War on Terror app - first week post mortem

It's been just over a week since the launch of War on Terror, the application. And what a long week it was. The list of things to do seemed to grow, hydra-like, with every new thing we crossed off. So we thought it would be a good moment to reflect, to share what we've learnt so far and to wheel out some juicy stats and figures. Everyone loves statistics. And graphs. Ooh yeh.

Going into this, we were working pretty much in the dark. There's a wealth of information about getting your app noticed (which all boils down to some marketing and PR basics) but not much in terms of solid advice and figures. The best sources information we found were case studies that other developers had written up, so we're doing the same here in the hope that someone will find this equally useful.

So we uploaded our finished binary around the 5th November and set the live date to 25th November. Initially, we had set it to go live as soon as Apple approved it, but after reading around, we realised the benefits of being able to set a firm date and build some marketing activity around that date. Even still, we felt a little handicapped and we definitely held back on the marketing front while Apple delayed our approval and told us they would require extra time. In hindsight, if we weren't so near Christmas and at risk of being engulfed by seasonal bullshit, I would have put the live date right back another couple of weeks or so, just to give us the certainty of a live date we could rely on.

Like the opposite of a roller coaster: exhilarating on the up curve and slightly nervy on the way down. Apple approved our app on 17th November and that's really when we started emailing people and giving out some advance codes. Note: your promo codes work the minute your app has been approved, even if you haven't set the app to go live on the App Store.

While we're talking about promo codes – they're a big pain in the ass. Apple (and after much thought I'm still at a loss as to why) have decided that you only need 50 promo codes per release. Most people on the web seem to say “that's fine, quit bitching” but we used these up virtually in the first week. Having produced solid products for years that literally cost us money to give out, we have accepted that you can't be stingy with these things. Freebies grease the dirty cogs of PR and there's no getting away from it, so don't fight it. Now we have a digital product that costs us nothing to give out, with a beautiful, immediate and free mode of delivery – and our sales agent limits the freebies!? That's bonkers. Apple, you are MENTAL. Let us publishers do what we want with our own games please.

If that weren't bad enough, Apple provide no administration of these codes. Once ordered they expire in 4 weeks and there's no way of knowing who or when the codes were used. In our research, we unearthed about 212 viable review sites that might be interested in our app. We could cover a quarter of this list and then …. wait...? Luckily, there is a type of arcane ritual that you can go through and manually check each promo code using iTunes, as explained here. It's annoying and slow, but better than nothing.

The first thing we learnt – all those promo codes we gave away in newsletters, tweets, forums etc. - total waste. We should have set up some kind of promotion where first responders were gifted the app. Promo codes, once you work out how to track them, are invaluable because they tell you which of the mythical review sites have actually responded to your desperate email. Because let me tell you now, it's pretty much like shouting into the void. Even the biggest review sites are getting by on what can only be described as a skeleton team. You aren't going to get a response. Even if they like you. So the only indication of success might be whether that promo code has been redeemed or not. Now we have to write to reviewers saying “we'd like to gift you the game if you send us your ...” No dice. It's an extra step they have to take and when inundated with requests, guess where ours goes?

Anyway, the first week went astonishingly well. As you can see from the screengrab to the left, we even secured a coveted "thumbnail" place for a short time in 'top grossing UK Board Games'. (Yeh it's pretty niche but we were proud).

We actually hadn't set up any goals or expectations (we had nothing to go on!) but we have a broad ambition (and I hope it's realistic) to sell 10,000 games total. After tax and Apple's cut, this gives us and our developer a non-laughable amount for the year's work we undertook that would encourage further work and collaboration.

Although we didn't get the coverage we were hoping for, our launch was still fairly well anticipated and eventful, thanks mostly to you, dear readers and supporters. There's no doubt we were at a massive advantage with an already existing customer base. Some pre-press from the likes of Forbes and the front page of our own local newspaper didn't harm any either.

We secretly moved the live date forward a day, the evening before just so we could satisfy ourselves that everything was as it should be and there were no hitches. Also, insanely, this was the only way we could preview our app in the iTunes store. Apple don't provide this functionality in any shape or form. Again, mental.

