I never thought I would be so engaged in a topic which seems so boring on the surface. But real world problems and economic improvement has some underlying dependency on proper application of Gamification. Gamification is basically making a game out of something thats not a game. I mean people enjoy learning if they see something visual they can gain from it. People will enjoy buying more if they see something beneficial from buying more. Such applications of it is in the Starbucks app where they give you free starbucks after a certain number of Starbucks purchases. They give you ranks whee you are placed into memberships which makes you a customer and a character in this game where you want to rank to the top to reap in the most discounts and benefits and what not. But to achieve such a status overtime, you would be spending quite a lot.
Gamification brings attraction. It brings awareness. Freerice uses this as a awareness to world hunger. Many games such as candy crush makes you urge for more game play as they introduce more levels and more reasons to splurge money on the company. Such a simplistic app on the surface is worth 2 billion dollars. I think there should be a better use for Gamification though. I realized people love randomness in Gamification. Randomness keeps people going like slot machines. Some games use this as a way to draw a player. Gambling industries are loaded. They are more loaded than major baseball leagues and gaming companies. Yet people spend just a few cents at a time. That’s because millions do it. They like the chances of spending very low amounts in the possibility of earning several million times what they spent however in large quantities of not winning the gambling industry makes large quantity of currency.
Perhaps there should be a gamification app for donations for causes that deserve attention. I think a concept for it can be designed and I want to start a contribution probably sometime.
martinsps 