Are journalists confusing gamification with serious games? Andrzej Marczewski, an expert and thought-leader in the field, tells Alex Iacovangelo that he thinks that journalists should first learn the difference.

“I spend a lot of time splitting the definitions up. Gamification gets a bad name because people think that it is a catch-all for any attempt at non-entertainment related use of games or game mechanics.

“Really, it is just about using game elements in non-games – not making them. Serious games are different.”

Andrzej’s visualisation of the difference between gamification and serious games

A good text adventure – or serious game – has, says Andrzej, an interesting story.

“It doesn’t have to be long, but it needs to be well written.

“The choices need to make sense in the context of the game, for example, puzzles should be solvable with logic and the understanding you have gained from playing the game – not surreal leaps of guess work.”

Serious games: extreme poverty in India

The first game he recommends is Survive 125, produced by Live58. It places readers in India while living in extreme poverty, forced to make tough decisions between personal health, the well-being of the family, and money.

 “I like games like Survive 125 that put you in the position of other people. In this case a parent living in extreme poverty and the sorts of decisions they have to make.”

As a game that places the player in a war as a civilian trying to survive, Andrzej suggests This War of Mine.

“Whilst not strictly a news game, it is a good example of getting that sort of tough decision making spot on.”

Hard to make game mechanics fit in context

“It is easy to apply game mechanics, but hard to make them fit in context. There are tools like Twine that can help a writer make a text based game that contains meaningful choices, but graphics-based games can be really tough.”

For those with limited resources, tools such as Quest & Twine makes it easier to create text adventures using limited coding.

Making it flow with good storytelling, however, is still up to the journalist.

Good and bad applications of gamification

Andrzej likes navigation app Waze as an example of ‘pure gamification:

“It uses very simple mechanics to encourage people to share updated information about traffic and the like. It has points and a leaderboard, but more importantly it has a sense of purpose. You update the road info and it helps others.”

What about the bad examples of gamification? “That is a long list,” he says.

“If I had to pick one it would be Google News badges. It was a good example of just throwing badges at something for no reason other than it seemed like a great idea to someone!”

Gamification is all about motivation – but not bribery