The official “launch” was really very exciting. We all had a tonne of work to do but I must have spent at least 4 hours sat on Twitter and checking the rankings in the App Store. As we climbed rapidly into the charts, I suddenly got quite nervous. We topped out at #6 in Board Games and #3 in Strategy here in the UK. Not expecting to reach the top 10 of anything, I was suddenly gripped by the fear that this visibility would be short-lived. I started viewing all the other apps in the top 10 with resentment and dismissing them out of hand. I fretted about what we could do to maintain and build upon this early success … Certainly, Seneca had it right when he said that you fear nothing only when you have nothing to lose.

The actual download and sales figures are compiled at around 8am PST the day following your complete day of sales. That meant we'd have to wait until about 4pm on Saturday to find out what this all translated to, but I have to admit, when we hit the #1 spot for top grossing Board Games in the UK and held the spot for 24 hours, I guestimated that this had to translate to over a thousand downloads – possibly thousandS. Alas, this was a gross over-estimate and surprisingly it turns out you don't need to shift that many units to get visibility in the App Store (at least in the sub-categories), which should be encouraging to all developers. However, one thing we got an idea for is the massive amount of resources, money and dedication that the larger publishers have at their disposal, shoring up their apps and ensuring not one place gets dropped without a fight. I can tell you this, if you get into the top 10 of any category, no matter how briefly, you've done a GOOD THING.

So without further ado … the graphs! Yay!

We sold almost 1500 games in the first week. Possibly it was a mistake launching on Black Friday, just before a weekend, but we have nothing to compare to.

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As you can see we did well on home turf. The lack of industry coverage, combined with Thanksgiving and Black Friday probably didn't help things in America.

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Succes was short lived but good while it lasted. The opposite of a roller coaster: exhilarating on the up curve and slightly nervy on the way down.

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The highest we reached in the overall games chart was #45 here in the UK.

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And the highest rank was achieved in the Strategy subcategory where we held #3 in the UK for about 12 hours. At least we beat Risk.

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And that's about it. Simultaneously better and then worse than expected. Obviously if we could net £3,000 a week 52 weeks a year then it'd be very tempting to ditch board games altogether, but right now it feels like a daunting prospect maintaining that level of visibility. The app store clearly works very well for a small number of publishers. It'd be nice to see the curve levelled out a bit. Maybe an Indie Games subcategory (However you might define that)? Anyway, everyone who's bought the app, thank you and if you took the trouble to review or rate it, triple thanks. We count on you more than you probably know.

 

In other news ... we were meant to be in the Observer Gift Guide the other weekend but we got ditched unceremoniously. So we were left with having to do our own advertising this year instead. We made up a 6 metre x 1.5 metre banner and affixed it to the side of the road near a major roundabout on the way into Cambirdge. Look, it's beautiful:

In starring out the 'u', we actually thought we were being quite reserved for us. But within days, it had been vandalised:

Normally I'd get really annoyed at something so pointlessly petty, but it's actually pretty funny. I think it's the politest graffiti I've ever seen. They've taken the trouble to carefully censor two more letters from "fuck" (obviously there's nothing offensive about the letter 'k') and left the rest of the banner well alone. Not only that, but they've chosen gold spray paint which is not only pretty transparent but also adds to the festive air of the banner.

Still, I don't see anyone defacing any FCUK shop fronts. It is amazing the quiet authority millions and millions of pounds gives you.

Posted by Andy S on 7 December 2011 - 6 comments

Comments so far:

1. Game looks awesome, I'm gonna download it :) Thanks for the writeup!Tyler from US - 8 December 2011
2. Hey Tyler, really glad our write up was of interest - and thanks for trying the game out. Let us know what you think. Cheers!TerrorBull Games - 9 December 2011
3. Nice write up Andy. As to who the censor/vandal was, I think it might have been the sheep.Robin from Brighton, UK - 16 December 2011
4. Thanks for the write-up. I bought the game on my iPad. But was a bit dissapointed that it was only iPhone sized and quickly lost interest. Probably my fault for not paying enough attention. The iPad seems like a more natural form factor.Andy B from Swindon - 18 December 2011
5. You would find that the Android crowd is much more welcoming, if you had an Android offering (hint hint nudge nudge...)Kevin C from Austin,TX US - 18 December 2011
6. Android... Android... Android... (not having anything to do with the Facist State that is Apple...).MAJOR TOM from NOT BAGHDAD ANYMORE - 20 December 2011

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War on Terror app goes live on 25.11.11

It's almost time! War on Terror, the application will be available on the iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPod from tomorrow. (iPad and Android users will have to wait a bit, I'm afraid - that's the price you pay for being technical innovators - but we're working on it).

