Want to change people? Engage and fun are the solution! Disliking tasks are easy to swallow: some year ago Volkswagen tried to apply gamification mechanics to boring daily activities, aka The Fun Theory. Another example? Meet the Streetpong!

Everyone loves a good game, don’t they? The reason? It makes us feel happy – as multi-award winning game developer Jane McGonigal explains in her bestselling book: Reality is Broken. Some more references? Go deep in game design through the 12 Questions on Game Design and Valve’s Vision on the Future of Virtual Reality. And to explore the connection that links games and feelings, meet Super Mario Maker.

How to build an effective gamification experience? Balance game level challenges so you don’t frustrate users, as you can read in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory. Games gives you milestones to reach and rewards to make you feel satisfied and happy. Another fundamental layer? The way you tell the story, aka Storytelling. Meet Engage through Storytelling by Nancy Duarte and have a look at The Neuroscience of Storytelling.

What’s new in Gamification? Well, the sky’s the limit, with new applications coming out all the time: you can learn a new language, improve your skills, earn real rewards while watching adverts, or simply be happier and richer.

In the near future, companies will recruit people using gamification techniques, rand maybe even turn work into a game. Want more? Have a look at Habitica, a smart solution to boost your productivity at work treating your real life as a game, join Tongal creative community and discover the Tinder for Good Governance app released by India Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Want to guess what the future of gamification looks like? Try to imagine your entire life as a game and start to play.

See you at the next level… ahem, R20 :)​