yet.

I don't have the exact guideline page for that but it's sometimes considered WP:LINKSPAM even if you're not promoting your own site. A couple years ago Wikipedia added the flag for Google not to count these links towards search rankings, so it doesn't help there, it just creates a small amount of traffic. Beyond the concern with it looking too commercial rather than encyclopedic ( Also, there's a passage in WP:NOT that Wikipedia is not a collection of links. The best explanation is that it's very hard to keep a complete, current list of something like this, and very hard to verify the accuracy and suitability of the list given the nature of the project. Better not to have lists of links than to do them poorly. Instead, if we can find an page somewhere that contains a list and links to gamification resources, ideally an authoritative noncommercial one like a page belonging to a gamification trade association, it's best to include that single link in the external links section of this article. Then interested readers can go that external site to see the list. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:50, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

For reference, and to avoid losing the info, here are some links:

• UserInfuser
• BigDoor
• CloudCaptive
• Seriosity

Per WP:PRESERVE and also Wikipedia:EL#Official_links, I've restored the external links as references where those sites are mentioned in the text, as primary sources for themselves. Without them some content was left without any source at all. I believe this content in an encyclopedic section called Gamification#Companies_and_organizations does not violate WP:LINKSPAM. Diego Moya (talk) 14:58, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for thinking of it. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

For my Itec 544 class we were instructed to research and suggest changes to the Gamification Wiki. Here is a two page report that I would like to add. Please give feedback if you think this would be a nice addition or not.

The Gamification article (2012) has been up for deletion in the past, so, that in itself should give off a sense of the problems with this article. The main thing to improve on the Gamification article is to boost the support for the article by improving the definition and the quality of the article as a whole. A link to gamification.org would allow the user to not only have access to that website, but also to plenty of other resources from books to articles to learning modules that include gamification. The definition of gamification is the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging (Gamify Network, 2012). The definition on the page is correct, but it lacks support in the references because the resources are mostly unreliable and linked to points made later in the article. Quality could also be linked to not having enough information on the advantages of the idea of gamification, which will be improved vastly by the Belsky (2012) article. Belsky (2012) summarizes by saying that gamification takes advantage of the basic human need to compete, it makes learning easier and more engaging (especially with the use of technology), and keeping boredom out of work by looking at the success of fantasy football (Belsky 2012). The process of how gamification works is clearly outlined by Raymer (2011) in his eLearn Magazine article. He explains the definition and gives examples of how a program should be set up, from a typical flow chart of how games work to setting goals and objectives to providing feedback to offering rewards and incentives for completing a goal or objective (Raymer, 2011).

I noticed that Charles Coonradt which is considered the grandfather of Gamification is not even mentioned on the gamification wiki. I find this a bit disturbing since he published a book about Gamification in 1984 called “The Game of Work”. Now it is a growing trend that is implemented into many things around us whether we notice or not. According to Ken Krogue (2012), Charles also founded The Game of Work to answer to answer the charge that the U.S. productivity was not world class. What Charles discovered was that people who considered work drudgery were often the first ones to leave right at 5 p.m. These individuals also were ones who would spend incredible amounts of time and money on hobbies or sports like Skiing and Golfing. He asked himself “Why would people pay for the privilege of working harder at their chosen sport or recreational pursuit than they would work at a job where they were being paid?” Through his studying for writing his books, and founding The Game of Work he answered this question by developing these 5 key principles:

• Clearly define goals
• Better scorekeeping and scorecards
• More frequent feedback
• A higher degree of personal choice of methods
• Consistent coaching

As it is noted in the beginning of this document this wiki is up for deletion which to these people I say this shouldn’t even be considered. Gamification is truly important in today’s society and Charles himself can attest to this. He traveled millions of miles teaching the principles of Gamification. He has worked with Coca – Cola, Microsoft, AT&T, Time Warner, Qwest, Abbott Labs, Ralston Purina, Boeing, Wendy’s, and Sherwin Williams. All of these companies are still in business and operating in today’s high competition, fast paced, and innovative world. Their success cannot be completely attributed to Charles and his principles but they were gaming before gaming was as cool as it is now (Krogue, 2012).

