Ian Bogost : la "gamification", un concept utilisé à tort et à travers

Ian Bogost : la "gamification", un concept utilisé à tort et à travers
Selon le concepteur de jeu Ian Bogost, la ludification (gamification, en anglais), le transfert des principes des jeux dans d'autres domaines, est un terme souvent utilisé à mauvais escient. Les applications potentiellement prometteuses, elles, restent sous-exploitées.

Propos recueillis par Anh Hoà Truong
Vous avez critiqué à plusieurs reprises le concept de "gamification", présenté aujourd'hui comme un nouvel outil de marketing ou de management. Pourquoi ?
IAN BOGOST Aujourd'hui, on applique ce terme à n'importe quel domaine, ce qui entraîne une grande confusion. Certes, c'est un terme très pratique, qui signifie qu'on applique les mécaniques du jeu à d'autres domaines, mais dans certains cas il n'a aucun sens. Ainsi on parle de gamification quand on établit un système de motivation ou d'incitation pour les salariés, avec des points, des récompenses et des tableaux de classement. Pourtant, de tels systèmes de feed-back en management ou en ressources humaines n'ont rien de nouveau. On ne fait donc que réinventer la roue en la renommant !
Qu'en est-il des personnes qui veulent "gamifier" leur vie en établissant un système de points pour tous leurs actes du quotidien ?
Le concept est retors : ce n'est pas parce que nous avons plus d'informations sur notre vie ou sur ce qui nous entoure que nous comprenons mieux le monde ou que nous sommes capables de prendre de meilleures décisions. Au contraire, à force de chercher à mesurer tous les paramètres de sa vie, on peut finir par se noyer dans ces nuages de données et perdre de vue l'expérience qu'elles représentent.
Mais n'est-ce pas humain de vouloir avoir le contrôle de sa vie ?
En utilisant des applications, des capteurs et des instruments de mesure, on a l'impression de gérer son existence de manière plus scientifique. Mais l'idée que ces données peuvent régir tout ce que nous faisons – notre vie amoureuse, notre carrière, etc. – ou ce que nous désirons est une grosse erreur. Dans la vie, nous faisons des choix en permanence. Ainsi, nous décidons quelles informations sont importantes et pourquoi elles le sont. Si nous commençons à laisser un équipement technologique et des machines prendre ces décisions à notre place, alors nous abandonnons notre libre arbitre. Nous nous rendons esclaves de ces machines. Et il ne faut pas oublier que les systèmes de gamification ne sont jamais neutres. Ils sont créés ou vendus par des sociétés de technologie qui ont leur propre ordre du jour. Au final, nous n'avons pas une meilleure vision du monde, nous nous retrouvons juste avec celle que ces entreprises veulent que nous ayons.
Une des applications des jeux que vous défendez est celle des "newsgames" : le mariage entre journalisme et jeux vidéo. Plusieurs organes de presse ont ainsi lancé des jeux d'information sur leur site, du New York Times à la revue brésilienne Super Interessante en passant par Le Monde. Que pensez-vous de ces expériences ?
En effet, les newsgames ont suscité la curiosité des médias. Mais il s'agissait malheureusement d'initiatives occasionnelles. Ça n'est pas allé plus loin. Quand les rédactions ont vu que cela demandait des moyens, ils ont fait marche arrière. Il a toujours été difficile de persuader des rédactions de faire des choses nouvelles, qui s'éloignent du journalisme classique. Et dans un contexte de crise de la presse, les journaux se disent qu'ils se démènent déjà pour simplement réussir à fonctionner. Ils sont donc d'autant moins enclins à investir de l'argent dans des choses nouvelles. Et pourtant, c'est justement parce que les journaux sont en crise qu'il faut investir dans des choses nouvelles. Et il faut un travail sur le long terme pour comprendre ne serait-ce comment créer correctement ce genre de média. C'est cette vision sur le long terme qui terrifie les organes de presse.

