Career Gamification
Look beyond the everyday places we work and live. Imagine a world where we could venture into heroic quests and obtain powerful skills, knowledge, wealth, and experience—the world of video games.
Q: Can we control our careers as if we were playing a game? How could we apply the lessons of how a game is crafted to build better careers?
Gamification (n)
the addition of game-like elements to a process or task in order to motivate or encourage progress
Why Games? It’s About Mindset.
It takes years to become a licensed Architect and years longer to master a career within the profession.
There are no short cuts and the path to long-term success is forged from consistent, habitual practice. As Architects, we need a framework to keep us on track.
Games, or more specifically video games, have the power to motivate us from one moment to the next.
Video games rely upon cyclical experience loops to provide the Player with feedback, milestones, and rewards. These feedback loops keep the Player continually engaged. The Player returns to chase in-game goals, complete epic missions, and build up their confidence.
Gamification is the transformation of a process through the addition of game-like elements or qualities. It has the potential to transform our career development from a passive, mundane slog into an active, epic adventure.
While any worthy career will take a lifetime to build, gamification provides us with have more engaging focus in the short-term, keeping our motivation consistent. The “wins” we achieve through the gamification process build up as we go. We connect more directly to the work we produce and to the new levels we unlock as we play the game.
It’s about mindset. As a person, we can go to work, do our jobs, and build our careers. But as a Player, we can forge a new and dynamic path towards our professional goals.
Game Time
You may not consider yourself a “Gamer.”
Even if you’ve never picked up a video game controller in your entire life (not even Super Mario Bros.!?), there’s a good chance you’ve played board games like Chess, Checkers, Solitaire, or Monopoly.
Oh, by the way—Candy Crush Saga and Farmville, totally count.
Games are fun, engaging, and motivational. They challenge us and force us to problem-solve our way to victory. They place us temporarily outside of our comfort zones and reel us back in.
We may not be trying to solve the real world’s deep-seeded issues when we challenge a monster to a duel or battle the onslaught of a thousand warriors in a game. But we’re participating in an experience that slowly builds up tactile skills we can use later to make that difference.
The consistent repetition of the tasks presented to the Player act as the repetitions or “reps” we need to get better. In a game, getting better may just be a matter of understanding how the game is played. Once the muscle memory is unlocked, the Player can function effectively at the game’s highest levels.
Contemporary Video Games 101
Before we can dive deeper into how gamification can help us build fruitful and engaging careers, we need to understand a bit of video game terminology first.
Here are a few cheat codes (in this case definitions of common video game jargon) that may help you as we continue on our quest.
RPG
RPG stands for Role-Playing Game. A traditional RPG might take place in a world based in Fantasy where wizards, goblins, princesses, and warriors are the norm. Think Dungeons and Dragons or Lord of the Rings. This is the most applicable type of game to emulate for career gamification because it has the most robust systems from which to pull inspiration from.RPG Mechanics
RPG mechanics are the nuances of how an RPG might be played and associated feedback. Such characteristics may include leveling systems, skill trees, experience tracking, NPCs, quests, missions, objectives, among others. These features have been expanded upon below.Leveling System
In most modern games, there are systems to help you “Level Up” from one point of being to another. Each Level is a plateau upon which to obtain additional skills or become more powerful within the game.
Another way to think of it is that the leveling system helps track the stats and characteristics of your avatar similar to how a Baseball Card may track key stats for your favorite player. As the Player increases in Level, so too shall their skills, attributes, and abilities.Skill Tree
Skill Trees are a common type of leveling system. They define a series of larger groupings of skills that relate to one another. These groupings collectively form a kind of “Tree” that represents the Player’s collective abilities.
Each “Branch” of the tree relates to a series of skills that build upon one from the next, but don’t necessarily relate to another branch directly. For example, one branch could focus on strength skills, while another branch may focus entirely on stealth. Depending upon whether you want to run into danger or sneak around it, one could place the experience points gained from leveling up into one branch or the other.EXP
In most contexts, EXP typically stands for Experience. As the Player completes new tasks, the game provides them with a predetermined amount of “Experience” based on the rules it has established.
If the Player does something more difficult, the game typically rewards them with more experience. The experience is tied to the Leveling System so that the Player can “Level Up” from one level to the next after a set amount of experience has been acquired.Loot
Loot in a video game is a standard term for items, currency, or skills you may acquire. After a mission, or while roaming the game world, the Player may find “Loot” that can then be use to assist the Player’s character on their journey.NPC
NPC stands for Non-Playable Character. These are characters that are often populated throughout the world of the game to either help the Player, act as antagonists, or act as background extras. As the name suggests, the Player is not able to actually play as these characters, only to see them or interact with them.Quest
A Quest is a long-term adventure that the Player embarks upon in order to achieve a major goal. A quest may involve saving a realm from certain doom or defeating an evil adversary. It could also represent a larger search for meaning within the world.Mission
A Mission is a medium-sized activity that is a stepping stone on a Player’s Quest journey. The Player may find Loot as they complete various missions or may be rewarded with experience points that can be used to enhance abilities.Objective
An objective is a short-term, localized task (of which there could be many) within a given mission. It’s the simplest form of activity a video game will ask of the Player. Once an objective has been completed, several more may be required to be completed as well in order to complete a larger Mission.
