The Way of the Future

Playing For Our Future

Being "in the zone," or reaching a state of zen-like flow and concentration, is common with games, and is often the cause of many sleepless nights for bleary-eyed gamers. Via their natural ability to engage in problem solving and pattern recognition at an ever increasing level of difficulty, good games are paced to keep the player on the edge between their ability and the next challenge - pushing them to achieve more in order to reach the proverbial next level.

We see this kind of mastery with the drive to achieve high fuel-efficiency with the Prius, and it is equally applicable in many other contexts. Scientists turned the super complex problem of protein folding into a game, and engaged the pattern matching skills (and tenacity) of the population at large. The FoldIt game-like application enabled young students to playfully solve tough science problems, and compete with experts around the globe.

Even such innocuous functions as image labeling have been turned into games. The Google Image Labeler is based on The ESP Game, developed at Carnegie Mellon University. In The ESP Game, two anonymous players are shown a random image while a clock counts down. The players must then type words that describe the image. When both players have typed at least one word in common, they both score points and a new picture is shown. By turning a fairly mundane task into a game, over 20 million image labels have been harvested in just a few years.

With regards to social validation, games provide an unbiased judge: The rules of the system are arbitrated by the unfeeling computer. This is transparent, highly detailed and visible to the community as a whole. The micro-blogging site Tumblr has embedded a game-like points system and high-score table. This "tumblarity" feature has amped up user participation and raised their retention rate to 85% - rare for the often transient Web 2.0 crowd. Another social app, Foursquare, is the latest example of leveraging game mechanics and herd behavior in order to get people gaming without realizing it. Even non-profit membership associations are looking to turn the very act of associating into a game as a means to further engage - and hold onto - their members. Comment on an article? That's 5 points. Volunteer for a committee? That's 50 points. Refer a new member? That's 100 points. Highest score is recognized and rewarded at the annual industry conference.

The possibilities are endless. Reading The Escapist has been a game for the last two years, unlocking badges and new titles simply by consuming content. How about weight loss and exercise? Web sites like Zyked and SparkPeople turn fitness into a shared, fun experience. They use game-like competition, metrics and transparency over progress in a group/team setting to keep exercisers engaged in the process.

If that kind of play ethic can get kids to drop their Xbox controller and willingly make their beds, there's really no limit on how play - and smart game design - can be embedded into the fabric of society to engage people. And, possibly, make the world a better place in the process.

Jason Della Rocca is a jet-setting strategy consultant for the games industry. He tries to game everything, and blogs about it via RealityPanic.com.