In the blog, you noted about giving a badge for contributing to a specific topic. In principle, this is good, but one of the observations I made inside of a company is that many experts are already spending too much time in their day being interrupted with questions and aren’t necessarily looking for more recognition or more disruptions. Now to be fair, having people who have knowledge about specifics without having to disturb the experts is good, but it can perhaps leave gaping holes if the person has a small piece of knowledge about a topic that they’ve contributed and are now suddenly seen as an expert. These faux experts are suddenly having influences on business that they are not qualified for. The side effect may be that the real experts become disenchanted and decide to leave. I’ve seen this first hand.

The other issue I’ve observed is that gamification doesn’t inspire everyone. As a matter of fact, it actually actively discourages some from participating. Does the implementation of a system increase the chance of creating a cultural divide in the company?

I love the fact that we’re having the conversation and appreciate the challenges and validations. Thanks for writing this piece!

Nonetheless, this line is troubling:

“Reputation and Status is a powerful intrinsic motivator…”

This is quite a common misunderstanding of “intrinsic motivator”, but if you are going to use these terms, they should be used accurately, to the extent that they have been defined in the pscyhological literature. According to the leading theory of motivation today, reputation and status are NOT considered “intrinsic” but are actually another form of “extrinsic” motivator, and in most ways indistinguishable from other externally-regulated behavior.

There is no question that reputation and status are EXTREMELY motivating, just please do not mistake this for *intrinsic*. Reputation and status are primarily about what *other* people think and say. A true intrinsic motivator can ONLY happen when the behavior is rewarding *for itself*, without external regulation. And it is of course wrong to say that when an extrinsic motivator is given it somehow makes you “feel good intrinsically”, because the dopamine reward system from operant conditioning is an entirely different system from that which creates a technically “intrinsically rewarding” experience.

I sound like a broken record, but given that you are one of the leaders in the gamification space you guys really should not be sloppy — at all — with the science you invoke. If you are mucking about with influencing behaviors, you need to be clear on the science. Because getting it wrong can leave your customers with the opposite of their intended result. And it’s ridiculously easy to get this wrong. Your company provides a platform that scales these external regulations, so if you get it even a tiny bit wrong, you have scaled/amplified the wrong result. This matters.

Tossing around ideas about intrinsic motivators so casually is irresponsible. Yes, there are certainly people and psychological theories that DO use the words intrinsic and extrinsic in this way, but they are not the predominant psychological use of these terms.

But still, I applaud you for continuing to try to figure out how what you do DOES relate to “intrinsic motivators”, but please get clear on what that really means. And as long as you claim status and reputation are intrinsic motivators, you’ve still not understood what you are doing.

But gamification has been applied far too broadly and in ways that even the leading consultants, vendors, and “experts” do not universally agree on, let alone everyone else that has an opinion.

Even those with a seemingly crisp definition (applying game mechanics to non-game things) still end up referring to absolutely anything that is — or was — or might ever one day become — the least bit playful, fun, or, if NOT fun, as long as it has feedback it still counts as gamification.

There is no meaningful way to have a productive conversation about anything labeled “gamification” as long as the word is so broadly abused. Basically, it means almost anything today including actual games.

You have a choice to either try and narrow the definition and stop everyone ELSE from diluting it, or you choose another word. The interesting thing is that you are more amazed by people finding entirely made-up words as more usable (or at least respected) than “gamification”. But usability practitioners in UI and API design have long known that it is MORE difficult for people to accurately learn and understand something that evokes something they already know than it is to learn something entirely made up /arbitrary. Gamification, among other problems, *sounds* like games, so of course you get serious games and advergames and basically ANY game potentially lumped in as gamification.

But I am even more concerned about the *opposite* end, where gamification is broadened to include things like every consultants example: the Linked in progress bar. While gamifiers consider anything that could ever influence behavior, whether “fun” is in the equation or not, as representative of gamification, the word is toast.

Some believe it can be rehabilitated. I have had this argument with other people about *other* words in the past… Words I felt could be revived and taken back, but it seems like gamification is way past hope if for no other reason than it simply is way way way too broad.

Saying “gamification works” or “gamification does X” is like saying “software works”. Without context, it is semantically empty. You will forever be having to explain what YOU mean. Even gamification proponents are already beginning to add qualifiers such as “SMART gamification” or “MEANINGFUL gamification” to help distinguish their specific version, definition, or implementation choices.

I will add that expressing barely concealed disdain for those who diss the word is perhaps not the best path for a vendor. These are your potential customers and partners. It is worth considering that something IS wrong with the word. Even if it is simply a matter of perception, since when was the customer’s perception not respected and valued? You do not have to agree with their perception, but it IS real for them. A sarcastic, cynical post about those who dislike the word is not the high road. Oh, and amount of VC investment money in something has never been a good indicator of whether something is respect-worthy. One might even view a VC frenzy as yet another reason to be wary…