Gamification and Game Mechanics Made Simple

A simple lesson in motivation has existed for centuries, from Huck Finn’s painting party to Mary Poppin’s advice for cleaning a room: If you want to motivate people, turn what you want people to do into a game. Today, the practice of embedding game-like elements into business and social objectives, now commonly referred to as ‘gamification’, is big business and maturing into a science of its own. Gamification is rapidly becoming to the 21st century what sex was to the 20th century - the mechanism of choice for driving behaviors and marketing to the masses.

This book represents a simple primer on gamification and is designed to quickly introduce individuals to the basic concepts of gamification, describe how gamification works (and doesn’t work), explore the major building blocks of gamifying goals and activities, review the companies emerging to help organizations leverage gamification, and examine what the future of gamification promises.