Gamer-at-Arms – You’re A Fighter

“Unapologetic curve flaunter” of the month!

Can you believe we’re already a month into 2013? If you made a resolution this year, how are you getting on with it? Have you started it? You haven’t, have you? And it was fitness-related, wasn’t it? Well then, I’d like to invite you to fret not – help is at hand, and it’s taken the form of gamification!

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Gamification’ is that big long word that marketeers like to throw around a lot, and can mean nothing but the destruction of everything you love. Whenever somebody uses the word ‘gamification’, what they really mean is they’re going to take something you love and suck all the life out of it in order to try and make as much money as they can. It can’t ever be associated with anything good.

That is not so! Gamification is nothing to be afraid of – not only is it something that’s not actually all that bad, it has been used for ages. Think about the last time you went to a cafe and bought a coffee. You probably got a piece of cardboard with a stamp on it – fill it with stamps and you get a free coffee. Sound familiar? Companies tend to put this into practise on the other side of the counter as well by granting staff bonuses when particular sales targets are reached and the like. Indeed, gamification is actually a practise that even predates its own name.

Completing quests earns you badges to show off on your profile.

But that’s enough about the retail industry, you want to get fit and gamification can help! A wee while before the Christmas period I became aware of a fitness-centric social network called Fitocracy through Tecmo Koei‘s legendary and downright inspiring Community Manager Chin Soon Sun. A while ago, Chin tweeted about a gaming group he’d set up and invited people to join him – I took him up on it and was surprised to find that it’s really less of a social network, and more of a social role-playing game.

The core social networking functionality in terms of sharing photos and status updates and the like is present, but the main feature is the in-depth workout and exercise tracker. Do a load of reps with a set of dumbbells or a few lengths of your local swimming pool, and when you fill out Fitocracy’s exercise tracker it automatically gives you a load of experience points. From there it pans out exactly how you’d expect – earn enough experience points and you level up. I suppose where Fitocracy and a traditional RPG differ however is that with the former, the stat bonuses are applied automatically!

It’s not just an experience bar that you dump exercise points into though – Fitocracy also has quests and achievements designed to encourage you to try out new exercises and routines, and to get you doing them more regularly. It’s a real testament to the power of gamification when it can get you out and about and being more active, and shows that, while it may not always be banded around with the most benevolent of intentions, it isn’t always a bad thing either.


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