Gamify Real Life

Extracted 05MAR2012 from http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/01/demo-asia-3-startups-that-gamify-life/

This week’s DEMO Asia saw several startups pitch new ways to gamify real life.

Keith Ng at GameMaki challenged the audience to put away their mobile games for real-world challenges. He asked them to take a picture with a DEMO friend and put it up on the GameMaki app, which allows people to see what interesting challenges are taking place around them and easily join in by snapping a picture of the completed activity...

Christophe Zenner, founder of Singapore-based startup Wildfire... pointed out that people like to be right and share their opinions. More importantly, InfluencerForce makes it fun to engage in the conversation and interject the truth. InfluencerForce rewards active influencers.

Teamie took a different approach to gamifying real life. The Singapore-based team wants to make online learning social and fun. The product aggregates video, documents, and opinion polls into a place where students can interact with their homework and each other...

With this layer of gaming built into so many companies, it’s important to ask – what really motivates people?  As the expert panel pointed out, rewarding customers with badges worked four years ago, but a simple badge no longer carries the same weight.

GameMaki, Wildfire, and Teamie all depend on a community of users who want recognition for their participation. Gamification is a way to add to the user experience but won’t keep people around forever. To be successful, each of these companies must concentrate on building its customer base to find out if people really want life to be a game.