Gamification is on debate. There are arguments towards and against them. Here I pick a great text, that warn about the dangers of gamification. It argues, that gamification is mostly about extrinsic motivation – but the more valuable motivation is the intrinsic, that comes from within.

In a 1973 study on motivation, Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett found that children who expected (and were given) a reward of a gold star and a ribbon for drawing pictures spent less time playing with the drawing materials in subsequent observations than children who were assigned to an unexpected reward condition and to children who received no extrinsic reward. Similar studies with college students have shown that people who are not offered a reward will work longer and harder on a given puzzle than people who are offered a reward.

This thought is not mentioned in the text, but is somehow at hand: while gamification can be a nice tool for things like Groupon, it somehow makes the problems in the global monetary system more than obvious. Because the game-rules can be so much stronger than anything else. Whether you fit into it or not.

I think this is especially interesting in a play(ful), game-designers context. Because it is also a little bit about getting stuff done vs. playful behaviour. I can only encourage you to read this text. In the end I figured out, that gamification is/can be really about EVERYTHING that is. Really a mind-opener in some ways that leaves some perplexing thoughts behind. (via)