Gamification Design by DanielleLeighDesign

Gamification

Design Danielle Leigh

Abstract This context report explores the effects of gaming culture on human behaviour and the implications this could have on design, specifically how the workplace can be gameified in order to increase job satisfaction. The report explores the different kinds of gaming: tabletop gaming and virtual gaming, and their effects on behaviour, particularly detachment and aggression in different kinds games and how the proximity of players affect this. Tabletop gaming includes card games, board games, role play games (RPGs), excluding sports and virtual gaming, whereas virtual gaming is defined games played on a console and on computers, digitally. By looking at case studies of games which highlight or challenge these behaviours, the report examines the stereotypical views of gaming culture as tools for escapism through aggression and emotional detachment, and the alternative view of games which encourage emotional engagement and cooperation and their implications on players. Through the means of the online gaming community of YouTube, the report examines existing observations of experienced gamers and the behaviour that is created as a result of the games they play through. In order to explore these observations and implications further, the report also describes the experiment of leading and controlling a RPG by taking the role of a Games Master (GM) and seeing what players do when presented with different situations and scenarios. The report explores scientific and philosophical studies done on both virtual games and tabletop games and their implications on behaviour and mental health, as well as mental engagement such as the injury or illness recovery game, SuperBetter (2012). It also looks at theories of games, particularly Jane McGonigalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theory of the beneficial power of games on people and the potential benefits to society and the future problems of the world. By looking at gaming from this more positive view, we can become more open to the design opportunities that game mechanics can offer be used to encourage playful engagement of society so as to help solve big real-world problems, such as life after oil, as seen in the online game World Without Oil (2007). By working with the gaming community, more design opportunities can be developed and the motivational power of games can be brought into reality through design.

Fig. 1 - My own image looking at how different types of games overlap, specifying on the type of games I am investigating. [image]

Introduction Why do people play games? The first conclusion people may come to is the simplest: for fun (Manrique, 2013). Games, in their very essence, are built to create enjoyment. They are a form of entertainment, an escape from the occasional trivialness of reality, and often involve a social experience. But can they be more than this? Games have been woven into society for millennia. Even Herodotus’ mentions the influence of games on society in the opening book of The Histories. In the days of Atys the son of Manes, there was great scarcity through the whole land of Lydia. For some time the Lydians bore the affliction patiently, but finding that it did not pass away, they set to work to devise remedies for the evil. Various expedients were discovered by various persons; dice and knuckle-bones, and ball, and all such games were invented, except tables, the invention of which they do not claim as theirs. The plan adopted against the famine was to engage in games one day so entirely as not to feel any craving for food, and the next day to eat and abstain from games. In this way they passed eighteen years. - Herodotus, Rawlinson, G., Rawlinson, H., Wilkinson, J.G., 1861. The History of Herodotus: A New English Version. D. Appleton, New York. 181182. A behaviour which stretches across time and cultures the A A behaviour which stretches across time and cultures the way games do, has to be more than an entertainment to last so long. If you give a deck of cards to a mix of people, different ages, different cultures, different backgrounds: they could still play a game together. Games create a level playing field, they exist as their own set of rules which everyone abides by and everyone has a chance of succeeding. This is often why games are used so effectively in a social context, giving people a common ground. Games create goals. Bejewelled (2001), Tetris (1984) and Candy Crush (2012) are all about reorganising and tidying, you look for logical patterns (Koster, 2005). These colours are the same so put them together, this piece can fit in this space: it’s simple and you understand it, and you get praise for doing it. Pacman (1980), Temple Run (2011) and Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) caters for your collection of points/coins and your survival. You also play against other players on the scoreboard or playing against another player. It’s these basic dives which makes us want to play more

Fig. 2 - Screenshot from the video “Game Time Burnie & Ray Play Journey”. Rooster Teeth, (2013). [Film still]