It's been a busy week since Apple finally approved our game. With rather brilliant timing, a war crimes tribunal in Kuala Lumpur commenced hearings this week, charging George Bush and Tony Blair with crimes against peace. We'll be following the progress of this story closer than the fate of our app.

Then we almost got arrested in Cambridge while shooting the trailer video for the app. The concept was basic - to say the least. I film Tom in various locations, wearing a balaclava and playing the app on his iPhone.

we almost got arrested in Cambridge while shooting the trailer video for the app Thing is, when we headed into the Army & Navy store, wearing our EVIL balaclavas, someone called the cops. We had just enough time for a quick chat and catch up with the guys in the shop (awesome guys by the way; they've supported us by selling the game from virtually Day One - and continue to do so) and when I turned to go, confidently declaring that "we'll just have to rob somewhere else", we came face-to-face with two bemused and confused policemen.

They didn't see the funny side, even after showing them the game and explaining it all. "Not a smart move" said one. "Next time, know your audience" added the other, quite cryptically, I felt. At this precise point, we were approached by a young lad who shook our hands and thanked us for making "such an awesome game". Whoever you are, young man, your timing was impeccable.

The rest of the filming went relatively smoothly and we're just stitching that all together right now and preparing for THE BIG DAY.

So on Friday (25 November), it would be awesome if you could help us shout about the app going live. The first 24 hours are really crucial in "app land" and if we can break into any of the lists, we might have a shot at getting War on Terror onto the first page of the board game category - and wouldn't that be incredible?

I want to give a few well-deserved and overdue thank yous. First, everyone who donated so we could buy "Running the World" - I still can't believe you crazies responded to that. Thank you. Our testers - you did a great job and helped us bring it all together in an insanely condensed schedule. Rob Owen for the fantastic job he did on the sound and composing some astonishing music for the game. Seriously, if you're one of these people that gets a new game and heads straight to the options screen to mute all sound, you'll be missing out. We are detail junkies here at TBG and the sound is no exception - there's lots of hidden joys in there. And fart noises. Ben for giving me the idea of Evil Clippy (still raises a chuckle). My wife, who patiently (happily?) put up with hardly seeing or communicating with me for the past month except through Skype and this blog (hi, Jenn!) because I've been holed up in the bunker, working like a fiend. Tom for being ever-dependent and picking up everything that would have sent me over the edge. And of course, David Partouche, our developer. This app literally wouldn't exist - we wouldn't even think about how it could exist - without him. Thanks, David, you made a brilliant game that we're all really proud of. I know David wants to thank the Incredible Hulk. I don't know what it means, but I'm just the messenger on that one.

All that aside, while you wait for Friday, check out the app page with screenshots and stuff.

Roll on Friday!

P.S. While you're in the app store, check out ECT (English Country Tune) by our good friend Stephen Lavelle (aka. increpare). It's an awesome zen-like puzzle game. We've been helping him beta-test it and co-incidentally it also goes live tomorrow.

Posted by Andy S on 24 November 2011 - 4 comments

Comments so far:

1. Will there be an Android, Steam, XBLA ord PSN Version???standart from Germany - 24 November 2011
2. Will there be an Android, Steam, XBLA ord PSN Version???standart from Germany - 24 November 2011
3. Nice! But will it come for iPad either in a universal app or seperately. It's much better suited for boardgaming of this kind :DThue Eriksen from Herning, Danmark - 25 November 2011
4. I feel somewhat addicted to the boardgame ... and now I've seen there's an App. Good thing, but since I'm a bit old school concerning mobile phones ... what about a PC or online version? That would be great!Vrangarz from Germany - 23 December 2011

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Under review ...

This time last week, we held a "testing party" in advance of submitting our app of War on Terror to Apple for final review. It was a long night - we finished at 5am - and the few photos we took to mark this momentous occasion are, even we have to admit, quite underwhelming. But we made it. Done. Finished. Uploaded.

The thing is, if I could go back in time and tell 8-year-old me that in 27 years time, I'd be running a GAMES company and we'd be having a testing PARTY that didn't finish until 5 IN THE MORNING, then I'm pretty sure that 8-year-old me would absolutely spazz-out with excitement and then probably wouldn't sleep for, well, the next 27 years out of sheer, exuberant anticipation. The reality, sadly is far more prosaic. Sorry, little 8-year-old me. You know, it's time you grew up anyway. Welcome to the world.

