Thread about gamification and ADHD?

When I first heard about the concept of gamification I got really excited and even bought a book about it but I was sorely disappointed by what I found.

1/

First off, gamification usually refers to using an app with game mechanics to encourage certain behaviours. But right off the bat, I dislike how they've defined game mechanics because they only ever mean one type of game: i.e. Point systems, badges, leaderboards etc

2/

I think from the outset gamification is doomed to fail because most people designing for gamification are primarily concerned with the behavioural outcome and by definition that is not play. Play is, in fact, exploration and testing without concern about outcomes.

3/

So gamification feels a lot like a tool for social engineering or leading into marketing to me because the progress tends to be linear and there is no real sense of "play"; just repetitive doing with the promise of digital rewards.

4/

And I think I'm also annoyed because it feels like quite a dismissive and simplistic view of video games. At its core gamification sees the reasons for why people connect with video games mechanically and reductively because it's about points and achievements

5/

Which I suppose may work for some people but when we think about video games, gameplay mechanics are incredibly varied. If you broaden that out to board games etc, you get an even wider defintion of play. I don't think play is as simple as anyone thinks.

6/

We like play because playing is learning (and everyone likes learning but the education system kills that). The difficult thing is that game mechanics have to balance things like feedback, exploration vs linearity, skill progression, etc.

7/

Game mechanics have to be immediately engaging and complement the story, but what I think makes most games worth playing is the possibility of getting better at the game itself!

8/

In other words, in a lot of games, learning itself is the reward and perhaps you'll begin to see why I am so frustrated with the concept of gamification as it exists. Game mechanics exist in no small part to give you the feeling of proficiency.

9/

Which is why I like thinking about Dark Souls in contrast to a lot of video games because it arguably does the opposite but rewards you in many many ways. "Get good" is really it's own reward and you can find your own playstyle to do it. NO SHIELD FOR LIFE.

10/

So my question is especially re: extrinsic rewards in most model of gamification - a) do they actually keep people with ADHD intrinsically motivated? b) in the absence of the game structure will you have developed yout own approach to engaging said skill?

11/

Why I think it's so important that play exists within gamification is that neurodivergence means very specifically that we rarely can have the prescribed methods for doing things given to use and adopted.

12/

My vision of gamification would entail exploration, but the mechanics must encourage you to develop your own methods for learning or maintaining a behaviour so that the acquired skills actually stick. Good games create the structure for play, not flimsy rewards

13/13

I probably wanted to talk about ADHD as an interest driven and intrinsically motivated brain somewhere but whoops I forgot