{"id":2329,"date":"2012-06-17T15:43:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T21:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=2329"},"modified":"2014-09-12T11:58:34","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T17:58:34","slug":"gamification-are-badges-and-points-enough-will-monetary-rewards-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/06\/17\/gamification-are-badges-and-points-enough-will-monetary-rewards-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamification: Are Badges and Points Enough? Will Monetary Rewards Fix It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p>Badges, points, and leaderboards: Is Gamification good or bad?<\/p>\n<p>The short answer is: YES.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the problem is that some people who are jumping on the gamification bandwagon don&#8217;t actually know much about games.<br \/>\nLike a great many other fads, gamification is viewed by some as a panacea &#8211; a simple fix that can be slapped over a broken system to give the appearance of having done something.<\/p>\n<p>Children are not fooled by edu-games when they turn out to be the same old worksheets wrapped in a game (see my Decorative Media Principle), and your employees will not be fooled by a veneer of gamification.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Badges, points, and leaderboards are no different from &#8220;Employee of the Month&#8221;, if they are not representative of something real and worthwhile &#8211; worthwhile in the eyes of the &#8216;players&#8217;. In the end, it doesn&#8217;t matter what anyone else thinks of them. It especially doesn&#8217;t matter what management says about them, if they are not tied to something real.<\/p>\n<p>Is money real enough? Well, it&#8217;s certainly something tied to the real world, but while it is a common belief (especially in America) that monetary rewards motivate employees, there is plenty of evidence that if you have a reasonable salary, monetary rewards are not especially motivating. Rewards that DO motivate should involve these things (purpose, autonomy, opportunities to demonstrate mastery).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u6XAPnuFjJc\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Also, leaderboards, like Employee of the Month awards ultimatly serve to pit co-workers against each other in competition. While everyone may want to be named (EoM), one can only win if everyone else loses, and that&#8217;s not good if you want people to really be a team.<\/p>\n<p>Gamification can be useful framework, but your organizational structure has to actually match those aspects of gaming that make good games work. Much of the truly useful aspects of gamification aren&#8217;t actually new &#8211; individualized learning, clear and measurable objectives, choice, the ability to keep at something until you get it right,&#8230;. these are all worthwhile elements of games that can be used effectively in many other contexts. What gamification gives us is a sexy new veneer for a collection of useful approaches to organization, teamwork, and learning.<\/p>\n<div class='wp_likes' id='wp_likes_post-2329'><a class='like' href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(2329);\" title='Like' ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-likes\/images\/like.png\" alt='' border='0'\/><\/a><span class='text'>1 person likes this post.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='like' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(2329);\">Like<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='unlike' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.unlike(2329);\">Unlike<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>Badges, points, and leaderboards: Is Gamification good or bad? The short answer is: YES. Part of the problem is that some people who are jumping on the gamification bandwagon don&#8217;t actually know much about games. Like a great many other &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/06\/17\/gamification-are-badges-and-points-enough-will-monetary-rewards-fix-it\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,12,352,14,24],"tags":[120,161,126,167],"class_list":["post-2329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational-technology","category-games","category-gamification-2","category-general","category-teaching-learning","tag-decorative-media-principle","tag-design","tag-gamification","tag-motivation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Hsb6-Bz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5946,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/11\/01\/worth-sharing-gamification-separating-fact-from-fiction\/","url_meta":{"origin":2329,"position":0},"title":"Worth Sharing: Gamification: Separating Fact from Fiction","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"November 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Game-Based Learning \/ Gaming \/ Learning \/ Social Learning While this isn't a new article, it's one worth repeating. The 4 Myths described by Kapp are: Gamification and Games are the same. Gamification alienates older learners. There is no science behind gamification. Gamification is about points, badges, and leaderboards. Source:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6141,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/11\/29\/worth-sharing-how-rewards-kill-our-creativity-yu-kai-chou-gamification\/","url_meta":{"origin":2329,"position":1},"title":"Worth Sharing: How Rewards kill our Creativity &#8211; Yu-kai Chou &#038; Gamification","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"November 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"So the question is, how do we deal with this in a course setting, where the rewards are marks? How Extrinsic Motivation kills our Creativity (Below is a snippet of Gamification Book: Actionable Gamification \u2013 Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards.\u00a0If you like this blog post, you will LOVE the book.)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Gamification&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Gamification","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/gamification-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4073,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2014\/07\/21\/seven-key-elements-of-gamification-plus-or-minus-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":2329,"position":2},"title":"Seven Key Elements of Gamification, Plus or Minus Two","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"July 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A little while ago I wrote a reaction to a post about 8 steps to make your course less boring, and at the end of it I promised to post my own list. Here it is. I will qualify this list by saying that my interest is in gamification for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/gamification-banner.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/gamification-banner.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/gamification-banner.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/gamification-banner.png?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/gamification-banner.png?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/gamification-banner.png?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5412,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/08\/24\/can-badges-and-leaderboards-make-low-income-students-participate-more-in-campus-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":2329,"position":3},"title":"Can Badges and Leaderboards make Low-Income Students Participate more in Campus life?","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"August 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"An article about how a \"gamified\" interface to campus life is supposed to help low-income students (can you tell I'm skeptical?). Here's what they do: Give out points and badges for doing stuff. Reward competing\u00a0against their fellow students to earn more points (which they can trade for stuff at Starbucks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4181,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2014\/08\/09\/gamification-of-learning-designing-digitally-inc\/","url_meta":{"origin":2329,"position":4},"title":"Gamification of Learning | Designing Digitally, Inc.","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"August 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A previous post complained about being shut down on several LinkedIn groups because I disagreed with the poster. This is another one. It is quite typical for the kinds of posts seen by companies promising to gamify anything you want. It makes all the usual claims: gamification makes learning more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"BU072083","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/BU072083-269x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3175,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/11\/16\/the-gamification-of-everything\/","url_meta":{"origin":2329,"position":5},"title":"The Gamification of Everything","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"November 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I really hate that term. My fear is that it will stick though. Don't get me wrong - there are some very useful things that are being called gamification. Many of them aren't new though. There's also a lot of crap that's being labelled as gamification. I'm worried that most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Games&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Games","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/games\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2329"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4331,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions\/4331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}