Thanks for this well-thought-out response. I'll attempt to balance brevity with doing your response justice. Please, forgive any failings:
I know it sounds a bit Orwellian, and I'm aware that I'm overstating things a bit. This is, however, how the whole thing feels to me. Advertising is an entire industry based around doing just that, and these "freemium" games (as many currently exist) are essentially interactive commercials for the virtual goods, services, and currencies they're peddling.
These systems cause a lot of problems when the students move into a grade or school that doesn't use them. In fact, even when you do continue them to the next grade, you'll still have problems with students expecting more for less. It's human nature -- we acclimate ourselves to the reward, and it loses its power.
We're not training animals to perform abstract behaviors for our convenience. At least, we shouldn't be. Yes, getting them to perform the behavior is step one, but we shouldn't be building our own roadblocks to step two: understanding the reason for the behavior, and allowing that to be the reason for performing it.
And the first portion of my post really centers on a lot of this. The idea is to capture the market when they are very young. We're not just trying to convince them to want our product. We're teaching them to fall for the next commercial's "tricks." We're leading them to believe we're their best source of information. We're using these tactics to train them to be obedient customers.mfeff said:Every slant, every bent of the product is designed specifically to capture that market. A young child with free reign access to an I-whatever, falls within a certain financial means and are clearly, the weakest "cork" between a wallet and profits. Some call it art?
I know it sounds a bit Orwellian, and I'm aware that I'm overstating things a bit. This is, however, how the whole thing feels to me. Advertising is an entire industry based around doing just that, and these "freemium" games (as many currently exist) are essentially interactive commercials for the virtual goods, services, and currencies they're peddling.
Agreed. And I don't mind folks being open about the profit motivation. I need money to eat, too, so I understand. My problem, again, is how it's being billed: As some kind of noble endeavor to improve young minds. Some folks honestly believe it, to be sure, while others know that's just how you sell something.Really astute statement... going to have to write that down. Thing is, "gamification" looks to be just another pop term to generate buzz, to create a market, in which a new platform can be used to sufficiently justify the creation of crap content. Hell, I have looked into it to see if it was feasible to get a government contract for development. MANY companies are. I didn't look into it to "educate", I looked into it as a profit vehicle. Your an educator, it's for you to call bullshit on this stuff.
Actually, I'm speaking from experience. Gamification is a relatively new term, but the practice is an old one. Plenty of elementary schools use a "token economy" system, or provide treats for good performance, or other structured incentive programs intended to distract students from any feeling of "work." (Systems like this can be beneficial, if based on long-range goals, with sufficient emphasis placed on effort and the seeking of challenge. Most of the time, though, they only apply to one school year... or, most often, one short grading period.)Needs pilot programs and empirical results held against a control or a series of controls to work out what is working and what isn't. Until there is data it's a hypothesis at best.
These systems cause a lot of problems when the students move into a grade or school that doesn't use them. In fact, even when you do continue them to the next grade, you'll still have problems with students expecting more for less. It's human nature -- we acclimate ourselves to the reward, and it loses its power.
And even then, that's just the most basic kind of "engagement." A slot machine only needs to bait you into pulling a lever. These reward schedules are good for the superficial performance of simple, prescribed behaviors. You might get Johnny to say, "Please," by occasionally giving him a treat when he does it... but this says absolutely nothing about whether or not Johnny understands the reason for doing so. In fact, it eclipses that reason (Showing consideration for other humans) with another, more immediate reason (Candy!).Reward systems have demonstrated a plateau of engagement as long as the reward is scheduled in a linear progression. Look at something like the "loot grinder", Diablo and others... MMO's are notorious for this. Gambling centers discovered this as well. Random reward schedules break up this plateau. The question is, are the audience engaged or grinding out? Needs more evidence and data to support it one way or the other.
We're not training animals to perform abstract behaviors for our convenience. At least, we shouldn't be. Yes, getting them to perform the behavior is step one, but we shouldn't be building our own roadblocks to step two: understanding the reason for the behavior, and allowing that to be the reason for performing it.
I'm simply speaking about the general perception of good and evil. You can pretty easily get folks to agree that using shady tactics to convince kids to spend money is "a bad thing," just like you can convince people that when the enemy tortures our captured troops it's "a bad thing." But when those same tactics are being used to ostensibly benefit a side with which we identify? It gets harder to draw that line. In short, people believe the end justifies the means, and they don't look very hard at whether or not a particular "end" is really as good as it sounds.Good and Evil are impossible to put to quantitative structure outside of the cultural paradigms from which the terms are being defined. That is to say that they are indicators of "limits" of acceptable mores.
I like where your going with this, and I see it OFTEN in industry, politics, name it. For simplicity sake it's oft times just called "kick the can". Padding around the problem rather than addressing it head on.
I think it's a case of realizing the beast can't be killed... but it can be leashed. Yes, companies will keep trying to pull these tricks, and yes, they'll always go as far as you'll let them. So, the idea is to rein it in a bit. I just went on a mildly-tangential trip into where the same methods (used for "Good," namely education) can cause the same kinds of problems if we don't also monitor them in that setting.Read the article again, Mr. Monken is NOT talking about anything you mentioned. He is talking about structuring game design around the game being a vehicle for profits utilizing different methodologies.