CS103F: Ethical Foundations of Computer Science

Before beginning this blog post, please watch Tangible & Abstract from Ethics Unwrapped.

For this blog post you will analyze the concept of gamification and the mechanics gamification borrows from video games.

To do this, you will examine:

• What is gamification?
• How can gamification be positive for participants?
• How can gamification be negative for participants?
• Where is the line between "play incentives" and addiction?
• How can companies be encouraged to avoid addictive and/or exploitive mechanics when using gamification techniques?

We recommend that you consider these questions within the framework of a particular game/game mechanic and the use of that mechanic in general software. For example, you might consider Fortnite and Duolingo, or Farmville and Snapchat.

These resources are a good starting place to learn more about game mechanics, gamification, and how the two can relate in postive and negative ways:

• Octalysis---the complete Gamification framework
• Gamification Research: How FarmVille uses Game Mechanics to become Winning & Addicting
• The Psychology of Gamification in 2016: Why It Works (& How To Do It!)
• Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite

Please construct your response so that it has a main idea, supporting arguments, and a conclusion. Your response should be approximately 300 words and you are welcome to link to relevant media (articles, videos, etc.).

We do expect professional presentation: your spelling and grammar should be correct---you should not be using text shorthand or emojis.

Once you have created your blog post, submit a URL to the relevant assignment on Canvas. When you submit your URL, Canvas will take a snapshot of that URL, so be sure to submit once you are finished with your blog post.

Finally, the Ethics Centre has blog posts that may be useful as examples--they are often longer than your requirement, though. One of the recent good examples is "Why Victims Remain Silent... and Then Find Their Voice".