Gamification broadly refers to technological, economic, cultural, and
societal developments in which reality is becoming more gameful, and
thus to a greater extent can afford the accruing of skills, motivational
benefits, creativity, playfulness, engagement, and overall positive
growth and happiness. These aspects are all commonly perceived as
positive benefits of play and playing games. Gamification can be seen to
progress through two primary developments: (1) Intentional gamification:
where gamification is defined as an intentional process of transforming
practically any activity, system, service, product, or organizational
structure into one which affords similar positive experiences, skills,
and practices as found in games. This is commonly but optionally done
with an intention to facilitate changes in behaviors or cognitive
processes. As the main inspirations of gamification are games and play,
gamification is commonly pursued by employing game design. (2) Emergent gamification:
where gamification can be defined as a gradual and emergent, albeit
unintentional, cultural and societal transformation stemming from the
increased pervasive engagement with games and gameful interactions. The
assumption is that, through the increasingly pervasive role of games in
human lives, our cultural and societal practices are gradually
transforming into ones which are increasingly reminiscent of games, game
communities, and player practices.