Be it playful design or gamification: It usually takes about five minutes until the Mary Poppins tune “Spoonful of Sugar” is evoked. This talk will explain why this reference is both true and false, how the movie entails two radically divergent theories of fun that match what we know in psychology and educational research, and how to translate this into designing for fun. My talk given at Gaminomics 2015, June 11, 2015 in London.

1. would the real
mary poppins
please stand up?
Sebastian Deterding
Northeastern University
June 11, 2015
c b

2. gaMification
Lets learn from
games how to make
things fun!

3. the unwitting figurehead

4. two
conflicting
theories of fun

5. <1>

6. “just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine
go down.”

7. “spoonful of sugar”
aka fun as additive substance

8. some things are inherently fun …

9. … and some things aren’t.

10. »School is like medicine:
It must taste bitter, else
it’s of no use.«
in the punchbowl (1944)
Professor Crey

11. so: add funstuff to nonfunstuff for more fun

12. aka 1990’s edutainment

15. a
resounding
failure …

17. gaMification
Lets learn from
games how to make
things fun!
… which doesn’t bode well for this

18. <2>

19. “in everything that can be done, there is an element
of fun. Find the fun, and snap, the job’s a game.”

20. “find the fun”
aka fun as systemic-emergent quality

21. everything can be(come) fun, interesting

22. »Mowing the lawn or waiting in a
dentist’s office can become enjoyable
provided one restructures the activity by
providing goals, rules, and the other
elements of enjoyment to be reviewed
below.«
flow (1990: 51)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

27. “intrinsic integration”

30. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/oem2002006062/PP/

31. Donald F. Roy
»De Man cites the case of one worker who wrapped
13,000 incandescent bulbs a day; she found her
outlet for creative impulse, her self-determination,
her meaning in work by varying her wrapping
movements a little from time to time. ... (L)ike the
light bulb wrapper, I did find a ›certain scope for
initiative,‹ and out of this slight freedom to vary
activity, I developed a game of work.«
»banana time« (1960)

32. fun as systemic-emergent quality
https://www.flickr.com/photos/benimoto/2084853203

33. http://www.flickr.com/photos/8147452@N05/2913356030/sizes/o/

34. Rainer Knizia
»The life blood of game design is testing.
... Why are we playing games? Because
it‘s fun. You cannot calculate this. You
cannot test this out in an abstract
manner. You have to play it.«
shift run stop, episode 40 (2010)

35. one recipe for one kind of fun
1. Identify the inherent learnable
challenge
2. Restructure it optimally with clear
goals, rules, feedback
3. Playtest and iterate

37. j.mp/skillatoms

38. summary

39. to be A real mary poppins …

40. don’t sugarcoat nonfunstuff ™

41. find an interesting challenge …

42. … structure it well …

43. test it ‘til you get it right
https://www.flickr.com/photos/benimoto/2084853203

44. invite us to find the fun in it …

45. “… and snap, the job’s a game.”

46. sebastian@codingconduct.cc
@dingstweets
http://j.mp/skillatoms
Thank you.