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The Acagamic

The Acagamic

User Experience Research & Design in Games

You are here: Home / Publications / From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining Gamification

From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining Gamification

May 20, 2022 by

by Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, Lennart E Nacke
Abstract:
Recent years have seen a rapid proliferation of mass-market consumer software that takes inspiration from video games. Usually summarized as “gamification”, this trend connects to a sizeable body of existing concepts and research in human-computer interaction and game studies, such as serious games, pervasive games, alternate reality games, or playful design. However, it is not clear how “gamification” relates to these, whether it denotes a novel phenomenon, and how to define it. Thus, in this paper we investigate “gamification” and the historical origins of the term in relation to precursors and similar concepts. It is suggested that “gamified” applications provide insight into novel, gameful phenomena complementary to playful phenomena. Based on our research, we propose a definition of “gamification” as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.
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Reference:
From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining Gamification (Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, Lennart E Nacke), In Proceedings of MindTrek 2011, ACM, 2011.
Bibtex Entry:
@inproceedings{deterding2011game,
abstract = {Recent years have seen a rapid proliferation of mass-market consumer software that takes inspiration from video games. Usually summarized as "gamification", this trend connects to a sizeable body of existing concepts and research in human-computer interaction and game studies, such as serious games, pervasive games, alternate reality games, or playful design. However, it is not clear how "gamification" relates to these, whether it denotes a novel phenomenon, and how to define it. Thus, in this paper we investigate "gamification" and the historical origins of the term in relation to precursors and similar concepts. It is suggested that "gamified" applications provide insight into novel, gameful phenomena complementary to playful phenomena. Based on our research, we propose a definition of "gamification" as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.},
address = {Tampere, Finland},
author = {Deterding, Sebastian and Dixon, Dan and Khaled, Rilla and Nacke, Lennart E},
booktitle = {Proceedings of MindTrek 2011},
doi = {10.1145/2181037.2181040},
organization = {ACM},
pages = {9--15},
publisher = {ACM},
title = {{From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining Gamification}},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2181037.2181040},
year = {2011}
}

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