Description

What is Gamification? What is it for? And how is it applied?

This handbook analyses the roots and the evolution of the phenomenon, the market trends and the development forecasts, proposing a collection of models and case studies useful both for game designers and for training and communication managers in organisations that find themselves designing or implementing Gamification strategies.

The analysis focuses on how the implementation of game mechanics can produce significant changes in individual behaviour and performance. Neuroscientific evidence clarifies, in fact, that the practice of gaming directly affects some primary human instincts, such as the need for self-expression or the will to pose new challenges, allowing to create involvement, motivation and loyalty.

Yet, the cultural stigma that has always accompanied the phenomenon of play over time has severely limited its diffusion, relegating it to a niche practice or childish entertainment. Our age, with the availability of broadband networks, the widespread use of mobile devices and the widespread use of social networks, creates an entirely new panorama.

Today, the planet collectively spends more than three billion hours a week on gaming: a ‘mass gaming literacy’ that has made possible the development and increasingly rapid spread of Gamification.