Abstract
Since the beginning of this decade, Gamification has become a buzzword for marketing , advertising and behavioural management, but also an accurate description of a fundamental shift in modern society : “Gamification is the permeation of society with methods, metaphors and attributes of games” (Fuchs 2012). Graphic game design elements, rule structures and ludic interfaces are exceedingly used by corporations to create and manage brand loyalty and to increase profits. This chapter aims at stirring up common sense notions of gamification as a marketing tool and will discuss alternative artistic concepts, activist tactics and subcultural strategies aiming at a subversive ludification of society.
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Notes
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- 2.
As Joseph McCarney demonstrates in his text on “Ideology and False Consciousness” (2005) Marx never talked of ideology as “false consciousness”. Althusser and Sohn-Rethel however drew a line between ideology and false consciousness much later.
- 3.
Ernest and Young (2011). 5 things you need to know about gamification. http://performance.ey.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/11/EY_performance_Review_pg28_Ideas.pdf.
- 4.
Brian Burke for Gartner (2012) Gamification: Engagement Strategies for Business and IT.
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- 6.
The rules of Camover are such: Mobilise a crew and think of a name that starts with “command”, “brigade” or “cell”, followed by the name of a historical figure. Then destroy as many CCTV cameras as you can. Finally, video your trail of destruction and post it on the game’s website.
The competition ends on 19 February, to coincide with the start of the European Police Congress. The prize is a front-row position in a rally against police violence in Berlin.
- 7.
Deleuze (1999). The logic of sense. Transl. by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. Ed. by Constantin Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 150–161.
- 8.
Negri and Hardt (2000). Empire. Cambridge Masachussets: Harvard University Press, pp. 205–218.
- 9.
Wolfgang Lefèvre quoted from Walther (2008). Ein direkter Weg von der Spassguerilla zum Terrorismus? Aktions- und Gewaltformen in der Protestbewegung. 68: Jahre der Rebellion. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-geschichte/68er-bewegung/51795/spassguerilla-terrorismus.
- 10.
- 11.
Adorno would hardly have advocated to abbreviate his one-liner of the right life in falsehood into the a three-letter word of RLF and thereby put it in a league with BMW, NATO or VW.
- 12.
It is interesting to see that the term of a “ludification” that was introduced by Joost Raessens as early as Raessens (2006) has never managed to get the popularity that the 2010s term of gamification immediately got. This might have to do with the connotation of ludification with the cultural sector and with the smell of big bucks that gamification had from the start when the likes of Zichermann, Saatchi and Saatchi or Ernest and Young dropped the bomb of a new alchemistic preciosity with the name of gamification.
- 13.
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Ibid.
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Fuchs, M. (2018). Subversive Gamification. In: Cermak-Sassenrath, D. (eds) Playful Disruption of Digital Media. Gaming Media and Social Effects. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1891-6_12
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