Faut-il toujours un gros budget pour faire un bon newsgame ?
Pas nécessairement. Mais même si un titre nécessite un budget important, il est toujours possible d'exploiter commercialement ce genre de produit. On peut trouver un modèle économique viable.
Qu'est-ce qui fait un bon newsgame ?
Avant tout, ça doit être un bon jeu. Et ça doit aussi être un vrai travail journalistique. Il doit être synthétique, et doit permettre aux gens de mieux comprendre l'état de notre monde. Ce n'est pas un simple gadget pour habiller un site Internet.
Ces principes semblent très simples mais ils peuvent s'avérer extrêmement difficiles à mettre en application. Autre paramètre primordial : il faut que ce soit un rendez-vous régulier, de la même façon que les journaux fonctionnent à un rythme régulier. Sinon, le public n'aura même pas conscience que ce nouveau média existe.
Comment journalistes et concepteurs de jeu peuvent-ils travailler ensemble ?
Actuellement, les rédactions font déjà appel à des prestataires extérieurs. On pourrait tout à fait imaginer que les rédactions collaborent avec des créateurs de jeu de la même façon. Il n'existe pas encore de spécialité Newsgames dans les écoles de conception de jeux vidéo, mais il y a un grand nombre de concepteurs expérimentés las de travailler dans une industrie qui ne fait que du divertissement vain et qui souhaitent être impliqués dans des projets au message plus ambitieux. Mais il faut que la presse fasse des efforts de son côté. Celle-ci est toujours restée en autarcie, avec un mode de pensée très formaté aussi, et ça commence dans les écoles de journalisme. Il faut qu'elle s'ouvre plus à l'extérieur. La conjoncture est bonne, il y a des tas de créateurs de jeux prêts à participer à des newsgames. Mais cela ne se fera pas tout seul.
(Pour ce professeur d'informatique au Georgia Institute of Technology et concepteur de jeux video, les ludiciels sont de véritables médias capables d'aborder des sujets sociopolitiques de facon créative. Ian Bogost est notamment l'auteur de Newsgames: Journalism at Play ("Jeux d'information : le journalisme en jeu", MIT Press, octobre 2010) et de How to Do Things with Videogames ("Comment faire des choses avec les jeux video", Univ of Minnesota Press, août 2011). Ces deux ouvrages ne sont pas traduits en français.)

Gamification is Bullshit
My position statement at the Wharton Gamification Symposium
In his short treatise On Bullshit, the moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt gives us a useful theory of bullshit. We normally think of bullshit as a synonym—albeit a somewhat vulgar one—for lies or deceit. But Frankfurt argues that bullshit has nothing to do with truth.
Rather, bullshit is used to conceal, to impress or to coerce. Unlike liars, bullshitters have no use for the truth. All that matters to them is hiding their ignorance or bringing about their own benefit.
Gamification is bullshit.
I'm not being flip or glib or provocative. I'm speaking philosophically.
More specifically, gamification is marketing bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless wasteland of big business, where bullshit already reigns anyway.
Bullshitters are many things, but they are not stupid. The rhetorical power of the word "gamification" is enormous, and it does precisely what the bullshitters want: it takes games—a mysterious, magical, powerful medium that has captured the attention of millions of people—and it makes them accessible in the context of contemporary business.
Gamification is reassuring. It gives Vice Presidents and Brand Managers comfort: they're doing everything right, and they can do even better by adding "a games strategy" to their existing products, slathering on "gaminess" like aioli on ciabatta at the consultant's indulgent sales lunch.
Gamification is easy. It offers simple, repeatable approaches in which benefit, honor, and aesthetics are less important than facility. For the consultants and the startups, that means selling the same bullshit in book, workshop, platform, or API form over and over again, at limited incremental cost. It ticks a box. Social media strategy? Check. Games strategy? Check.

The title of this symposium shorthands these points for me: the slogan "For the Win," accompanied by a turgid budgetary arrow and a tumescent rocket, suggesting the inevitable priapism this powerful pill will bring about—a Viagra for engagement dysfunction, engorgement guaranteed for up to one fiscal quarter.
This rhetorical power derives from the "-ification" rather than from the "game". -ification involves simple, repeatable, proven techniques or devices: you can purify, beautify, falsify, terrify, and so forth. -ification is always easy and repeatable, and it's usually bullshit. Just add points.
Game developers and players have critiqued gamification on the grounds that it gets games wrong, mistaking incidental properties like points and levels for primary features like interactions with behavioral complexity. That may be true, but truth doesn't matter for bullshitters. Indeed, the very point of gamification is to make the sale as easy as possible.
I've suggested the term "exploitationware" as a more accurate name for gamification's true purpose, for those of us still interested in truth. Exploitationware captures gamifiers' real intentions: a grifter's game, pursued to capitalize on a cultural moment, through services about which they have questionable expertise, to bring about results meant to last only long enough to pad their bank accounts before the next bullshit trend comes along.
I am not naive and I am not a fool. I realize that gamification is the easy answer for deploying a perversion of games as a mod marketing miracle. I realize that using games earnestly would mean changing the very operation of most businesses. For those whose goal is to clock out at 5pm having matched the strategy and performance of your competitors, I understand that mediocrity's lips are seductive because they are willing. For the rest, those of you who would consider that games can offer something different and greater than an affirmation of existing corporate practices, the business world has another name for you: they call you "leaders."