Here's how the evening went down:

20.00 We all meet, sleep deprived but wired from working 100-hour weeks to get the app ready for tonight
20.10 Got to play this fucking game again ...*
20.30 .... and again ...
21.20 The fart noises still make everyone laugh. Surely a good sign (yes, it has fart noises; there's not much this app doesn't have)
22.30 Curry break
23.00 Long discussion about the credits screen. Should they be centred after all? And let's just try something ...
00.00 Spotted a graphics error in the war animation. MAJOR disaster
01.00 Everyone's playing the "nuke happy" version just to confirm the text in the alert box that pops up. Terrifying.
03.00 Andy S: "I should probably write a description for the app"
04.30 Click "upload". Breaths are held. It's done!

* Actually, I can honestly say we are all properly addicted to it.

The only downer is that we just got an ominous email from Apple to say that our app was going to require "additional time" to review. They didn't tell us why exactly, or how long, but this could be a bad early sign. With our history, we're not expecting too much.

But if all goes well, the app will be live on 25 November 2011!

Posted by Andy S on 10 November 2011 - 5 comments

Comments so far:

1. Even if they blow you out an Android version is essential.shades from dysentry on sea - 10 November 2011
2. I agree, shades, I think the Android marketplace is showing more promise right now anyway. We'll see what happens. All we need is about 10 sales to encourage us enough to make other versions.TerrorBull Games - 10 November 2011
3. Please do an Android version! Would like to point out you could circumvent the whole App store malarkey by distributing a .apk file :)Ferg from Sheffield (Jarvis Ville) - 11 November 2011
4. Ha ha, just stumbled across this (link from pocketgamer) and I've got to say fair play. A game of truth showing how ridiculous the world is. I'll let my kids play this for an education. Hope it gets through screening. Good luck.Ryan from Beds, uk - 14 November 2011
5. 10 sales for the Android? You forget that we're all broke, and none of us has an Android phone. So We'll probably need to raise some funds again for the game, or loot some phone shops.david from cambridge - 15 November 2011

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We did it!

By "we", we mean "you" - YOU bloody did it. You answered our call when we asked for help and you gave more supportingly and generously than we could ever have hoped for. And now ... now we have enough money to buy the rights to Jarvis Cocker's "Running the World". Thank you!

This will be looked back upon as an exciting and happy chapter in the story of TerrorBull Games. It's particularly humble to know that we have built up such a store of goodwill that people are willing - especially in the current climate - to give money to something so superficial and seemingly inconsequential.

However, those of you that pitched in, you clearly saw what this meant to us and to the game and it was wonderful that you shared the same desire that we did to make this thing as great as possible.

And it is looking - and sounding - great. Here's another sneak preview as a little way of saying "thanks". This little fella pops up when you start the game:

Once again, everyone who donated, tweeted, liked and generally helped us on our way, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of our balls. You've made our day.

Posted by TerrorBull Games on 5 October 2011 - 3 comments

Comments so far:

1. The poster has been delivered today. It looks great! Now if only I had an iphone, I could actually play the bloody game ... :pDavid Holt from Amsterdam - 28 October 2011
2. Looking forward to release, need to satisfy my world running aspirations, any idea of a release date yet?Bob Mugabe from Harare - 30 October 2011
3. Release date .... is looming .... we have to submit the app to the iTunes store this week and then, pending approval, should be live pretty soon after!TerrorBull Games - 1 November 2011

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DiGRA 2011: Gamification, morals, mimes and a hungover LARP

Last week, I was asked to take part in a panel on board games at DiGRA 2011 at the Utrecht School of Arts in The Netherlands. It's three days of jam-packed, pretty intense debate, discussion and, of course, play centred around academic research into games. Seeing as that sounded like my idea of a GOOD TIME, I attended the whole thing. Here's what I learnt ...

First, I was pretty amazed at the breadth and sophistication of the state of games research, considering how relatively new serious study of games is. There was discussion on everything from meta-analysis of what a game is, to sociological and cultural evaluation of the impact of games, to how they work and communicate with the player. What struck me is that these conversations are pretty rare amongst game designers themselves (from what I've observed), which is odd. I mean, while you don't necessarily need to know, for example, why a great painting works in order to produce one yourself, it does seem somewhat of a handicap.

