Taking the rules of video games and applying them to everyday life was billed as the next big thing, something that would transform everything from dull office work to how we exercise.
Brushed your teeth this morning? Congratulations, you get 20 points. Hit your quarterly performance target early? Good work, you get half a day's extra holiday. You voted in the recent elections so you get your third citizenship badge. But you've slipped another two places down your gym's fitness leaderboard, so that means an extra few miles on the treadmill next week.
If this all sounds like an Orwellian nightmare, think again. This is your ââ¬Ågamifiedââ¬Â future.
Gamification is a buzz word used to describe systems that take elements of everyday games like chess and Donkey Kong and applies them to everyday life. Perhaps the best-known example of gamification is Foursquare, the location-based social network in which people check in to places via their phones. Users are awarded badges for going out and experiencing new things. And the more they frequent a place, the higher their status becomes. For example, they may become the mayor of their coffee shop, potentially opening the door to discounts and other prizes.
But if you think it is just tech-savvy teens hoping for a cheap latte that are in on the game, think again. Everyone from businesses to governments are busy re-designing the way they work to include elements such as completing missions, competition, social interaction, status and rewarding achievement. Activities and products that have already been gamified include buying a burger, graphics editing software, learning languages, fitness gadgets and all manner of jobs including sales, IT, customer relations and even waiting tables. Gamification gurus maintain this is only the beginning. Only last year, the US-based analysts Gartner predicted that 70% of the world's top 2000 companies will be using gamification in some form by 2014.
