Criticisms of Gamification
Despite its many advantages, gamification has been criticized for undermining intrinsic motivation and for the different impacts it has on various demographics.
Gamification and Intrinsic Motivation
Some critics of gamification feel that commonly used game elements, such as points, levels and leaderboards may undermine users’ intrinsic motivation. Deci et al. (2001) indicated that rather than using rewards to motivate learning, it was more important to focus on how to facilitate intrinsic motivation through interesting learning activities, providing choices and ensuring that tasks are optimally challenging (Deci et al., 2001, p.15). Reeve and Deci (1996) found that when a person receives positive feedback on their performance, and there is no pressure to win, it enhances their intrinsic motivation (Reeve and Deci, 1996).
Implications for Practice: Provide the learner with interesting and challenging activities and give the learner a degree of autonomy and immediate positive feedback.
Gamification and Demographic Considerations
Research into demographic differences in the perceived benefits from gamification found that the social features in gamification were more effective for women than men (Hamari & Koivisto, 2014) and that the use of game mechanics had a positive motivational effect with male students but not female students (Pedro, Lopes, Prates, Vassileva & Isotani, 2015).
Implications for Practice: Social features should be included in gamification, particularly given Hamari and Koivisto (2013) found that social factors were important predictors for gamification use (as cited in Hamari & Kovisto, 2014). Where game mechanics such as points and badges are used, additional methods to facilitate intrinsic motivation should be used.