Miller97 (talk) 01:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC) Asmith2812 (talk) 02:14, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if you guys have coordinated on this but in case you're not aware, see WP:CLASS PROJECTS. Everybody's help is welcome, and this is the encyclopedia everyone can and should edit! Do keep in mind that Wikipedia runs by its own rules, so a decision by a class group is not necessarily binding on the editors here. Also, an academic / scholarly approach to studying things is just one of numerous approaches to understanding the business world and does not necessarily have a higher standing than others such as news or business publications. The encyclopedic voice is different than the scholarly voice, and also has some different conventions. If you look at the bottom of my edit here, you'll see that I removed a statement about what "available data … indicates". Other than being written in stilted English that contains a hidden narrative from the subjective point of view of a researcher or scholar trying to prove a thesis, it claims the existence of a fact that is not related to the subject, namely that there is some data and it indicates something. If we are writing about the fusion reaction on the sun, Heisenberg and Schrodinger aside the sun does not generate any more or less energy because we have some data about it here on Earth. In other words, the process of proving things and gaining support for a theory about a thing, or even the theory itself, is usually not part of the story we tell here in an encyclopedia about the thing. The process of supporting factual claims has different rules here, and is carried out behind the scenes on the talk page. For example, the above critique mentions there is a 1984 book by Charles Coonradt called The Game of Work, and that he is considered the grandfather of Gamification. That's nice. A lot of stuff happened in 1984. To show that this is relevant and of due WP:WEIGHT to include in the article you would have to find a neutral, third party, secondary source that ties that book to this subject. And sure enough, there is a Forbes article that does so. Most sources on the subject, however, do not report that gamification started in 1984 with the book, so the Forbes story is just one among many contradictory, or at least different, accounts. A word of caution, the recent additions, apparently related to the class, contain a lot of stuff that is not in standard Wikipedia format, style, and approach, so that introduces a lot of clean-up need. If you were to rework the entire article in the same way it would probably wreck it beyond salvageability and somebody more practiced at Wikipedia writing would have to recreate it from scratch (or else it would languish and basically become a dead end). To see an article overwhelmed by overzealous sloppy editing (though in this case not academic), see Royalties. By contrast, for an article about a very technical subject written in encyclopedic rather than scholarly tone, see Dodecahedron. Also, see WP:LEDE regarding use of citations in the lede. Normally, any definition or introduction in the lede is merely a summary of cited content in the article. It's to give a reader new to the article a quick overview of the subject, so they identify what it is, whether it's the article they were looking for, and whether they want to read further.

Incidentally, the deletion nomination had nothing to do with the quality of the article, it was a response to: (1) a concern that the phenomenon was just marketing hype (which would have to be covered as such, and is generally not worth writing articles about), not a real business / design practice, (2) the concern that Wikipedia in most cases does not have articles about mere words, it has to cover real subjects (see WP:DICDEF and in particular WP:NEO, and (3) possible knee-jerk opposition to recreation in new form of an article that had previously been deleted (see discussion here). The version nominated for deletion most recently, two years ago, was more tightly written and sourced, mostly by me, but also much shorter and less complete, at the time the word was first gaining widespread currency. It has since endured an onslaught of mostly helpful edits by people who seem to be excited by the subject, a few whom are self-promoting their own companies or ideas. There's a tendency of articles about current buziness trends to accumulate lots of spam, editorial opinions, trivia, etc., so these articles periodically do need heavy maintenance for accuracy, scope, neutrality, completeness, sourcing, tone, writing quality, avoiding spam, etc. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi @Wikidemon I am new to editing Wikipedia. I would like to help improve this article because I am interested in the topic. Do you have any recommendations for where to start? I enjoy grunt work if that helps. :) I noticed a lot of signal phrases along with topic and concluding sentences. Are those typical to Wikipedia? Can I try taking some of them out? Deloty2 (talk) 01:23, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

If possible I think it would be helpful to have a list of sub categorisies of gamification - e.g. simulations, advergames, serious games, applied games, activity trackers and so on. Gamification itself is such a broad concept. Tobyberesford (talk) 14:00, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I'd second the idea of sub-categories, seems like a good call to me. DerekErickson (talk) 08:48, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Does Facebook Places actually include any game elements? I've not seen any, though maybe I have an old version of the Facebook app or it's iPhone-only or something.

