Design for game or design for play?

Which one will it be? I’ve been digging deeper into gamification and a notion of play resurfaced. I found myself in dichotomy Playfication vs Gamification. I sat for a bit with a thought “play is a behavior”. Like all designers I’m intrigued by behavior. Games in their turn can be “organized play” but they aren’t limited to play.

⚡️ Games can elicit learning, competition, motivation, cooperation among other things; gamification efforts typically focuse on rewards, goals, habit and alike. Play in contrast is for its own sake and is intrinsically motivated – there are no rewards in sight (let’s skip the debate whether internal motivation exists for now). Play gives people control of their environment, while it’s not primary in games. To sum up their difference, one great post put toys next to play. It’s a great analogy since the difference between toys and games is intuitive to everyone. I think of Mailchimp hi-five and Cleo’s roasting mode as playification (worth noting, Cleo is also gamified).

⚡️ The notion of play isn’t new neither to me nor to the world but I haven’t heard the word play in tech that much. Play is a thing in participatory art and urbanism (e.g. playable city), anthropology, sociology, child development, education and so on. I personally got close to it in my anthropology and cultural management past. In UX play(fulness) is somewhat implied in game studies and gamification, parts of emotional design resonates with play too. However it’s not strictly in focus. Gamification is also not new, most of significant works date 10 years back.

Thinking of applications of play and game, players and non-players, behavior we are after and feasibility all come to mind. I’ve learnt that gamification is an undertaking. Playfulness in a glance seem to have a lower entry barrier. It can be sprinkled across the experience without needing more. Gamification though needs some system. For example once you start giving rewards you better think of how to maintain reward drive and then how to deal with over justification effect. You need to satisfy different types of gamers/players. And so on.

⚡️ It all got me thinking what comes more naturally to adults: game or play? I doubt there is universal rule, so what types of players/gamers are we talking about? Designing for a socializer in gamification is often a rule, social play is harder in my opinion. What type of behavior change can play drive that games can’t and vice versa? Just a lot of questions.

So what are you up to: design for play or design for game?