The bright and dark sides of gamification

Abstract

Everything in life has a bright and a dark side; and gamification is not an exception. Although there is an increasing number of publications discussing the benefits of gamification in learning environments, i.e. looking into the bright side of it, several issues can hinder learning because of gamification. Nevertheless, it seems that only few researchers are discussing the dark side of using gamification in learning environments and how to overcome it. Thus, in this paper, we discuss some of the problems of gamification, namely, addiction, undesired competition, and off-task behavior. Furthermore, to deal with both bright and dark sides of gamification at the same time, we propose a framework for intelligent gamification (FIG) that can offer the necessary infrastructure for ITS to personalize the use of gamification by monitoring risk behavior, exploring how best use game design elements to avoid their overuse and finally supporting “fading” mechanisms that gradually reduces the use of gamification and help students to concentrate on learning and not only on extrinsic motivators.