Today we are talking to Oscar Gª Pañella, Gamification & Serious Games Consultant, Professor & Researcher consultor at ENTI, ERAM, IEBS and  COOKIE BOX in Barcelona and a real gurú in the gamification international scene.

CloudGuide is quite obsessed with making easier the communication between cultural institutions and their audiences. We heared the word Gamification time ago, related to it's possibilities as a tool addressed to  enforce our concentration and learning skills, linked to the idea of playful learning, which joins together pedagogical approachs to creative knowledge. We found really interesting to find the way to apply this innovative concept to our grasping way to link Communication in Culture

So Oscar answered our questions in the gardens of the University of Barcelona, during a break time at the BA in Design and Developement of Videogames at the ENTI, where he teaches and coordinate the first degree in Catalonia, and gave us some clues about the use of that not so new gamification strategies, updated to splash with a fresh air differents areas of Knowledge, not just in Arts and Culture.

So Let's us talk, finally, about Gamification

Cloudguide: What is Gamification for you? 

Oscar: Gamification is a very organic concept that has to do with memorable experiences, products and services that have already been conceptualized but maybe just not work or might work better or does not get that users or employees, it depends, do what you want and above all, do so because they want to. At the end , Gamification will be the enforcement of game design in a context that does not have to be playful but is to be improved in terms of memorability to get people to do things that are connected with what you want and do so because they desire and not (because) they feel forced. 

C: Why do we hear of Serious Games and fun games?

O: I prefer to speak of Applied Games: instead of saying Serious Games, Applied Games. What happens is that in the whole world is already the determined label. It seems that Serious Games is a contradiction because if it's a game and it is memorable, it has to be fun and it seems that serious need to go against funny; probably that's the error: the opposite of funny is not serious, it's boring. A Serious Game can be hilarious but also super efficient, super rigorous  and adressed to what you want to achieve. 

C: How do we build an effective and both funny strategy in gamification? 

O:There are some phases that are segmenting and knowing your audience,  know what kind of players are, what they want to play, what are the verbs, motivators, the dynamics that have to do with what they like to do; from these verbs you have to assemble sinergies, activities which are essentially funny and it has to do with making the task they say these verbs. To mount these mechanical elements we have to select some game elements and splash them with some storytelling, a story, an epic, a universe of fiction / non-fiction, with characters, etc. Besides all that, I have to connect to a map of rewards, a pointification algorithm with a feedback so that people feel constantly informed and always beyond balancing. You have to do a lot of testing, you have to play many times. There is no other way to make a game.

C: Does it always have to be a prize as an incentive to call for participation?

O: Prizes work with people who are more purely player, with people who always likes to play, but most people are not willing to participate and only play at certain times. (In this case), you have to appeal to other motives because rewards do not work. You have to allow them to explore, share, make decisions and solve challenges and to make them feel intellectually stimulated and encouraged.

C: How do you rate gamification initiatives aimed at young people in museums?

 O: I think the content of museums is super important but is not designed for this audience. Because neither aesthetically, formally, nor in the expression, or artistic or audiovisual level, it's fitted for this audience, for this youth. It's not about saying "we made a powerpoint" or "we made a video," it is you look at what they consume and somehow, tune in.

And he just let us thinking about the last time we had a memorable experience while visiting an art exhibition in a museum or cultural center...