(Manrique, 2013). A simple form of engagement. However, not all games are simple. Some are complex in their rule and gameplay, with communities that dedicate themselves to the gameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intricacies. Does this evolve games into a waste of time or a development of skills like strategy and cooperation? Games can shape behaviour. Stereotypically, violent games are said to make players more violent and players to be more reclusive and antisocial. Is this true? Can games really shape our behaviour that much and, if so, are the behaviours always negative? In some games positive behaviours like teamwork and trust has been encouraged tested to the extreme with Thatgamecompanyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s indie video game: Journey (2012) for PlayStation 3 (Rooster Teeth, 2013). The multiplayer platform of this game is unusual as it is completely anonymous and unplanned. Players exist and collaborate in the same game to progress through levels without conventional communication. There is no language or instructions in the game, it is purely through co-operation and ingenuity. And yet players can still play successfully. When the game is done the players go their separate ways, never knowing who the other was. This means that the players could have been different ages, from different cultures and could speak different languages, yet through the platform of the game a temporary collaboration and interaction could take place. Violence and goals are not the only drives for mailers as games get increasingly cinematic and emotive. People are becoming involved with becoming a part of the story, with their choices having consequences. A great example is The Walking Dead (2012) series, where your choices in what you do or say shape the story and lead you towards different endings. You choose who lives and dies, what you say has an influence on other characters and on whether they trust you or not. This makes people consider their decisions and forces them to face the consequences of them. This idea is far way from the shoot everything attitude of games like Call of Duty (2003). Similarly, the game The Last Of Us (2013) has a very emotive and cinematic feel to it, not playing like many violent zombie games. Although it has some brutal gameplay, it also has a contrasting emotive storyline and interesting mechanics which makes players connect with victims. One mechanic which is particularly interesting is the collection of notes and letters by victims of the apocalypse and the broken families it had caused in the story, as you will see in one of the case studies chapters. Both virtual and tabletop games have become more and

Fig. 3 - My own photograph taken of the game Settlers of Catan during the Goldsmiths Tabletop & Game Design Society. [image]

more popular over the years, with the internet connecting online gaming communities and allowing them to grow and evolve. The once small and scattered gaming communities (Metze, 2003) are now unified globally and now playing games for a living can be seen as a viable business, as with companies like Rooster Teeth (Machinima, 2012), YogsCast (Owens, 2012) and Geek and Sundry (Day, 2012). This growing community is more social than people think, with the physical social experiences of tabletop games and the worldwide social interactions of online gaming. With more and more devices and consoles connected to the internet, games are being built more as communal platforms. But what of the social games of boardgames and cards, the tabletop games you play face to face? Surly they invoke better behaviours than the artificial contact of online gaming. Tabletop games, like digital games, have their pros and cons. The physical aspect of social communication is there, but you get the same competitiveness and you do in all gaming. There are even boardgames which call on deception and betrayal within the game’s mechanics, in games like Resistance (2009), Werewolf (1997) and Shadow Hunters (2005). There is some interesting behaviour from these games: some players could easily detach from this after the game was over while others held grudges. Jane McGonigal has an interesting theory that we could harness the gamer power of collaboration and innovation to solve real-world problems, as seen in her February 2010 TEDTalk, Gaming Can Make a Better World: “In game worlds I believe that many of us become the best version of ourselves, the most likely to help at a moment’s notice, the most likely to stick with a problem as long at it takes, to get up after failure and try again. And in real life, when we face failure, when we confront obstacles, we often don’t feel that way.” My question is, what happens when we use the mechanics of games, and the motivations they invoke, and push them into reality through design? It’s the power that games have to motivate us which we often need in the world, and it’s the absence of these feelings in reality which often drives us to games. In my report I want to investigate how games change our behaviours and how we can harness these mechanics and bring them into reality though design.

Fig. 4 - Graph showing the many steps of design practice. Yang, H. (2010). [image]

Design = Game While reading Jane McGonigal’s book, Reality is Broken, I noticed that there were some parallels between games and their traits, and design. Games are the overcoming of unnecessary obstacles, hard work we choose to do for ourselves (Suits, 2005), and design is very similar to this. In design, you don’t go for the easy quick fix, you wok to find a solution to a problem, even if people don’t notice a problem to be solved. It is the volunteering for hard work in games and design which causes positive stress rather than negative. This different frame of mind makes you enjoy the engagement. It is and optimistic engagement, where you are unafraid of failure and making mistakes which is a stark contrast to everyday work or similar environments. According to her book (McGonigal, 2012) and Bernard Suits’ The Grasshopper (2005), games are mostly made of four defining traits: goals, rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation. I compared these defining traits to a design perspective to see the parallels:

Goals

Games

Design

•

The specific outcome to achieve Provides a sense of purpose

• •

A solution to a brief The development process

The limitations on how to achieve a solution to problems Unleashes creativity and fosters strategic thinking

•

The laws of physics and society The restrictions of the brief and client

Tells you how close you are to achieving a solution to problems Provides motivation

•

Rules

• •

Feedback System

• •

Voluntary Participation

•

Wanting to take part • and provide a solution • to a problem with a willingness to take part in a challenge and positive stress Collaborative cooperations with people of different skill sets.

