Gamification & Game Studies - Syllabus

Jan Broer

Syllabus: Gamification & Game Studies [Seminar]

Lecturer: Jan Broer jbroer@uni-bremen.de TAB 3.88 appointments via e-mail only
Room:
GW1 A0010, B0080
Time:
Wednesdays 14-18
All official communication through Stud.ip. Read your e-mail!
This document is subject to change.
Schedule & required reading:
Date Topic
19.10.
Introduction

Reading
none

26.10.

Whats in a game?

Juul 2003

02.11.

Gamification

Deterding et al. 2011

09.11.

Motivation

Ryan & Deci 2000

16.11.

Player types

Bartle 1996

23.11.

Flow

Cowley et al. 2008

30.11.

Practical examples of gamification

Hamari 2014

07.12.

Critique of gamification

Bogost 2014

14.12.

Games and gamification in education

Landers 2015

21.12.

Analyzing games

Consalvo & Dutton 2006

11.01.

Exergames & gamification in health

Munson et al. 2014

18.01.

Narrative in games & gamification

Dickey 2011

25.01.

Spectating games e-Sports and lets

play
Summary, evaluation

Cheung & Huang 2011

01.02.

none

Course Details:
Digital Media:
M-MA-2
M-MI
B-MA-2

Special Topics in Digital Media

Media Informatics
Spezielle Gebiete der Digitalen Medien

Informatics: ME-804 Medieninformatik

6 credit points = 180 hrs
52 hrs attendance
28 hrs - Preparation for sessions (reading)
28 hrs - Session review
32 hrs - Preparation of one session presentation
40 hrs - Final paper or prototype

Gamification & Game Studies - Syllabus

Jan Broer

Credit Requirements:

Preparation & presentation of one session (30 pts)

Preparation of either (35 pts)

o

a theoretical paper on the contents of your session

or a prototypical implementation of gamification into an existing system

or a concept paper on a new approach to gamification

or an in-depth examination of an existing implementation

Reading and summary submission (12 pts)

Individual session reviews (12 pts)

Session review document (25 pts)

Bonus (10 pts)

100 pts or more = 1.0

Expectations for papers:

Springer LNCS format

(ftp://ftp.springer.de/pub/tex/latex/llncs/latex2e/instruct/authors/authors.pdf)
~ 7000 words
Deadline February 28th

Expectations for prototypes:

Working prototype of gamification in an existing system

Short documentation including
o Statement of your own contribution
o Description of game elements used
o Reason for gamification
o References to concepts used for gamification

Session Preparation:
Each student is expected to read the required reading (all papers are available on Stud.ip)
for each session and to briefly answer the following questions through DoIT! on Stud.ip.
What is the research question/topic discussed in the paper?
Which method(s) were used in the paper?
What is the main message of the paper?
What was most interesting about the paper? Why?
What was most surprising about the paper? Why?
How useful is the paper? Why?
How does the paper relate to other topics discussed previously?
What didnt you like about the paper? Why?

Gamification & Game Studies - Syllabus

Jan Broer

Session Review
Each student is required to submit a session review on Stud.ip by Monday 23:59 after the
session. Each student is required to submit a combined document, synthesizing all
individual session reviews and providing an overarching conclusion at the end of the
course (February 28th).
Session reviews can include:
Lessons learned
Connection between topics
Critical discussion
Open questions
Session Structure:
15 min
30 - 45 min
15 min
15-30 min

Introduction & discussion of the paper

Presentation
Discussion
Flexible use

Student presentations may summarize the sessions paper, but should not focus on
repeating what is written there. Rather, the paper (that everybody has already read!)
should provide a starting point for you to expand upon the topic. This expansion must
include your own research, using at least 3 high quality references.

Gamification & Game Studies - Syllabus

Jan Broer

References [112]
1. Juul, J.: The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gamesness. In: Level Up:
Digital Games Research Conference Proceedings. pp. 3045. Utrecht University,
Utrecht (2003).
2. Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., Nacke, L.: From game design elements to
gamefulness: defining gamification. In: MindTrek 11 Proceedings. pp. 915. ACM, New
York, NY, USA (2011).
3. Ryan, R.M., Deci, E.L.: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New
Directions. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 25, 5467 (2000).
4. Bartle, R.: Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs,
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm.
5. Cowley, B., Charles, D., Black, M., Hickey, R.: Toward an Understanding of Flow in Video
Games. Comput Entertain. 6, 20:120:27 (2008).
6. Hamari, J.: Transforming homo economicus into homo ludens: A field experiment on
gamification in a utilitarian peer-to-peer trading service. Electron. Commer. Res. Appl.
12, 236245 (2013).
7. Landers, R.N.: Developing a Theory of Gamified Learning Linking Serious Games and
Gamification of Learning. Simul. Gaming. 45, 752768 (2014).
8. Consalvo, M., Dutton, N.: Game analysis: Developing a methodological toolkit for the
qualitative study of games. Game Stud. 6, (2006).
9. Dickey, M.D.: Murder on Grimm Isle: The impact of game narrative design in an
educational game-based learning environment. Br. J. Educ. Technol. 42, 456469
(2011).
10. Munson, S.A., Poole, E., Perry, D.B., Peyton, T.: Gamification and Health. In: Walz, S.P. and
Deterding, S. (eds.) The Gameful World. Approaches, Issues, Applications. pp. 597623.
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (2014).
11. Bogost, I.: Why Gamification is Bullshit. In: Walz, Steffen P. and Deterding, Sebastian
(eds.) The Gameful World: Approaches, Issues, Applications. pp. 6579. MIT Press,
Cambridge, Mass. (2014).
12. Cheung, G., Huang, J.: Starcraft from the Stands: Understanding the Game Spectator. In:
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. pp.
763772. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2011).