How game design can inspire the re-design of learning in higher education at the Coventry Remix Play event, February 15, 2017.

1. gameful design
for learningSebastian Deterding / @dingstweets
Digital Creativity Labs, University of York
February 15, 2017
c b

2. <1>
introduction

3. we are all
game designers

7. old idea: learn enjoyment design from games
Malone 1981, Carroll & Thomas 1983, Blythe et al. 2004

8. recent surge of interest
gamification
serious games
persuasive tech

9. gaMification
The use of game
design elements in
non-game contexts
Deterding et al. 2011

10. health & wellbeing

11. sustainability

12. the pursuit of happiness

13. education

14. in the public
mind

15. moocs!

16. with badges!

17. = Khan academy!

18. delicious scalability and analytics!

19. very, very old wine …

20. Gold Stars
The single worst way of
motivating learning
+
frontal teaching
The single worst
instructional method

21. peter f. drucker
»There is surely nothing quite so
useless as doing with great
efficiency what should not be
done at all.«
what executives should remember (2006)

22. gamification’s unwitting figureheard

23. two
conflicting
theories of fun

24. <2>
what is fun?
(baby don’t hurt me)

25. (a)

26. “just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”
aka fun as additive substance

27. some things are inherently fun

28. and some things are not

29. so: add funstuff™ to nonfunstuff™ for more fun

30. aka 1990’s edutainment

32. a
resounding
failure …
Squire 2006, Egenfeldt-Nielsen 2007

33. Bruckman 1999

34. gaMification
The use of game
design elements in
non-game contexts
Deterding et al. 2011
… which doesn’t bode well for this

35. (b)

36. “in every job that must be done, there is an element of fun”
aka fun as emergent systemic quality

37. Every activity can become fun, interesting

38. so how do you design that?*
Deterding et al. 2013
* obligatory visualisation of
ephemeral design work with
people pointing at post-its

39. <3>
gameful design
for learning

40. gaMification
The use of game
design elements in
non-game contexts
Deterding et al. 2011

41. gameful design
Re-structuring activity
to afford intrinsic
motivation, using
game design as a lens
Deterding et al. 2011

42. (if you want to know more)
• Conceptual development of
requirements from literature
• Review of existing methods
against requirements
• Iterative design-based
development and evaluation of
method through 19 projects &
workshops with teams of 2-6
(n=335)

43. guiding questions
1. What are the motivating experiences
characteristic for gameplay?
2. What game structures afford these experiences?
3. How can we integrate this into design methods
for learning?

44. raph koster
»Fun is just another
word for learning.«
a theory of fun for game design (2004)
#1

45. raph koster
»Fun from games arises out of mastery.
It arises out of comprehension. It is the
act of solving puzzles that makes
games fun.«
a theory of fun for game design (2004)

48. edward deci, richard ryan
»An understanding of human
motivation requires a consideration
of innate psychological needs for
competence, autonomy, and
relatedness.«
the what and why of goal pursuit (2000)

49. chief source of game enjoyment: overcoming challenges
Malone 1981, Csikszentmihalyi 1990, Koster 2005, Przybylski, Rigby, & Ryan, 2010, Klimmt & Blake 2012

50. intrinsic integration: restructure inherent learnable challenge
For ticket, drag red
dot through labyrinth
Ticket
identify a relevant inherent challenge
How?

51. Level 2
For ticket, drag red
dot through labyrinth
Ticket

55. intrinsic integration: core challenge = to be learned skill
Habgood & Ainsworth 2011, Echeverría et al. 2012

57. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
»Mowing the lawn or waiting in a dentist’s
office can become enjoyable provided one
restructures the activity by providing goals,
rules, and the other elements of enjoyment
to be reviewed below.«
flow (1990: 51)
#2

58. Not fun Fun
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sulamith/1342528771/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photonquantique/3364593945/sizes/l/

59. raph koster
»Fun is just another word
for learning.«
a theory of fun for game design (2004)
through interesting challenges

60. goals …

61. + rules …

62. constraining actions …

63. = interesting challenges

64. + feedback …

65. = experiences of competence

66. formal structure of games: skill atoms/loops
Cook 2007, cf. Dormans 2012

67. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike52ad/4675696269
How?
look at your activity system as a game atom

68. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike52ad/4675696269
Goals: Intransparent; lack of small steps
Challenge: Not adjusted to individual skill
Feedback: Slow, demotivating decay instead of
building and perceiving progress
competence?

69. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike52ad/4675696269
Goals: Little choice in what to do when and how,
little connection to personal needs
Challenge: Demonstrating proficiency, not inviting
exploratory trial and error
Feedback: Often controlling, highly serious
consequences
autonomy?

70. challenge-based learning

71. self-paced flow of structured mastery goals

72. progress feedback/grading

74. meaningful choice

75. safe failure & unlimited redoing

76. Margaret robertson
»Gamification is an inadvertent con. It
tricks people into believing that there’s
a simple way to imbue their thing ...
with the psychological, emotional and
social power of a great game.«
can’t play, won’t play (2010)
#3

78. theodore sturgeon
»Ninety percent of everything
is crud.«
sturgeon’s revelation (1958)

79. Games are not fun
because they are games, but
when they are well-designed.

80. Rainer Knizia
»The life blood of game design is testing. ...
Why are we playing games? Because it‘s
fun. You cannot calculate this. You cannot
test this out in an abstract manner. You
have to play it.«
shift run stop, episode 40 (2010)
How?

81. iterative experiential prototyping & testing

82. <4>
summary

83. Deterding et al. 2011
TO DESIGN FOR GAMEFUL EXPERIENCES …
gameful design
Re-structuring activity
to afford intrinsic
motivation, using
game design as a lens

84. Bruckman 1999
don’t sugarcoat nonfunstuff™

85. FIND AN INTERESTING CHALLENGE

86. STRUCTURE IT WELL

87. AND playtest and iterate ’TIL YOU GET IT RIGHT

88. sebastian@codingconduct.cc
@dingstweets
codingconduct.cc
thank you