Feedback from other people, clients, tutors, coworkers Your own analysis of your work and the progress from your design process

Curiosity and drive Establishes a common ground for a collaboration with the freedom to enter or leave/choosing your own work

Fig. 5 - My own image looking at different game traits and effects games can have on players and how some overlap. [image]

I noticed that feedback played a big part in the satisfaction and drive of work, for example in a big company, people don’t see the direct impact and influence that their hard work has in the company or a project. We only see a tiny part of the big picture, one cog in a huge system. In a small company, such as a small design studio you can see the whole project, even if you are not involved with every part of it. You get feedback from your efforts almost instantaneously, especially compared to big companies. This gives you more satisfaction and you can see that your hard work has an influence, and this drives you to work harder. This is the concept I want to explore more: using gaming traits and rules to to influence work environments, such as offices or similar environments, to create a system which increases the satisfaction of work and the motivation to do more. Just as Sonja Lyubomirsky writes in her book The How of Happiness (2008), the fastest way to improve someones everyday quality of life is to “bestow on a person a specific goal, something to do and to look forward.” By gameifying the workplace and everyday life, I want to take away the fear of failure in the workplace so that users can create more creative and collaborative solutions to problems and their work.

Fig. 6 - Screenshot from the video “The Last of Us Development Series Episode 2: Wasteland Beautiful”. PlayStation, (2013). [Film still]

Case Study: The Last of Us There are many action survival games in the world, many of them very violent and brutal, such as Left 4 Dead (2008) and Dead Island (2011). One of the more popular genres are zombie games, with their easy to understand mechanics. Your goal: survive and shoot stuff, your enemy: zombies. I originally wanted to investigate this violent mechanic on players and chose The Last of Us to look into this. I discovered that, although the game does have violence and brutality, it has been made in such a way to have a much deeper and emotive connection in the game than most. The Last of Us (2013) is an action-adventure survival horror console game developed by Naughty Dog and set in a third-person perspective. The story is based around a zombie apocalypse where a deadly fungus outbreak in the US spreads across Earth and creates zombie-like creatures from the infected. This interesting zombie mechanic was based on the existing Cordyceps fungi, which grows from an insects head and takes control of their motor functions to force it to help cultivate the fungus. Set 20 years in the future in 2033, the game is focuses on two survivors, Joel and Ellie. The player controls Joel and escorts and protects fourteenyear-old Ellie across a post-apocalyptic United States to labs looking for a vaccine because of her immunity to the fungus (PlayStation, 2014), (Thelastofus.playstation.com, 2013). The developers put a lot of effort into the details of the game, including the looks, mechanics and to the feel and connection in the game to immerse and affect the players. As the game is set 20 years in the future, with many of the worlds cities and towns abandoned and evacuated to quarantine zones, the game artists had the chance to explore how the world would look without humanity maintaining it, and how this decrepit backdrop would have an effect on the players. The environment becomes a big part in shaping how you play, with different areas having different kinds of covers and dangers: collapsing buildings, maze-like towns, all have a huge impact on how players play, but it also has an emotional impact, informing the players about the harshness of the world and survival, and how nature goes on despite humanity (PlayStation, 2013, ep. 2 and 6), (PlayStation, 2014). This idea of the harshness of nature connects the player with the primal survival aspect of the game, but without personifying nature as a force taking vengeance on humanities treatment of it, like many types of media such as The Happening (Shyamalan, 2008) or Avatar (Cameron, 2009). Instead they show nature as ambivalent to humanity and the real danger being other humans with the different factions, especially the

Fig. 7 - Official screenshot of gameplay from Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us” website. Naughty Dog, (2015). [Game still]

Fig. 8 - “Cornered Note” - Artifact from the official “The Last of Us” Wikia page. Wikia, (2013). [image]

