Gamification is defined as applying game elements and/or game principles in non-game contexts to engage and motivate people to achieve a goal. Gamification has become very popular in a variety of different contexts and has proved to be useful in both education and marketing. Nowadays, gamification can be found everywhere, in many different forms, like the app Zombies, Run!, The Dancing Traffic Light and The Piano Stairs. They all encourage you to do a certain thing to achieve both short-term and long-term goals. With Zombies, Run!, for example, the short-term goal is to have fun and save people from zombies by running or walking around with your headphones on. The long-term goal is that you, by being active can achieve better health.
Reed A. Raymond says this. “Games are used to encourage us to happily perform tasks we might otherwise view as boring. They engage our minds and put us in a state of blissful productivity, where we may actually prefer working hard to relaxing. They trick us into learning, even teaching us new ways to learn.”
For some, it might seem as though gamification is the answer to everything (yes everything!), while others are a bit more skeptical to the whole idea. Cause there are great challenges with gamification. The short-term goals may become more important for some people than the long-term ones and the encouraged behaviour may cease. For example with the recycle game, sure it is fun to get points by recycling bottles, but will people continue to use it? After 6 months, is the fun gone? The long-term goal is to get people to recycle and with that, be more enviromentally friendly.Will they continue to recycle when the reward system is gone? Did it become a habit for the people, so they contiuned recycling or did the novelty wear off? Some say that rewarded behaviour have a tendency to be shallow.
Scott Nicholson, director of Because Play Matters explains gamification and how to achieve meaningful gamification in this video:
Should museums take part in gamification?
Nicholson states in the video above, that gamification should help users find meaning in non-game context, rather than focusing on rewards. By focusing purely on the reward and winning, it can actually reduce the effectiveness of the gamification. Some also argue that gamification trivialize the experience, and therefore the reward system has to be just as well thought through as the action and goal itself.
The questions to ask before getting started with gamification are many. Who is it for? What age group? What motivation types? Learning types? What are the goals, both short-term and long-term? The rewards? What do you want people to learn from it? These are all really important questions to ask, but also really hard to answer.
People want different things from a visit to a museum and they behave in different ways within the museum and they learn in different ways. Some prefer text, others prefer a more participatory approach. Some want to learn about something specific, while others just want to browse.
Different museums interpreted these challenges in a variety of ways, and come up with answers based on what suits them, their galleries and their audiences the best. Some museums have launched apps to guide you through different galleries, others have games within the galleries and some have games and apps you can use at home. Gamification in museums can even be as simple as handing out stickers or rewards for completing tasks within the museum.
When done properly, gamification can help museums attract new audiences, help connect their collections to the visitor, spread knowledge and encourage critical thinking. So why not try?
Simply Museums 