Gamification is Here to Stay (And it's not Bullshit)
(Gabe Zichermann)

Gamification is a polarizing and divisive topic with many proponents and vocal skeptics and cynics. But it is not bullshit . Gamification is real and its benefits are tangible. Gamification is here to stay.
Some say that gamification is a "perversion" of games, their mechanics twisted into a magical marketing pill for big, evil corporations. This overlooks all the good that gamification does, and has the potential to do more of—while conveniently ignoring that the critics themselves work for giant corporate interests of their own.
But even as we acknowledge that some corporations might have nefarious interests, we must recognize that the fundamental purpose of all organizations is to create as much "value" as possible. This value may be measured in assets or lives saved, children made healthier or kilos of trash diverted from landfill. Regardless, there is no evidence that any of the passionate designers using gamification have ill intentions, but a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Is there truly deceit in gamification's fundamental nature, as some claim? Let's take Nike+ as an example. In Nike+ , players are provided with clearly-disclosed encouragement to improve their physical fitness using a gamified system. And while Nike would clearly like for you to buy more shoes, they don't trick you into doing so by any other method than wearing them out from exercise. Conversely, advocates of persuasive games tend to bury their real message without full disclosure (see Ian Bogost's Cow Clicker or Dean for America as examples). By comparison, which application is more deceitful? The one trying to get you to vote for a candidate you might not like or one designed to help you get healthier? The question is really more subtle—hinging on issues of truth, disclosure and self-determination rather than who designed the product and what it's advocating.
It also must be said that gamification is about much more than marketing. While the trend first took root in the marketing and advertising industries, it has spread to industries trying to solve social issues like obesity, education, good government, sustainability and the like.
In education, game mechanics are proving to be very useful tools within the classroom. Ananth Pai, a one-time business exec turned elementary school teacher, found that by adding games to his curriculum and using leaderboards and social challenges in the classroom his students improved dramatically in reading and math. In 18 weeks, his below-third-grade level class is now performing at a mid fourth-grade level in reading and math.
By implementing a gamified waste diversion program, Recyclebank has increased recycling rates and reduced landfill by 16%. Simultaneously, NYC-based NextJump has convinced 70% of its employees to workout regularly using gamified techniques like leaderboards and team challenges. This has resulted in improved health, reduced absenteeism and healthcare costs both for the company and its employees. These are only several of the dozens of examples that can be found across the spectrum.
Gamification is helping real people with real issues—promoting fitness, reducing waste, and helping improve education are only the start. If something has the power to do this, how can it be a perversion? And if, by an academic's definition, it truly is a perversion of video games–-so what?
Some also question the motivation of gamifiers, but I wonder how many skeptics have actually met the men and women working toward a more gamified world. In common law, two elements are required to prove a crime - actus reus (the act) and mens rea (the intent). Though no one suggests a crime in this debate around gamification, this is a useful standard to use. The facts are that the majority of gamification implementations so far (actus) have been successful. And as I know most of the people involved in these projects (many of which will be speaking at GSummit this September) I can also tell you that the intent is positive and affirming. The argument against the motivation of designers building gamified platforms has very little basis in fact.
In his latest guest editorial on this site, Ian Bogost writes that the "-ification" of gamification denotes that the process is easy and repeatable to a fault. But what exactly is bad about a process, scalability, and repeatability? No matter what the art form, there must always be both a process and creativity. One must dip the brush in paint and put it on the canvas, letting it dry. How you choose to move it, what colors to use, and what the subject matter may be is up to you, but both process and creativity are required. This in no way diminishes the art form.
Similarly, no one person, group, or philosophy owns the definition of a video game, nor does one perspective get to say how the mechanics behind games can or cannot be used. Gamification is an industry in infancy, one that can and will create jobs and livelihoods for many people.
This year alone, gamification platforms have raised over $30 million dollars, hundreds of startups launch every week with game mechanics at their core, and thousands of marketers, strategists and - yes, even game designers - descend on events like Gamification Summit to create an industry. By 2015, Gartner Group forecasts that 70% of the Global 2000 will use a gamified app , spending over $1.6Bn in the US alone (according to M2 Research ) to make that happen. This, we believe, will eventually lead to over 10,000 jobs created, including many for budding game designers that want to both find jobs in a tough (and shrinking) market and to make life better.
There are real and tangible benefits to Gamification that cannot be denied. To write them off simply as perversions or tools of evil, scary corporations and marketers is more than denying your fellow gamer or designer the chance to make an honest living. It denies the world a chance at being a better place.
(Gabe Zichermann is the chair the Gamification Summit (September 15-16 in New York City), an entrepreneur, and author of Gamification By Design and Game-Based Marketing. As an expert on using game mechanics in non-game contexts to solve real world problems, Gabe consults with industry, advises startups, and often speaks on the subject at industry events.)