Hunters, the hostile survival AIs (artificial intelligence), and the Cannibals, AIs who have resorted to the killing and cannibalising of any travellers outside their group as a means of survival. The AI plays a big roll, not just in providing an alternative enemy in the game, but also at providing a moral and emotional connection with the players (Voegtle, 2013), (Signal, 2013). The AI has been developed to be smarter than the usual AI in action games, programmed to survive longer against the players and tactically outmanoeuvre them. When in combat, you can hear the AI ‘discuss’ tactics or know when you’re vulnerable, for example when you run out of bullets. As well as being a challenging enemy, the AI on your side actually help you and make decisions based on what you do, often helping or saving you, encouraging you to rely on the AI, which is an interesting way of making the player bond with the characters (PlayStation, 2014), (PlayStation, 2013, ep. 3 and 4), (Voegtle, 2013). This means that when these characters that you’ve bonded with are in trouble in the game, it provokes you to feel more protective and aggressive against the enemy (Signal, 2013). However alternatively you are still made to feel that the enemy is human. This is done by the small conversations and banter that you overhear when trying to be stealthy or when they beg for their life when you have the upper hand (Voegtle, 2013), (PlayStation, 2014), (PlayStation, 2013, ep. 3 - 5). This makes you hesitate and feel that they are not wholly evil, but people surviving. This parallel to the AIs you fight and the things the player is required to do to survive makes the player question their actions and the consequences they may have. These small details are an effective means to go beyond the usual mindless violence which games are stigmatised with, and move more into the deeper rely of themes and emotions, usually reserved for great literature and films. As well as the effect of the AIs, there is also the effect of deeper emotions in the collectable notes and letters that players could find while exploring the game environment. These notes give a context and fragments of different stories about how this new world effects its inhabitants and how they survive (Artifacts [WWW Document]), (PlayStation, 2014), (Thelastofus.wikia.com, 2015). One particularly interesting story from these notes is that of the character Ish and the safe-house he creates for him and some families in an old sewers. With the notes you collect in the sixth chapter, The Suburbs, you find out the story of how Ish, a fisherman before the outbreak, lived on o boat for several months before being forced ashore near the sewers he eventually resided in. While scavenging for supplies in

Fig. 9 - Screenshot from YouTuber Mark Fischbach (Markiplier)’s video “The Last of Us | Part 10 | THE FALL”. Markiplier, (2013). [Film still]

the nearby suburbs, he met a family and invited them into his more secure hideout in the sewers. Their numbers eventually grew and they built a small community, with areas for everything from eating and sleeping to schooling and storage. The notes tell the story of how their community was a happy and peaceful one, which as you play through the game, is a big contrast to what you see in the majority of the game. The community was eventually destroyed when a door was left open and let a hoard of infected inside. You then find very emotionally charged notes such as the Cornered Note (left), which describes how Kyle, one of the fathers, was forced to kill himself and some children trapped while the infected were coming for them. It is these notes which give the environment you explore context, which the things that are left behind and the skeletons which remain there. Throughout the game, the player becomes used to seeing these bodies and remains scattered across the game world, and often becomes desensitised to them. The notes that come later in the gameplay give a new context and a more considered view on looking at these sights. While investigating this game, I paid careful attention to online gaming community on YouTube and their emotional reactions during their playthroughs (DSPGaming, 2013), (Markiplier, 2013), (PewDiePie, 2013), (theRadBrad, 2013). While some players decided to bypass the notes, or didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t explore enough to find the notes (DSPGaming, 2013), (PewDiePie, 2013), others looked forward to finding the notes and finding about more of the story (Markiplier, 2013), (theRadBrad, 2013). Those who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find all or any of the notes continued their game as normal, with the other parts of the game mechanics giving them some emotional depth with the influence of environment, story and AIs, especially during The Suburbs chapter as the player works with a pair of AIs, an elder and younger brother, Henry and Sam. The introduction of the two AIs invoke a protectiveness from the players over Ellie, who are cautious of the new characters. However the players then bond and rely on the AIs as they begin to work as a unified team. If the players actively look for and find notes, they get additional bonuses, in both crafting supplies and story and a more engaging experience with the lives that people live in the world. The story is bittersweet as it shows the player a rare happy and peaceful community in a harsh world, but also shows its downfall. This has parallels later in the chapter, which are engaged with in different intensities according to how engaged the player became with the story, the notes especially. At the end of the chapter, there is a moment of emotional uplift in the form of Ellieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kindness towards the Sam followed by a tragic event in the form of Sam becoming

