Back in January of this year, we had the pleasure to host two students from Temasek Junior College (TJC), Anqi and Ivan, for their WOW! Program attachment, where students have the chance to learn skills and knowledge in dynamic real-world settings. During their four weeks at Gametize, Anqi and Ivan learned all about what goes on behind the scenes at Gametize and the everyday life of a gamification technology company (i.e. they realized many of our discussions take place sitting on beanbags).
As part of their deliverables, Anqi and Ivan had to write an article on gamification – but we gave them the extra challenge to write on topics that might be considered controversial or difficult, and certainly would require them to do a lot of research and dig deep on all the knowledge bases out there. Not an easy task, but with high risk comes high reward and we were sure Anqi and Ivan were more than up for the task.
And how well they did! Here’s what they wrote:
Hu Anqi
Anqi delves into how the Chinese government uses apps with gamification elements to drive targeted behaviors, such as increasing participation rates in valued activities, and implementing moral education in daily life – from incentivizing citizens to report on illegal parking activities and “vulgar behaviors” (e.g. spitting, being a public nuisance) to educating people on Chinese culture and current affairs.
Anqi also reflects on the ideal vs. actual implementation of these apps, with key problems on metrics such as download rates, enforcement of usage, and people finding ways to “game” the system, and suggests on improvements. This is an eye-opening read on gamification in an uncommon use case – governance.
Ivan Liu
Ivan brings a fresh new perspective on the ever-classic dilemma: how to combat cheating in gamified systems. With every gamified system comes ways to cheat – just think of the classic “strapping a fitness tracker to your cat/dog/child to get your daily steps in”.
In fact, Ivan asks: can cheating even be a good thing? After all, cheating is a form of ingenuity and can bring together communities, too.
The Gametize team certainly learned just as much from Anqi and Ivan as we hope they did from us! If you’re curious to read more about their time at Gametize, why not read their follow-up learnings on their experience:
Anqi and Ivan, we’re looking forward to seeing more great stuff from you guys. Wishing you the best from Team Gametize on all your future endeavours!
Published on 1 June, 2020