Why is that related? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.249.28.26 (talk) 06:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Would a table of products that use Gamification be an improvement? Instead of having the bulky Applications section, a two column table with a name and a category (e.g. fitness, language, content generation) could help tidy things up and allow for the removal of a lot of the advertising type lingo. Nick Garvey (talk) 01:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I can not follow the perception that this text is "written like an advert". Instead it mostly distances itself from the attitiudes of the proponents, there is also a chapter "criticism". So please indicate more precisely what (in the current version) is perceived as advertising style, and possibly improve it. Without more arguments I would remove the advert warning. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 13:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Done. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 22:33, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't remember if I added that tag or not, but the article is definitely a bit better than it used to be. The "Applications" section used to be more of a laundry list of random IP addresses inserting links to their own gamification platforms, much of which someone appears to have cleaned up. --Delirium (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Jesse Schell's ideas on the Gamepocalypse (when every aspect in life is gamified)

Evgeny Morozov criticises in "Chapter 8: Gamify or die" (from his book "To save everything, click here") that "gamification (in politics) may well be based on peoples expectations, but they also have duties and obligations, which occasionally spoil all the fun." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.44.178.242 (talk) 08:26, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Another editor is insisting that this article include a mention of "Gamification 2013, an event exploring the future of gamification [which]was held at the University of Waterloo Stratford Campus in Stratford, Ontario from October 2, 2013 - October 4, 2013." I don't see how this adds to a reader's understanding of this topic and remain convinced that it should be removed. Can other editors please comment or contribute to this discussion? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 11:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree with you. Throughout the section, there are mentions of other events. I do however, take issue with Stratford, Ontario location tag being included when the campus name indicates where this location is. I recommend that this tag be removed.KobieTale (talk) 15:15, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Then we probably need to remove or trim back other context-free listings or descriptions of events that aren't necessary for readers' understanding of this topic. For those events that you believe should remain, what exactly does the mention of an event convey to readers about the subject of this article? Moreover, what reliable sources can you provide asserting that these events are important to someone's understanding of this topic? ElKevbo (talk) 18:23, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

The fact that there's a particular gamification event doesn't seem to add much to the reader's understanding of gamification. The attendees, perhaps. It's possible that the original Gamification Summit in 2010 is worth mentioning because that legitimized and brought the subject to a lot of people's attention. The encyclopedic value there, if it bears out and can be sourced, is that it is a potentially important event in the development of the field. Other events would need that kind of sourcing to be germane. Here, the sourcing is particularly week because it's a local paper talking about its own institution's event. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:10, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Agree with removing it. Simply mentioning events where people talked about gamification are of low utility to others trying to understand the concept. Tobyberesford (talk) 15:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it should be removed. History since 2013 needs to be added.Deloty2 (talk) 00:58, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

And was probably written as an advert. Let's get rid of it.

Before someone knee-jerk revert's Mherger's changes because of WP:COI and WP:SELFCITE, I found the additions very helpful and informative, especially given the otherwise poor quality of this article. I feel his username based on his real name constitutes disclosure, which mitigates WP:COI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelmalak (talk • contribs) 15:53, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I've deleted, not as a knee-jerk but because the information is self-promotional, a single person's idiosyncratic viewpoint on the subject, and not reliably sourced. He's an industry participant adding material from one of his self-published books, not obviously a scholarly or academic expert. That's more or less the definition of COI. I've left in some group citations / helpful links to his books here and there, but adding an entire section based on his list of categories and examples gives it undue credence. This article is a spam magnet as it is. An anonymous editor keeps reverting, which will get this article semi-protected if they continue.- Wikidemon (talk) 00:49, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

This article is really rife with self-promotional cruft, and as a result is not a particularly good encyclopedia article. Unfortunately it's a lot of work to fix up, and the people pushing their particular brand of gamification self-promotion are a lot more motivated than anyone who cares to fix up the article. I agree in this case, but it's really one out of many. --Delirium (talk) 22:22, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I have fixed the formatting of the Further reading section by consistently using the cite book template. I have also added some new books that came out last year.

However, that section does not seem to have any particular sort order. Should the books perhaps be sorted by year, or by topic?

Gtondello (talk) 23:15, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

"Further reading" is usually alpha-sorted by author to avoid any undue prioritization or personal bias - I have re-arranged the list (and removed one spammed entry by multiple SPA IPs). On a sidenote, "Further reading" should focus on a selection of the most educational and useful ressources. Not every popular book with "Gamification" in its title needs mentioning. Of course it's up to topic experts to make this editorial selection, but minor works should be omitted. GermanJoe (talk) 05:40, 16 December 2017 (UTC)