Fig. 10 - Official screenshot of gameplay from Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us” website. Naughty Dog, (2015). [Game still]

infected, turning and then having to be killed by his brother Henry, resulting in Henryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s suicide. If the players did not find the notes, they were not as aware of the foreshadowing and parallels that came before and so the impact wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as strong as if they did find the notes. Often, if players did find the notes, the sense of dread was raised as they noticed Sam acting strangely in the cut scene and then the death scene was emotionally intensified as a result of the earlier parallels. I noticed that these players had a much stronger and more vocal response during this scene, and one even had to stop playing (Markiplier, 2013) (left). These mechanics seems incredibly strong at provoking an emotional response within a game and cause the players to have a very different mindset as they play through the game, particularly looking at how players approach the game compared to the beginning of the game and the end. As players are confronted with more and more brutal and morally questionable challenges, they react very differently from how they started, showing how the mechanics change their mindset in a way, as seen in many of the game reviews and analysis. By paying attention to how players react emotionally to the environment and AIs in the game in The Last of Us, the makers, Naughty Dog, have created an unique and unconventional action survival game which is still emotionally charged, allowing for gamers to have a totally different experience from conventional action games.

Fig. 11 - Photograph of the Era: The Consortium game rulebook and character sheet. Shades of Vengeance, (2014). [image]

Case Study: Role Play Games Tabletop RPGs or Pen-and-Paper RPGs are roleplaying games where players take on the role of a fictional character while supervised by a game leader, often called a Games Master (GM) or Dungeon Master (DM). These games have been around since their invention in the 1970s and are still popular today, though they have evolved immensely since their creation. I decided to GM my own RPG campaign in order to investigate player behaviour while in game and how players react to different situations that they are confronted with. I chose to use the newly made sci-fi RPG Era: The Consortium rather than using Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) or similar fantasy RPGs as I thought that sci-fi stays away from magic and is closer to reality, while still being flexible enough to allow for creative solutions to problems and obstacles that are presented with in the game. As it wis newly made, the rules are not as fully formed as older RPGs such as D&D, which meant I could be flexible with the game mechanics and rules to shape it how I needed it. Era: The Consortium is based over a thousand years in the future, where three galaxies made up of four races: the Humans, the Eulutians, the Ximians and the Vilithii, which combine to create The Consortium and rule as a governing body. RPGs are unique in their gameplay, as they are more qualitative than quantitate in the feedback that it gives players. Though progress and development of characters are shown with the numerical statistics of a player’s character (Silcox, 2012), the more valuable feedback for players is the qualitative feedback of the collaborative narrative. “One of the most interesting things about RPGs is that they are genuinely collaborative. Every game results in a story, but each story has several authors.” - E.M. Dadlez, Being Evil (2012) It is this collaborative nature of tabletop RPGs which has allowed them to become so popular today. Though the GM is essentially in control of the game and the game world, it is the players’ influence and choices which shape and bring life to the narrative gameplay. “In a pen and paper RPG it is always possible to burrow deeper, providing the players and DM are up for it. In a pen and paper RPG players are directly engaged in drawing the boundaries of the game world, rather than just uncovering them. Hand in hand with this, role-playing involves a lot more imagination than computer gaming.” - Pete Wolfendale, Tim Franklin, Why Dungeons and Dragons is Art (2012)

Fig. 12 - A filled in character sheet from one of my sessions. [image]

