People are bored!

In our current research we came across an interesting and motivating presentetation by Aaron Dignan, author of the book Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success. Aaron made a simple observation; people are bored. Especially at work. The cashier at your local food mart is a good example. The job was fun the first two weeks when everything was new and you learned something each day, developing new skills and met new people; how does the cashier machine work?, where does this go?, which people do I like to hang out with?  But when you start to get a hang of it and every part of the job is "explored" it gets dull. You need to learn and evolve to stay satisfied.

He identified a group of people who almost never are bored; people playing games. Games are extrodinary good at stimulating the "wanting"-behaviour that makes you want to keep going for a little longer just to gain one more level, to try to fire that angry bird just one more time or to watch just one more episode of your favourite tv-show. And that's a behaviour that you rarely see stimulated at work. Aaron argues that play is natures learning engine and the human being is therefor programmed to enjoy games and that's why games are so addictive, skill-building and why we feel stimulated while playing.

Then what can be turned into a game? According to Aaron a game can simply be described as an activity where you use some kind of skill and get a certain output. If the activity can be learned, measured and if feedback can be provided in a timely fashion that activity can be gamified. And that's it. That's the only criteria for turning something into a game; to make it fun, skill-building and exciting.


We recommend you to take a look at the whole presentation!

http://the99percent.com/videos/7091/Aaron-Dignan-How-to-Use-Games-to-Excel-at-Life-and-Work