Highlights of the conference included Eric Zimmerman's frenetic and inspirational opening keynote. He triggered a note of introspection that lasted the duration of the convention. Two themes seemed to persist. The first was how to ensure games were taken more seriously and the other was what to do about "gamification" - starting with the very definition of the word. Gamification is currently the hot buzz-word in marketing circles and that's pretty much the kiss of death when you're trying to build credibility. So understandably there were quite high levels of hostility towards the idea of bringing game mechanics to everyday processes (like Foursquare).

The accusations levelled at gamification are that it's a lazy and crass attempt to coerce customers to engage with your brand. But then, as was pointed out, it doesn't have to be lazy or crass - anything poorly implemented will always be poor; that's not a compelling argument in itself.

I'm not sure where I sit on the matter myself. Reward schemes have been around forever and are a type of game. My main concern is that people should naturally want to engage in an activity - if they're doing it just for a gold star, then that may even supplant natural desires in time. It becomes just about accumulating stuff - an extension of capitalist ideology where nothing has intrinsic worth, only if you slap a value, a prize or a badge on it. In short, games do not improve everything, sorry Jane McGonigal.

I had the slightly uneasy feeling I'd been drafted in for the panel simply to be the living embodiment of everything Reiner dislikedThe board game session on the first evening started with a keynote from Reiner Knizia. I hope Reiner doesn't need an introduction, but just in case you don't know, Reiner is like the China of board games. 90% of all games out there are designed by him. Well, so it seems. He has published an astonishing 500 titles.

Reiner's talk could be paraphrased as "5 rules of board game design". It was interesting, witty and humble, but pretty flawed ... I know, quite a claim when he's sold literally millions of games. Clearly he's doing something right. But these "rules" just didn't hold up. Take #3: "If you're clever and have something to say, you don't need to shock". Well, that's pretty limiting, but OK. The next rule was a poor extension of the same point: #4 "If you're clever and have something to say, you don't need blood". Wait a second, so shock and blood automatically rid something of any artistic, cultural or social value? I guess that's bad news for, well, every artist who's ever lived.

The thing is, Reiner is a *good guy*. He personally walked round the hall before his talk, giving away free copies of his game, Pickomino. - how nice is that? He oozes respectability and is one of those people who genuinely seems not to have a bad bone in their body and to be honest I feel bad picking him up on this as I write. But there was a degree of self-denial in these proclamations of games as upright citizens of the entertainment world. It was a bit like being lectured on game design by Victorian Dad. Sitting there, watching Reiner's talk, I had the growing, slightly uneasy feeling I'd been drafted in for the panel simply to be the living embodiment of everything Reiner disliked.

Sure enough, when the panel got underway, the conversation soon drifted to the idea of games having morals and the morality of game design. Reiner asserted that games should be positive experiences and therefore need to re-enforce positive morality. I should say at this point that everyone on the panel had vastly more knowledge and experience of games than I, but were all far too polite to challenge Reiner. All eyes looked to me and I took up the gauntlet. I recapped Reiner's #1 rule: "Games are about real life" (which he illustrated with a game of his about building a caravan through the desert - and let's be honest, that's real life for a really limited section of the world's population). I strongly agree with this first rule by the way but I pointed out that life is not all positive - it's often complex, difficult and nasty, and those things need representing too, otherwise we're just creating fairy tales. Reiner responded to this by saying that this didn't mean we have to design games where you "fly planes into skyscrapers" - obliquely referring to War on Terror.

What's interesting is that Reiner (who hasn't played the game) raised an objection that we encountered verbatim more than once upon releasing War on Terror from rather reactionary camps who hadn't even seen - let alone played - the game. For some reason, lots of people jumped to the worst possible conclusion they could and made up game mechanics that were far more depraved and far sicker than anything we could ever dream up. And that reminded me of the discussion about gamification earlier in the day. I suddenly understood Reiner's worry very clearly - games that shock are frequently lazy and crass. And while it may have been lazy of him to assume our game was about something so void of value as getting points for hitting skyscrapers, Reiner merely fell into the trap that the gamification critics did of assuming that because a lot of the implementation of a certain idea is badly done, then the idea must be bad in itself.

This is probably the only time you will ever see my name and Reiner's mentioned together in the same tweet. Savour it.

Later in the conference, Mary Flannigan, in an excellent, ideas-packed talk, would sum up this imperative for games to grapple with serious issues far more coherently than I did on stage. She said, "in a polarized world games help people take a position and experiment with it". That line could almost be our mission statement.