Often a player’s choice of behaviour or action can completely derail or change the narrative mapped out by the GM, which results in the GM having to improvise the game world and story, as seen in the Design = Game chapter, this has some parallels with design and it’s often improvisational nature when. The players also understand their influence over the game narrative, but they also respect the GM’s authority over the game’s reality. It’s this joint participation within the game’s narrative which makes RPGs engaging for all parties involved. A design opportunity which could come from RPGs is it’s use in the classroom. As RPGs are based on specific worlds and their rules, these rules and worlds could be based around teaching principles, much like how the educational computer game Supercharged (2003) was based around electromagnetic reactions. In the report “You Can’t Bring That Game to School” Designing Supercharged! (Jenkins, 2003) they explore how discovering and experimenting with these principles allowed students to understand the concepts more clearly. A tabletop RPG could also do this and allow for creativity and engagement through storytelling from the students themselves. During my time GMing, I have given many different obstacles for the group to overcome: one example is their interaction with the flora and fauna of the newly colonised planet, which has been varied. One unexpected reaction to the wildlife is that in every single interaction, at least one player has tried to tame the creature as a pet, despite how impractical this would be for the completion of their mission in the future. The reason for taming a fictional creature is not a tactical strategy, it is more of a personal and emotive reasoning: “Don’t kill it! A giant snake would be awesome to have. I want to ride into town on a giant snake!”. It is the emotive and illogical engagement in the game which gives a more qualitative experience in the game. The role of the tamed creature does not add or help the players progress much in the story, strategically; more often than mots it could cause more problems than solutions. However it is the GM’s role to ensure that the game is enjoyed by the players: “This is the secret that all great DMs must keep to themselves: they are covertly working on behalf of the enjoyment of the players.” - Chris Bateman, The Rules of Imagination (2012) It is this role that the GM plays which allows for flexibility with game goals and rules, which gives the opportunity for a more designed experience for the players, which has parallels to traits in design. As the GM holds power over the game’s reality, it is the GM’s role to shape the story for the players, whatever they choose. The rulebook and missions can be bent, broken or redefined, but it is the GM’s purpose to maintain order and progress while still allowing for

Fig. 13 - A filled in character sheet from one of my sessions showing how the statistics work and how they interact with the game. [image]

unforeseen events which enhance the story and the players’ experience. This means that the GM can be more forgiving with freak roles and accidents. Dice roles are integrated in the game to allow for randomness. Statistics, as shown in the visual left, are in the game to have more chances for a good role and a success to the actions which players want to take. For example, if a player wanted to build a bomb for future use in their campaign, they would have to roll dice and their relevant statistic’s influence to see how successful this action is. In Era: The Consortium the players roll ten-sided dice (d10s), with the amount of dice being the same number of the combined skills. For a successful role, the player must get roles above the value of 7 and the amount of these are how many successes a player roles. However, if a player roles more 1s than ≥7, then this counts as a failure, and the amount of 1s is how severe this failure is. In the case of making a bomb, a severe failure means that the bomb blows up in the hands of the player while they are building it, which is exactly what happened in one of the RPG sessions. A player rolled no successes and four failures. This would have been potentially lethal for the player, even though the campaign had just began, making the death senseless and unsatisfying for the player. This is when the GM can take the liberty of making the consequences less severe for the sake of the story. “The rules are there to help facilitate a bit of group storytelling; but slavish obedience to those rules might undermine that very purpose of group storytelling.” - Carl Ehrett, Sarah Worth, What Dungeons and Dragons Is and Why We Do It (2012) It is this conscious choice which allows for both the player and the GM to engage with the story and progress it. It is the back and forth feedback from the players and the GM which makes these games more satisfying and emotionally captivating. It’s the feedback system and voluntary participation which drives these games more than the goals or rules, and this is why the qualitative feedback has such a strong influence over the players enjoyment. What makes RPGs more powerful is the combination of qualitative and quantitive feedback that the players experience, so that progress is both emotive and cerebral in its succession.

Fig. 14 - Screenshot from Alain de Botton’s TED Talk “A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success”. TED Global, (2009). [Film still]

Work, Games and Creative Collaboration Often when you listen to people talk about work, it is hardly ever in a positive light (Svendsen, 2008). Overhearing two men on the train, I noticed that they only talked about how monotonous work was, and how they try their best to scrape by doing the bare minimum of work for their hours. As we spend the majority of our lives working, surely we should be doing our best to make it as enjoyable as possible? I wondered if this lack of motivation in the workplace had something to do with what I noticed about feedback in the chapter Design = Game. If we see all our efforts as a tiny cog in a big firm system, how can we comprehend it’s worth? Alain De Botton has an interesting opinion on work and meaning in the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work: “When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others. Though we are often taught to think of ourselves as inherently selfish, the longing to act meaningfully in our work seems just as stubborn a part of our make-up as our appetite for status or money. It is because we are meaning-focused animals rather than simply materialistic ones that we can reasonably contemplate surrendering security for a career helping to bring drinking water to rural Malawi or might quit a job in consumer goods for one in cardiac nursing, aware that when it comes to improving the human condition a well-controlled defibrillator has the edge over even the finest biscuit. But we should be wary of restricting the idea of meaningful work too tightly, of focusing only on the doctors, the nuns of Kolkata or the Old Masters. There can be less exalted ways to contribute to the furtherance of the collective good.... ....An endeavor endowed with meaning may appear meaningful only when it proceeds briskly in the hands of a restricted number of actors and therefore where particular workers can make an imaginative connection between what they have done with their working days and their impact upon others.” - De Botton A. The pleasures and sorrows of work. New York: Pantheon Books; 2009.

