Gamification and Its Discontents
As newsgames’ acclaim declined, “gamification,” or the “use of game design elements in non-game contexts,”7 increased in popularity, not only within journalism, but also across institutions ranging from healthcare to education. Gamification became the subject of criticism and curiosity in both the game design world and the news community, propelled by the idea that game elements like leaderboards, points, and badges could incentivize digital media users to participate more ardently in an activity.
Game designers lambasted the use of game elements as little more than a corporate ploy, including Bogost, who called them “bullshit” in a blog post.8 Undeterred, a variety of enterprises added gamified features to their websites and applications to stimulate user participation. Google News, the Huffington Post, and Mashable appended badges and points to their web pages. In an article about Huffington Post’s Social Badge program, Arianna Huffington described the badges as a means to make the already active “HuffPost community even more dynamic and rewarding,” allowing users to “actively participate” in the processes of the site, such as moderating comments.9
The fervor over gamification in the newsworld quickly cooled, and many organizations soon dropped badges and prizes. In interviews, the general consensus blames gamification’s failure on poor implementation. Critics discounted the idea that some uniform game element, such as a badge, could work universally in any kind of news distribution. At its worst, such attempts seemed crass, as when the Israeli Defense Force attempted to gamify its news-oriented public relations blog with badges shortly before an invasion into Palestinian territory. More essentially, gamification’s ability to increase and sustain user interest ultimately proved ephemeral.ii