Reiner and I argued the point further for a bit in an exchange that someone later described as "enjoyably uncomfortable", before moving onto safer territory. The panel went on for well over an hour after that and it was a real privilege to have such a stimulating conversation with such an interesting group. I got on especially well with Douglas Wilson, co-founder of the Copenhagen Games Collective and designer of the beautiful, balletic game, Johann Sebastian Joust. Douglas likes to play with those spaces in games that exist between the rules; I think that's why we saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things. I'd like to briefly thank Ben Kirman and José Zagal for arranging such an enlightening session and of course for inviting me to be part of it.

As great as our panel was, it wasn't the highlight of the convention. That honour goes - without a shred of doubt - to Antanas Mockus, who delivered his keynote via Skype from Colombia. Mockus is a true radical, a real games revolutionary. He is the ex-Mayor of Bogota and during his time as Mayor he experimented with a number of unusual and daring public games (although he didn't see them as games) that he devised to rewrite the social contract and make the town a better place to live. My favourite anecdote was his solution to the flagrant traffic abuses that the police were too inept, lazy or corrupt to fix. Mockus drafted a small army of 400 mime artists to publicly and visibly call out road users who broke the law. In effect, the mimes - in a playful and comedic way - plastered over the cracks in the social contract and made it socially unacceptable again to run red lights. A bonus side effect of this strategy was that the mimes were so disliked that when the police did turn up, they were greeted as heroes. Citizens and police were united by the common enemy of mime. It sounds like the plot of a Family Guy episode, but this is very much for real. Check out the documentary 'Cities on Speed' for more on this fascinating character.

Last but not least, I was inducted, on the final day, into LARPing (Live Action Role Play). Previously I had a massive prejudice against LARP, understanding it was largely about dressing up in the woods and waving latex swords around with other people pretending to be orcs. That was until I was told about Nordic LARP. Nordic LARP seems to be less about fantasy make-pretend and more about unregulated psychological experiments from American universities in the 1970s. Take, for example, a LARP they did, set in the time of the Cuban missile crisis - except in this game, World War III actually breaks out. They got everyone into a bunker, set up the situation, told them the boxes were full of supplies and then "dropped the bomb". It's at that point they find out the boxes don't contain food, they contain speakers and the ground literally shakes with the "explosion". Then they switch off the lights, cut the power and lock them all in there for 22 hours. Apparently some people emerged with post traumatic stress disorder. Others were crying. Some were too stunned to speak. FUN FOR ALL THE FAMILY! I realised that Nordic LARP makes our games sound weak and feeble in comparison.

Anyway, author of the Nordic LARP book, Jaakko Stenros, lead a "hungover larp" on the last morning of DiGRA. It was a kind of whodunnit, but one that has no resolution. There were ten of us locked in a darkened room with empty bottles lying over the floor and party snacks scattered on the table. The scenario is we all awake after a riotous house party, we all remember different snippets of the previous evening. Oh and there's blood all over the sheets on the bed upstairs. Basically this gave way to 90 minutes of pretty hammy acting, some genuinely insightful moments and many, many laugh-out-loud moments, which makes it tough to stay in character. All in all, it was an interesting experience. I certainly see the appeal now. Stay tuned for the forthcoming Guantanamo LARP from TerrorBull Games!

OK, you've been really good and you've finally reached the end of this epic post. Drawing lessons from gamification, I hereby reward you with the "EPIC BLOGREADER" achievement badge. *ching! ching!* - and here's your special unlocked bonus material .... Kid Koala at the opening party playing moon river. This was incredible so I'm really sorry about the appalling sound quality. Enjoy:

For more pictures of the insane opening party, check out the gallery and also DiGRA's own videos of the event.

Posted by Andy S on 25 September 2011 - 3 comments

Comments so far:

1. For a good read about the downsides of giving out badges and the like - gamification - see the book Punished by Rewards by Kohn. Lots of stuff about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I'd be happy to lend you my copy.hamish from cambridge - 27 September 2011
2. That sounds right up my street, thanks Hamish, I'd love to borrow it.TerrorBull Games - 27 September 2011
3. Great post! I really liked your admittance of your newfound appreciation of LARP. Although I've never done this in the structured sense, I, along with my family and a couple thousand others, once spent a whole week in character at the SCA "Gulf War" http://www.gulfwars.org/about.html reenacting a middle ages battle between two warring kings. It was one of the most brilliant experiences I've ever had!Estella from Chelmsford - 2 October 2011

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