Gamification as the Post-Modern Phalanstère - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 182

In this sense, the instructions for the “gamifi cation of capitalistic soci-
ety” or the instructions for the conversion of the gaming gesture into some-
thing “productive” would imply the insertion of the logic of video games
language into common structures which did not incorporate those logics
previously. This is tantamount to the introduction of elements from the
video game language such as rules, challenges, achievements and rewards,
points, rankings, levels . . . in our everyday tasks; these elements may also
permeate a system of social network 2.0 because the more public your rank-
ing, your level, your unlocked achievements, etc., the more satisfaction you
get, owing to the social recognition that is thus generated.
In this way, gamifi cation, if well accomplished, may transform itself into
a sort of “dial” that stimulates our ludic feelings towards capital, capable
of stimulating the “gaming libido” or what some psychologists call the fl ow
(McGonigal 2011). This is the attempt to generate in the domain of produc-
tive labour the same feelings of reward, carelessness and entertainment we
experience when gaming, but preserving our reliability as workers. If the
gamifi cation of a productive labour task is accomplished, we will be able
to get the best of ourselves, and the companies we work for will be able to
become some kind of kindergarten that sets records of productivity rates.
MY FIRST CONTACT
The fi rst time I heard about the possibility of saving the world playing video
games was by means of Jane McGonigal, forerunner of gamifi cation, in her
book Reality Is Broken . According to this researcher of the Institute for the
Future ( http://www.iftf.org), it is necessary that we play online multiplayer
video games an estimate of 21,000 million hours if we are to solve the most
pressing problems like “poverty, hunger, climate change, war and obesity”,
which Jane claimed just a year ago.
Analysing video games such as World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004),
McGonigal emphasizes the concept of “epic win”. The kind of win these
games af ord is always related to a mission that generally contributes to
making the world you live in a better place, there are always rewards, the
dii culty of the missions raise as you level up, etc. The inhabitants of this
game have passed 5.93 million years solving problems. McGonigal's key
gamifi cation project is called Super Better and it consists in “sweetening”
imaginatively our daily life with the aim of carrying out a series of missions
that, in reality, are nothing but our daily routine:
1. Create your own secret identity in the style of a hero or heroine.
2. Recruit allies.
3. Identify the enemies.
4. Discover your power-ups .
5. Create your checklist.