It’s all fun and games… A history of ideas concerning gamification

Abstract

The paper offers the first results of an analysis of popular gamification guidebook publications. Using the way these guidebooks consider digital games as a starting point, I single out three of the most commonly mentioned associations with games and put them in the context of the overarching ideas that infuse them. After discussing the relationship of gamification and 1960’s behavioral experiments in psychiatric wards, I outline the most important issues that the analysis entails for further research.