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Man, Play and Games
Roger Callous published Man, Play and Games which influenced future studies that ultimately showed "play was foundational to society". (Foxman, 2020) -
Digital Gaming Research - Early 2000s
In the latter half the 20th century, "serious games" that had previously been used by the military started being used in education and businesses. In the early 2000s, digital gaming became a huge industry thus starting further research on "gamification". (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011) -
America's Army
The US Army capitalized on the video game phenomenon in the late 20th century and developed a "first-person shooter" role playing video game, America's Army. The intention for the release was to promote recruitment for the US Armed Forces - and it worked! (Britannica, 2011) -
Bunchball
Founded by Rajat Paharia, Bunchball was the first company to offer game mechanics as a service. Bunchball "provides cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) gamification intended to help companies improve customer loyalty and online engagement". (Pandey, 2017) -
Gamification in Apps
The 2010s brought us many applications we continue to use today to bring gamification into our learning environments. Such apps include Kahoot!, Duolingo, ClassCraft, Quizizz, etc. -
Reality is Broken
Jane McGonigal published "Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World". In this book McGonigal challenges the idea that games are merely for fun and entertainment and instead offers ideas of using games to achieve real-world goals. (Pandey, 2017) -
Gamification Summit
400+ professionals interested in the idea of gamification come together for the first time. (Pandey, 2017) -
Gamification is First Defined
Although the phrase "gamification" had been used for the past decade, it wasn't until 2011 that the word was first defined. Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, and Lennart Nacke publish "From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification"". In their paper, the authors use the correlation between games, toys, and playful design to define gamification as "gameful design". (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011) -
Octalysis Framework
Yu-Kai Chou publishes the book "Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards", which introduces the Octalysis Framework. This framework provides a structure for analyzing eight core drivers of motivation. (Doherty, Palmer, & Strater, 2017)