Monday Morning Gamification: ‘Gamify’ vs ‘Gamification’ – A Note on Terminology

A few times in talking about the Gamify Your PhD project I’ve been asked about the term ‘Gamify’ so I thought I’d muse a little about the terms as I see them.  The key to me is ‘Gamify’ is not the same thing as ‘Gamification’.  Here we go…

• ‘Gamify‘ is to turn something into a game.  So to take a topic (in this example PhD research) and turn the whole area or a sub-aspect of it into a game.  So you are using the topic as inspiration for a game either as a mechanic or narrative element or a bit of both.  As another example, the game ‘Game Dev Story’ gamifys the making of video games.
• ‘Gamification‘ by contrast is to take elements of gaming and use them in a non-gaming context.  So the common example is using achievements or points to motivate people to behave in set ways.  It can also be to use other aspects of games such as controllers or 3D engines to assist on non-game environments. (More here)

Gamify Your PhD screenshot