The message seems to be that the addition of game dynamics to existing products is not only scary, but that there are intrinsically “right” and “wrong” ways to increase user experience and enjoyment. So even if you get the results you were looking for, you may have done it in an incorrect or unethical way.

But to be honest, I’m not sure what good the hand-wringing is supposed to be doing. Yes, designers can create addictive experiences to effectively to part the user from their money, but the truth is that good game dynamics are supposed capture attention and direct experience. People are also concerned that the quality isn’t going to be good enough, and while richer content is great, it can’t make the experience better, or get the results you’re looking for, if it isn’t elegantly integrated.

I think that focus on the negative aspects of “bolt on gaming” and fears that gamification may dilute  fundamental experiences isn’t as  as important as recognizing that the true worth of adding game-like experiences should be to better expose those users to the underlying value of the interactions. To put it more simply: Good gamification should make interactive experiences richer and more focused for the user.

I’ll start following up with some specifics over the next few weeks, and if you have any comments, feel free to dive in. The water is fine.

Having won a minor battle with the Kindle, publishers are now free to request that digital reading can be disabled on any individual book that is downloaded.

That may be bad news fhe book industry.

So far the transition to digital media has been filled with different industries practicing radical nose removal, absolutely convinced that the face they are removing is not their own.

But if you take a look at the history of iTunes it turns out there is a hidden cost to DRM, and it can hurt the person that loves it most, the publisher: That’s because it locks your content to a device that you don’t own. The better that device does the more the distributor rather owns your customer.  Every purchase they make locks the customer deeper into a relationship that they can’t escape, and that means they get to dictate the rules.

There’s currently a great article about this over on Slate, and it does a good job of showing the possible non-obvious consequences:

But the Kindle’s restrictions are more worrying than those associated with the iPhone, the iPod, and other gizmos. For one thing, if you objected to the iTunes Store’s policies, there was always another way to legally buy music for your iPod—you could buy CDs (from Amazon, perhaps) and rip the tracks to MP3. That’s not an option for books; there’s no easy way to turn dead trees into electrons. Moreover, books are important. As a culture, we’ve somehow determined that it’s OK for a video-game console maker to demand licensing fees and exercise complete control over the titles that get on to their systems. Sure, this restricts creativity and free expression, but if that’s the business model that keeps the game business alive, so be it.

These aren’t easy issues to deal with, especially since to accept them you need to get over the usual impulses of "obvious" and "right and wrong" arguments that people cling to.

But digital media really isn’t analogous to what’s come before, because at the end of every chain of logic is the daunting realization that owning something on a computer allows you to be a distributor as well as a customer.

"For the vast majority of players, even those who regularly play and enjoy violent games, violence was not a plus," study lead author Andrew Przybylski, a Rochester graduate student, said in a news release issued by the university.

The plus isn’t for the player, necessarily. But what violence does do is communicate clearly.

"Kill or be killed" is a primal and simple way to explain to a Player their relationship between themselves and the other objects in the world. And their first goal will be to find out just how the game intends to let them do that.

It’s certainly not the only way, nor is it going to be popular with a lot of demographics, but everyone gets it, whether they like it or not. Violence avoids the need to try and create a context for why I might you might want to match three of a similar object together.  Gore shows you that you’ve done the right thing, because if something is exploding into a shower of blood, then you probably did what you were supposed to do.

The research, consisting of two online surveys and four experimental studies, found that overcoming hurdles, getting a feeling of accomplishment and having multiple choices for strategy and action appealed the most to seasoned video gamers and novices alike.

There are reasons to not use violence and gore as your basic toolset, but the above quote confuses cause and effect. Games use violence because it communicates accomplishment and helps you overcome hurdles, not because it feels good to be violent.

As games become more socialized violence will probably become a tool favored more by cooperative games (us vs. them) than head to head play (you vs. me).  After all, it’s far more socially acceptable to shoot a computer generated monster than your best friend.