Fig. 15 - “This is what you look like playing Hanabi”. Meople’s Magazine, (2013). [image]

As human beings, we search for a meaning and self-worth in what we do in life. It is this aspiration for these goals that drives and, in some cases, disappoints us. We are taught by the media from a young age that meaning comes from how others, usually strangers, view our success or how they respect us. At times, even in games we strive to be the best, and have our names at the top of the scoreboard. But does this make us happy? In The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner seems to think that other people do have some influence on our happiness: “Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family and friends and neighbors and the woman you hardly notice who cleans your office. Happiness is not a noun or verb. It’s a conjunction. Connective tissue.” Weiner E. The geography of bliss: one grump’s search for the happiest places in the world. 1st ed. New York: Twelve; 2008. This “connective tissue” could be the reason why cooperative games are so popular, especially in recent years. Games like Hanabi (2010) are great examples of cooperative games. Hanabi (2010) is a cooperative game where players work as a team to create a perfect fireworks show by placing the cards on the table in the correct order. The catch is that players cannot see their own cards. Other players take turns in either giving a limited hint to a player about their cards, placing a card they think they know in the correct order, or discarding a card to restock hints. They try to make as few errors as possible, while saying as little to the other players. There is no single winner, it is a team effort and victory. In my observations of this game, I have noticed how quickly complete strangers form strong bonds very quickly because of this game. Maybe this is what is missing in the workplace; we need this connective tissue. “Social scientists estimate that about 70 percent of our happiness stems from our relationships, both quantity and quality, with friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. During life’s difficult patches, camaraderie blunts our misery; during the good times, it boosts our happiness.” - Weiner E. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World. 1st ed. New York: Twelve; 2008. 329 p. We form bonds in our workplaces with our coworkers perhaps out of this need, but these bonds are not always so deep. Compare these bonds with the bonds of old

Fig. 16 - Screenshot from the video “Welcome to a World Without Oil” showing the website and how it’s used. World Without Oil, (2008). [Film still]

friends and they often seem to be of a completely different nature. Maybe we need to create deeper bonds with the people we spend most of our time with, and games and the gameification of the workplace could be the catalyst for this. These new bonds could then encourage finer collaboration and creativity between coworkers and departments to create more innovative solutions to problems, such as life after oil. One such innovative collaborative project is World Without Oil (2012), which inspired a genre of games called massively multiplayer forecasting games. A six-week experiment , World Without Oil was a collaborative simulation designed to find out what would happen if the demand for oil did eventually outstrip our supply, and two thousand online gamers logged on to see what we could collectively do about it (Worldwithoutoil.org, 2012). After ‘living’ this alternative reality and seeing how the disappearance of oil effect the world, players began to think of unique and plausible solutions to living in this new world: “Neighborhood Without Oil - guidelines for how to build stronger personal relationships with our geographically closest neighbors, the people most likely to be of assistance to us during an oil crisis”...”Zoom Zoom Without Oil - conversations among automotive racing fans about the future of NASCAR and the potential partnerships with alternative vehicle races, including electric vehicle races and human-powered vehicle races” (McGonigal, 2012). It’s this creative collaboration that we need to solve both the big problems of the world, and the small ones. But to have creative and innovative collaborations, people need to be motivated to contribute; people need to be voluntary participants. Games can be a catalyst for this formation of these strong bonds, and a process of ideation. By harnessing these game mechanics and implementing them on the working world, we could achieve job satisfaction and creative collaboration beyond what we have today.

