You are a master of your games. You reap all those promised rewards in them. You certainly got rewarded for your efforts – your character is the shiniest of them all!
You are even known as an achievement hunter. And you know, better than anyone else, all the effort you put in to get those rewards – and in the end they are nothing but a representation of your dedication to the game, as they don’t help you in any way. But still you got them!
But let’s get back to the real world for a second now…
How’s your life? How’s your job? How are your grades in school?
Pretty good? Could they be better? Well, we are sure they could.
We have already stated the motivational differences in games and real life. What we didn’t talk about were the reasons why they are different.
And one of them, which is probably the most relevant, is very clear: Interest. Or lack of.
Let’s go back to the game world…
Even though you are a proud achievement hunter, do you hunt them in every single game? Imagine your least favorite game genre… do you waste any of your time going that extra mile in those games? Do you even care about your performance, scoreboards, details?
Probably not, right?
Captain Obvious would say: The more interesting a game is to you, the more dedication you will put into it.
What about those real world issues? It works the exact same way here. So why don’t you put more dedication into your job, for example?
Let’s try to mix both worlds now…
Did you know that only 13 percent of people worldwide actually like going to work? Don’t you think that this is a major problem in this game called real life? People are not motivated to go to work, because they don’t find it interesting or rewarding.
Maybe someone is unhappily doing something that you would be more than happy to do. Maybe everyone is occupying everyone else’s roles.
In game terms, maybe those other 87% rolled the wrong class in the job game. And so did you, if you’re part of this percentile!
Tell you what: do not be afraid to reroll classes in real life! Do not be afraid to use the Save/Load feature in real life.
Gamification, in the rawest of its form, is exactly this. Using those mechanics we love so much in the games that interest us, in contexts where these mechanics apparently do not belong.
“How the hell will I Save/Load my life?”, you might be asking. For now we will leave it as food for thought. But we promise we will share some of our ideas about it in the future.
On a final note for today’s article… Remember that feeling when you got the achievement for a thousand winning matches in your favorite strategy game? Or when you looted that epic sword in that difficult boss fight? These feelings are also present when you achieve and complete your objectives doing the work that interests you – specially if you land your dream job.
What do you say if we tell you it’s time to stop dreaming about it and actually go out to pursue it?
