What Can Gamification Learn From Sensory Marketing?

While gamification research is multidisciplinary and has grown in popularity during the last decade, it still requires further evidence and direction on which and how much various game mechanics impact on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes in digital and physical servicescape contexts. To shed light on this problem, a novel perspective on sensory marketing and gamification was chosen. This chapter has discussed and analyzed the similarities and differences between sensory marketing and gamification, as well as what theoretical perspectives and practices gamification can borrow from sensory marketing. Six issues have surfaced that require more research on this matter: (1) The interaction effects, (2) Weight and impact, (3) Congruency, (4) Complexity, (5) (sub)Conscious/(non)visible elements, and (6) The causal chain. This chapter explains and discusses these issues and offers future research avenues.

Towards Better Understanding of Children's Relationships With Online Games and Advergames

Since the child is at the heart of current managerial and ethical challenges imposed by digitalization, digital marketing to children is henceforth calling for new territories of studies in connection with the phenomenon of “gaming” in particular. This chapter favors an in-depth understanding of the child's relation with this phenomenon through an exploratory qualitative approach. Focus groups and in-depth interviews were conducted with children and their parents. Findings suggest that psychological states of users during navigation and playing are the feeling of pride, the state of flow, the experience of telepresence and the feeling of socialization. Given the specificities of this form of communication and the ethical implications, the relationship with the advergame has also been investigated.

Gamifying a Car's Servicescape

Research so far has explored and examined physical and digital servicescapes, but little is known about more abstract settings such as cars. Drawing from research on gamification and service marketing, this chapter explores the brand as game mechanics in a car's servicescape. The chapter uses a qualitative empirical case with a global car manufacturer to further anchor gamification with service marketing literature. The chapter reveals that the manufacturer strategically plans and designs the car's servicescape by employing the brand-related stimuli as game mechanisms in the interior. It also reveals that consumers do not actively participate in creating value in non-game contexts.

Digital Transformations Carried Out Through Games

Digital transformations are ubiquitous in today's society. Organisations at all levels and types are challenged by the necessity to relate and adapt their activities to the digital reality of the environment in which they operate. Despite the focus on digitalization, many of the digital transformation projects fail. Organisations are therefore probing for tools that can lead to successful transformations. In this chapter, the authors explore if gamification, here considered a servicescape, may be used to endorse and enhance employees' understanding, engagement, and participation in a digital change process. A qualitative study has been carried out where two organisations' change processes have been explored and gaming experts have been interviewed to give their view of the use of gamification in organisational change processes. The results indicate that gamification may be used to engage and motivate employees to participate in organisational change and hence contribute to successful digital transformation.

Gamification Is

Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-game situations for the players' / users' own goals by strengthening their intrinsic motivation. Game mechanics can for example be pins, badges, avatars, and leveling. The expression gamification was created in 2002 and is still in use although it has always been a problematic term. There are many models, methods, and tools to choose between when creating gamified applications. But regardless of which choice is made, the player / user must be in the center and knowledge about him/her used. A gamified application must in principle be digital and give instant feedback and reward. The effects of tiredness are particularly interesting since they limit the possibilities of gamification and would be of interest to investigate more.

Teachers´ View of Servicescape

It is well-known that student motivation is an important factor for achieving good learning results. This is no less interesting for distance courses where the students usually lack the contexts that are naturally available to campus students, something that can lower motivation. Gamification is sometimes mentioned as a means for raising motivation. Furthermore, the course servicescape can positively and negatively influence the students' motivation. This chapter presents teacher experience from developing and using gamified distance courses. The result is useful for both practice and research, and the most important lessons learned are to consider the learning platform's opportunities and limitations carefully before starting the practical work with a gamified course development as well as the willingness to spend enough time for assignments like this.

Eye of the Beholder

Gamification, the idea of using game design elements to make tasks more engaging, is used in many contexts. The enthusiasm for gamification and its potential uses can be seen in different research—as well as business fields. As of this day, there exists no dominant design principle or standard on how to construct a gamified solution. However, there seem to exist generic dogmas on what a gamification solution should include, look, and feel like. The theories used to explain the gamification techniques often originate from the field of game design and psychology. It is possible that more research fields could be used as a lens to magnify the effects of gamified information systems. In this report, we use the theories from environmental psychology and the servicescape methods to construct a lens to suggest improvements in gamification design for a learning management system used in higher education.

Servicescape Is

This chapter focuses on servicescape in the context of physical servicescape and digital servicescape. It also highlights service and digital service. Within the framework of gamification, it is important to have an understanding for and knowledge of what is of importance when developing and providing services delivered in servicescapes, physical or digital, to customers. Hence, the focus also lies on co-creation between the three main stakeholders, the developer, the provider, and the customer. Finally, the chapter contains some suggestions built on previous research on the group of young elderly (age group 60 – 75), but that can be beneficial when working with other target groups.

Gamifying Practice

This chapter argues that gamification is primarily of practical importance and discusses research strategies that could be used to approach gamification studies from practice-based perspectives. Since practice theories are much absent in the area of gamification studies, this chapter considers how adopting a practice ontology can help resolve some pressing issues in theorization. A shift towards practice theory implies a step away from reductionist claims found in current literature, such as focusing and classifying single game components or mechanics, into a framework of realist social constructionism. In this view, gamification systems are designed to influence people's experience and commitments by intervening with pre-existing social arrangements. Practice perspectives require the researcher to start at a social site, where practices unfold and are enacted. The promise of practice approaches in research on gamification lies in their capacity of addressing the concerted accomplishment of orderly scenes of action, where researchers must have an understanding of the practices of gaming and the gamified situation.

Mapping Gamified Servicescapes for Physical Activity

Gamified systems designed to facilitate people's efforts to monitor their daily physical activity have expanded and grown in popularity. This chapter explores the servicescapes of such systems, and attempts to build a map of their possible components in which value is being created and co-created. The chapter encourages scholars to consider value creation or co-creation processes as engagement processes, and to adopt the term ‘value-in-engagement' to describe their outcome. Secondly, based on a netnographic study on a gamified servicescape for physical activity, the chapter develops a map of the system and analyses its components. Implications and potential for future implementation of this mapping approach are presented.