Whether or not it’s bullshit, gamification is upon us. A recent article in TechCrunch states that with the help of business and entrepreneurial culture realizing that games can be, well, really addicting, fun, and therefore useful in abetting the cause to hawk more stuff at the consumer, “gamification has shed its acne and awkward voice to come of age.” The article identifies three major trends in the rapidly developing business practice:

1. The space has quickly evolved from place where they are educating the customer about gamification to earlier customer understanding in their offering.
2. Frictionless installs are a necessity. They all recognize that if it is difficult to implement, then clients will not want to implement it.
3. A world beyond badges: Badges will increasingly become less and less important, and the rise of true virtual currencies will become more prominent to offer users more than vanity accomplishments in the form of badges.

I suppose this means that games have evolved from the festering breeding ground of their birthplace in, you know, traditional videogame space. But does this really spell the end of self-contained gaming experiences enjoyed for their own sake that so many gamers fear? In the previously linked article, Bogost suggests that “this rhetorical power derives from the ‘-ification’ rather than from the ‘game’” itself. Games may never fully shed their acne, but continue to offer innovation in business as well as entertainment.

–Yannick LeJacq

[via TechCrunch]