What is a game?
It is “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict defined by rules that results in a quantifiable outcome.”
— Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman
From Putting the Fun in Functional: Applying Game Mechanics to Functional Software Google Tech Talk by Amy Jo Kim.
Elements of game mechanics:
- collecting & completing a set
- getting points – system (game) & social points; redeemable points; leveling up
- feedbck – system (game) feedback & social feedback
- exchanges – explicit & implicit
- customizing experience
Reference: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi