How to Gamify Your Experiment

A game is an activity that requires skill, strategy or luck and can be played for entertainment, competition or a mixture of these. It can be an individual activity, such as playing chess, or it may involve groups, like sports or board games.

The word game is derived from the Greek words , meaning “to play”, and , meaning “a contest”. It also means “diversion or amusement”. Some games are solely or primarily games of chance, such as dice games. Others require strategy and intellectual ability, such as chess or go.

Many games are based on ancient divination, such as the throwing of sticks. This mystical practice eventually became a game of chance, which was later replaced by games of pure skill, such as checkers and the Asian game go.

In economics, game theory is a model of competitive behavior among rational actors. It helps economists to understand how firms can engage in strategies that maximize their profits, such as price-fixing and collusion. It also provides a basis for predicting how an oligopoly firm will respond to new market conditions.

Some of the most popular types of games are video games, where players use a computer to move their character through a series of obstacles in real time. This allows for a more realistic simulation than a board game can offer, and makes it possible to simulate situations that would otherwise be impossible or impractical.

It’s a powerful tool for psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics researchers. It can help them to recruit diverse participants, and make their experiments accessible to people who might be reluctant or unavailable to participate in traditional research.

A gamified experiment can be especially effective if you’re conducting a study with an under-represented group of people, such as children or women. By using a gamified approach, you can easily reach thousands or millions of participants at low cost and make your research more interesting to them.

If you’re planning to gamify an experiment, here are some key things to keep in mind: * Design the game carefully so that it can be played by a wide range of people. For example, try to avoid making your experiments too complicated, and limit the amount of time people have to play them. This is especially important if you’re testing a complex cognitive process, such as navigational abilities.

* Create a storyline for your experiment, and make sure that it is interesting to participants. This can include making it difficult for the player to lose, or incorporating visuals that help them to track their progress.

In a recent experiment on auditory perception, for example, people won points as they completed listening tasks. This helped them to progress up a ladder and stay aloft in the game, which kept them engaged.

Some of these strategies can be applied to other kinds of games, too. For example, you can create an experimental game to test whether people’s moral intuitions are reliable. This can be particularly helpful if you’re studying how individuals react to moral dilemmas or other forms of socially difficult decisions.