Conclusion Games are engaging and influential tools which designers can use to influence peoples behaviour. By using gameification, mechanics can be put in place to motivate people towards positive behaviour such as creative collaboration. Intrinsic within our history, games have played an important part of shaping our culture and providing us with a common ground when encountering new ones. These tools allow us to develop mental and emotive tools which aid us in overcoming obstacles in everyday life. They reshape our view on the world and change our frame of mind with their unique mechanics. Designers should use gameification as a tool in their practice to aid, not only in their development of ideas, but also as an influence on their outcomes. For example, the use of feedback systems within a system for job satisfaction can allow for a better response and immersion for the users and can drive them to go further (Werbach, K., Hunter, D., 2012). System Design could be influenced greatly by the use of game mechanics in design practice and in outcomes to explore a more playful engagement to the world. In particular they could be used in the workplace to affect job satisfaction on an individual level and on a group level. Alternatively, gameification can be a catalyst for creative collaboration with innovative solutions, as seen with World Without Oil (2012). Collaboration and innovation are needed to solve the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s big problems and games, with their vast experience of collaboration thanks to massively multiplayer online games, can be a valuable tool to help this.

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Images Referenced Fig. 1 - My own image looking at how different types of games overlap, specifying on the type of games I am investigating. [image] Fig. 2 - Rooster Teeth, (2013). Screenshot from the video “Game Time Burnie & Ray Play Journey”. [Film still] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=9SmiMv9RF9c [Accessed 14 Dec. 2014]. Fig. 3 - My own photograph taken of the game Settlers of Catan during the Goldsmiths Tabletop & Game Design Society. [image] Fig. 4 - Yang, H. (2010). Graph showing the many steps of design practice. [image] Available at: http://www.hyunjuyang.com/self-reflective-learning [Accessed 21 Dec. 2014]. Fig. 5 - My own image looking at different game traits and effects games can have on players and how some overlap. [image] Fig. 6 - PlayStation, (2013). Screenshot from the video “The Last of Us Development Series Episode 2: Wasteland Beautiful”. [Film still] Available at: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJ2C6wAVpg [Accessed 12 Dec. 2014]. Fig. 7 - Naughty Dog, (2015). Official screenshot of gameplay from Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us” website.. [Game still] Available at: http://www.thelastofus. playstation.com/media.html#screenshots [Accessed 12 Dec. 2014]. Fig. 8 - Wikia, (2013). “Cornered Note” - Artifact from the official “The Last of Us” Wikia page. [image] Available at: http://thelastofus.wikia.com/wiki/Cornered_ Note [Accessed 22 Nov. 2014]. Fig. 9 - Markiplier, (2013). Screenshot from YouTuber Mark Fischbach (Markiplier)’s video “The Last of Us | Part 10 | THE FALL”. [Film still] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAY1onm4Pak [Accessed 6 Nov. 2014]. Fig. 10 - Naughty Dog, (2015). Official screenshot of gameplay from Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us” website.. [Game still] Available at: http://www.thelastofus. playstation.com/media.html#screenshots [Accessed 12 Dec. 2014]. Fig. 11 - Shades of Vengeance, (2014). Photograph of the Era: The Consortium game rulebook and character sheet.. [image] Available at: https://www.kickstarter. com/projects/shadesofvengeance/era-the-consortium-a-sci-fi-roleplaying-game [Accessed 19 Nov. 2014]. Fig. 12 - A filled in character sheet from one of my sessions. [image] Fig. 13 - A filled in character sheet from one of my sessions showing how the statistics work and how they interact with the game. [image] Fig. 14 - TED Global, (2009). Screenshot from Alain de Botton’s TED Talk “A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success”. [Film still] Available at: http:// www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_ success?language=en#t-871155 [Accessed 12 Dec. 2014]. Fig. 15 - Meople’s Magazine, (2013). “This is what you look like playing Hanabi”. [image] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/meoplesmagazine/8949398833/ [Accessed 12 Dec. 2014]. Fig. 16 - World Without Oil, (2008). Screenshot from the video “Welcome to a World Without Oil” showing the website and how it’s used.. [Film still] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-hzUGFD-Gc&feature=youtu.be [Accessed 12 Dec. 2014].

Appendix

Background graphics, specifically designed so that the reader could have a progressional feedback mechanism throughout the report:

Appendix

Filled in character sheet from the tabletop RPG sessions: