Gamification Harnesses the Power of Games to Motivate - Kevin Werbach, Epoch Times

Walk through any public area and you’ll see people glued to their phones, playing mobile games like Game of War and Candy Crush Saga. They aren’t alone. 59 percent of Americans play video games, and contrary to stereotypes, 48 percent of gamers are women. The US$100 billion video game industry is among the least-appreciated business phenomena in the world today. But this isn’t an article about video games. It’s about where innovative organizations are applying the techniques that make those games so powerfully engaging: everywhere else. Gamification is the perhaps-unfortunate name for the growing practice of applying structural elements, design patterns, and psychological insights from game design to business, education, health, marketing, crowdsourcing and other fields. Over the past four years, gamification has gone through a cycle of (over-)hype and (overblown) disappointment common for technological trends. Yet if you look carefully, you’ll see it everywhere. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1292755-gamification-harnesses-the-power-of-games-to-motivate/