Often times, one objective may lead to the next, chaining together activities to effectively lead the Player step-by-step from the beginning of the Mission to the end.
Enter the Odyssey
As we start to discuss the nuances of Video Games and how they can transform our career, let’s take a closer look at one game in particular—Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey (ACO) is an action role-playing video game developed and published by Ubisoft. It’s the 11th major installment in the Assassin's Creed series. Set in the year 431 BC, ACO tells a fictional history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Players control a fearless mercenary who fights to uncover the secrets of their past and the nefarious cult trying to hide them.
A harrowing adventure, ACO is engaging and fun to play. ACO speaks to the ways in which video games can captivate us through its patterns, systems, and craft.
It all hinges around one critical component—character.
Choose Your Character
A common trait of contemporary games is the opportunity to choose and mold our Avatar (a.k.a. the character representing you in the game) into whoever we want them to be.
In ACO for example, we are immediately given the choice between one of two twins from Sparta that will be your character for the rest of the game—Alexios and Kassandra. You must choose, but choose wisely.
What I mean by choose wisely is choose Kassandra. I did.
We begin to assume the traits of someone who represents your ultimate goals for the character. Some games may provide you with a “class” choice (e.g. warrior, wizard, thief) establishing your avatar with a predetermined series of unique character traits to build upon. Other games may leave the choice much more open ended for us to decide all of the characteristics you wish to develop over the course of the game.
When given the chance, I’ve found that gamers tend to design their character from one of two paths:
Themselves
The opposite of themselves
To understand which path you lean towards, ask yourself these questions:
Do you want to rule over the world that you’ve become a part of in the game?
Do you want to help the other characters defeat evil and build something for everyone with honor?
Do you want to role the dice and just see what happens?
We sometimes become crippled in our own lives by the weight of our decisions. Games can be an opportunity to find what we stand for.
Games can help us realize our potential.
You are the Hero of Your Own Story
When we begin a game such as Assassin's Creed Odyssey, we start from the same place everyone does—the beginning. Soon the world opens up and you are presented with seemingly endless choices of where to go.
This may seem like a very daunting prospect indeed. But the reality is that it’s quite the opposite. Having choice to move forward in our character’s story (as though it is partially our own) is freedom in and of itself.
As we complete missions and objectives throughout the world, we obtain loot and experience points. It’s up to us how you choose to spend those points. The game essentially gives you a series of three buckets into which we can spend the experience like currency. As we acquire enough experience, we may choose to “Level Up” our character over time so that they evolve into an epic assassin.
Over time, my version of Kassandra heavily changed from a simple warrior, to a stealthy assassin, to a completely heroic badass. This didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it took many real-time hours of playing the game to get there.
Each time I seized a new fort, defeated an invading army, or found a new location, I earned experience that I used to build up my character as I saw fit.
The Kassandra I’ve created is not the one you would have created. No, she isn’t. This Kassandra speaks to the way I play and like to experience the world in Assassin’s Creed. She is wise, stealthy, cunning, clever, and calculating.
I’m the hero in this story and I’ve chosen to build my character to represent who I want to be in this world.
Building an Epic Architecture Career Through Gamification
If you’ve been following along this far, you may have noticed a few patterns that can help us unlock the potential of gamification for our own careers in architecture.
Typical Architecture Career Development
Define Your Career Goal
Establish Milestones
Put in the Repetitions
Learn New Skills
Achieve Your Goal
Repeat
But here’s the trick. We all know that these are essentially the steps to develop our careers in architecture. With gamification though, we can essentially transform this otherwise mundane process into something far more interesting.
What if we used gamification to re-write the steps above? What would they look like?
Architecture Career Development Through Gamification
Define Your Epic Quest to Help You Live The Life You’ve Always Wanted
Establish Harrowing Missions to Help You Reach Your Destiny
Earn Experience Points to Help You Build Up Your Character
Acquire Specialized Skills to Help You Defeat Evil
Build One Heck of an Epic Career and Life to Inspire Others
Final Thoughts
It might be silly to some, but I believe that gamification can provide a long term answer to the question you’re asking about your own career—How do I build a great career and have fun doing it?
We don’t just decide one day to be Architects. Rather, we take years to build ourselves up, one experience point at a time. When it comes to how we think about our long term careers, there are a million ways to do it. This is just one. I didn’t know it before, but I had already started playing my game years ago.
Consider the following:
Careers in the profession of architecture can benefit from emulating video games systems.
Develop short-term (objectives) and long-term (quests) types of goals
Create systems that keep you motivated and consistent in your efforts
As you earn experience, celebrate your wins when you “Level Up”
Bring others along for the journey
You are the hero of your own story. Go write something epic. There’s no time for anything less.
Additional Resources
(Book) SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully // Jane McGonigal
(Article) 7 Ways Gamification Can Help Retain and Engage Millennials // Ryan Jenkins
(Video) Top 4 Gamification Techniques // Gamify
(Video) Gamification at Work // TEDxGraz, Janaki Kumar
(Book) Gamify: How Gamification Motivates People to Do Extraordinary Things // Brian Burke
(Video) Gaming Can Make a Better World // Jane McGonigal
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