Jürgen Rees an Editor with Wirtschaftswoche, Germany's leading business magazine, recently visited GEElab Europe to hear presentations about every one of GEElab's projects!

A year in the making, this feature on GEElab's projects and suggestions will be included in a list of "Games You Need to Play". The article was published in February 2013 and a translated portion is included below.

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“They Just Want to Play“

GAMIFICATION – The ones who know how to stimulate the human play instinct are able to successfully motivate people and to retain customers. Amongst Nike, SAP and Rabobank various enterprises already apply gamified policies.

If Steffen Walz wants to explain the coinage gamification his best example is his own story. The games researcher, who is working for the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia), received an unexpected diagnosis from his doctor just short of his 40th birthday: diabetes type 2. The father of two small children felt far too young to be diabetic, yet, his passion for cooking left undeniable marks on his waist. Walz decided to lose weight by relinquishing alcohol and by playing the sport of his youth, Ping-Pong. Nevertheless, the most important thing for him, and also as leader of two games research laboratories (in Melbourne, Australia, and in Karlsruhe, Germany), was the ally with his intelligent scale called “Aria” from Fitbit.

This device does what most scales do nowadays: it measures weight, body-mass-index, as well as the fat and water content of the body. However, this one is able to do more – it sends the results to fellows online, who compete for their weight loss. All these values are gauged, collected and put into graphs. Who makes the most steps and is therefore the most active? Those who want to achieve a weight goal will be encouraged by the system, fellow players and, if desired, even via Facebook and Twitter. Steffen Walz pitted against his wife. The competition boosted both of them: their weight curves declined. After 4 months he had lost 20 kilograms and was feeling good about himself again.

Walz states that it is possible to build in supporting ludic mechanics in nearly every aspect of life ranging from rewarding additional walks/exercises after lunch to annoying housekeeping or monotonous tasks. The official term for this trend is “gamification” – using typical game elements in the allegedly “serious” everyday life. The programmes are using our play instinct and the desire to match against others to enthral and to seduce us, by otherwise perceived repetitive duties. More and more businesses are meanwhile engaging with this method. This transforms fun and entertainment into a new currency in the era of computer games in exchange for business.

According to the management consultant Gartner this trend is spreading rapidly: In 2015 70% of the 2,000 largest enterprises in the world will have such playful applications. Market researchers of M2 Research are anticipating that companies will turn over 3 billion US-Dollars in 2016 by converting the economy into a playground. In 2012 the revenue was merely 220 million US- Dollars. Playful against diabetes Meanwhile, US enterprises like Badgeville and Bunchball are pioneers in the area of gamification frameworks and offer the integration of benchmarking systems for client websites. Salesforce, which is also a US corporation and provider of cloud computing services, has already implemented gamification into sales and customer service departments.

At the moment, Walz and his team in Karlsruhe are using his personal experience together with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to develop a game which should animate diabetes type II patients playfully by permanently changing their lifestyles, eating healthier and exercising more. They expect that ludic elements can increase long-term motivation.