Gamify: How Gamification Motivates People to Do Extraordinary Things

INTRODUCTION

Gamification: Beyond the Hype

In my basement, I keep a box of treasures that I have collected over a lifetime. In the box are things like my kindergarten report card and a collection of stones from all over the world. There’s also a pin. It’s not a fancy pin. It’s just an old tin badge that has the original face removed and replaced by a piece of tape with “Norquay 51^st—50,000 feet” written on it. It may not look like much but it means a lot to me. I’ve kept it for more than thirty years. Let me tell you how I got it.

In the late 1970s to early 1980s, I spent a couple of years as a ski bum working at Mt. Norquay in Banff National Park, Canada. The resort rewarded pins for skiing a certain number of vertical feet in a day. The fastest ...