Last year, I profiled Fitocracy, which isn’t a video game per se but a gamified fitness regimen that draws from concepts familiar to role-playing video games. One MMO analogue it lacked, however, was the idea of player-vs-player combat.
If you ever complained about homework increasing as the days got longer and the weather warmer, well, the tables have been turned. Ben Bertoli is up late doing a lot of it himself as the school year ends.
Tomb-sweeping is usually a very sombre affair. Now in a surge to promote eco-friendly “burials” and body disposals, China has gamified the tradition.
Gamification — is there anything it can’t do? Developer Esteve Aguilera has created a new app designed to use gamification style techniques to help people stop smoking. Any chance of making one to help me quit Pepsi Max?
Editor’s Note: Ben Bertoli is a long-time Kotaku reader and commenter, a lifetime, dedicated video gamer and a sixth-grade teacher in Indiana. He reached out to Kotaku this past week to share the story of how he turned his class into a role-playing game. The enthusiasm and motivation of the children in Bertoli’s class evoke the success stories seen in gamified experiences such as Fitocracy. Here, Bertoli explains his creation, ClassRealm, how it works and what motivated him to develop it.
On the subject of gamification – turning things/activities that aren’t games into games – Greg Costikyan gets it 100% right.
The things that make us reconsider who we are and what we believe in are often bizarre, random, coincidental; sometimes completely unremarkable save for the sudden realisation that concusses you. Lately, things I’ve been reading and playing have coalesced into a divine cognisance for me. I’ve been reconsidering my faith.
Playing video games and doing laundry are two activities that don’t go well together at all, unless you’re Kingston University design student Lee Wei Chen, who has used his magical powers to combine to join the two tasks in unholy matrimony.
