Meaningful Gamification: Motivating through Play Instead of Manipulating through Rewards

Gamification is the use of game design concepts to create a layer on a real world setting. Typical gamification focuses on the use of rewards like points and badges to change the behavior of users, which can cause long-term damage to intrinsic motivation. Meaningful gamification is the use of design concepts from games and play to help people find personal connections to a real-world setting. Attendees will learn about the basics of gamification, the ways that reward-based gamification can do harm, and Nicholson’s RECIPE for meaningful gamification.

Dr. Scott Nicholson is an Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and the Director of the Because Play Matters game lab and the Game Designers’ Guild of Syracuse. He was a visiting professor in 2011-2012 at MIT in Comparative Media Studies and the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. He focuses on the development of transformative games and play for informal learning and training. Dr. Nicholson is a published recreational board game designer, was the host of Board Games with Scott, and wrote the book Everyone Plays at the Library.

More about Dr. Nicholson’s work can be found at becauseplaymatters.com.

Livestream available at Twitch.TV/mitgamelab.