Pawned. Gamification and Its Discontents. Presentation, Playful 2010, September 24, 2010, London, UK.

Foursquare, Gowalla, Bunchball, Badgeville – it seems like the badge measles have taken over the Internet. From watching TV to fulfilling your hearts' desires, »gameified« applications and »gamification« service vendors doll out points and badges to users, promising anything from increased customer engagement to plain mind control. After »social«, will »game mechanics« be the new monosodium glutamate oversold to spice up any product, service, or interaction?

This talk gives a brief tour through the »gamification« trend, to then insert some caveats, complications, unintended consequences, and hopefully, plain common sense. It ends with pointing out what else gamification proponents are missing about games and play.

Short link: http://j.mp/pawned10

Note: This is more or less a companion piece to a previous talk where I point out the potential of games for interaction design: »Just add points? What UX designers can and cannot learn from games«. Also, I followed it up with a more recent Google Tech Talk outlining how to »get gamification right« in practical terms: »Meaningful Play«.