Designing Outside of the Box by Gamification

Jesse Schell did a talk in Dice 2010 where he talked about unexpected phenomenal of game development opportunities such as Facebook. He used an example of Farmville which has more players than number of twitter accounts. Using of virtual money has expanded social gaming to the extent that players tend to upgrade their own character or their own virtual world by spending hundreds of dollars to feel better. We can see that for many people who are social network savvy, virtual friends have become like real friends or even better. There is a lot of psychological tricks involved with social games in order to making players spend money. 

He also pointed out an interesting though that the virtual-technology-fad during the past 20 years has made us demanding the real world even more so. Creating many reality shows on TV, promoting organic products groceries stores, and even the movie Avatar which in core is about how can we use technology to penetrate back into the reality are examples of that. It seems that there is demand in for authenticity.

He later concluded with his original point in regards to Gamification and designing outside of the box by introducing inspiring ways to Gamify everything. From class curriculum (leveling up rather than gaining grades), to every daily life activity such as shopping (gaining points upon purchases), transportation (using public transportation in peak hours to gain more points), hanging out with friends, and watching TV; Even integrating point system to brushing your teeth every night. 

In my opinion, in order to effectively integrate Gamification and point system with daily life's activities, game designers should be involved; All they have to do is doing the best they always do when they create a video game.