Designing Gamified Systems (Master | Sommersemester)
GAMES-DGS-M Designing Gamified Systems (6 ECTS | 4 SWS)
Vorlesungsbeschreibung (in Englisch):
Driven by the rising popularity of digital games, technology, business, and society are increasingly influenced by trends in the gaming industry. One of the probably most important phenomena of this multi-faceted development is “gamification”, which refers to the use of design principles and features from games when designing information systems, processes, or services to afford similar positive experiences, skills, and practices as found in games and facilitate changes in behaviors.
In recent years, gamification has become an umbrella term that encompasses and includes, to varying degrees, other related technological developments such as serious games, game-based learning, exergames, games with a purpose/human computation games and persuasive technology. Further, gamification is applied across industries, such as marketing, commerce, software development, education, logistics, and healthcare.
This course:
- teaches key concepts, design patterns, and approaches of gamified and hedonic (i.e., games and video games) information systems.
- offers deep insights into the theoretical foundations of game design, motivational psychology, and information system design.
- introduces methods and frameworks for designing gamified systems and managing gamification projects.
- discusses latest research findings and the potential impact of gamification on society, economy, and everyday life.
The course is complemented by a practical design project, where students in a team select and apply design methods & techniques in order to create a prototype of a gamified / hedonic information system. Within this project, the students can apply the knowledge and skills acquired in this lecture and their studies in a challenging context.
Course Overview
The workload for this module is roughly broken down as follows:
- Participation in lectures (~40h)
- Participation at project sessions (~10h)
- Self-study and work on group project (~110h)
Preparation for exam (~20h)
Learning Objectives and Skills
Students gain knowledge in the conceptual, technological and theoretical foundations of gamified and hedonic information systems. They learn to describe and discuss their underlying design principles as well as their psychological and behavioral outcomes. They can analyze and compare existing gamified and hedonic information systems and learn to critically reflect relevant ethical aspects of using gamification in practice. Students learn state-of-the-art methods, techniques, and tools for successfully implementing gamification projects and are able to select and apply them. Students train their creativity and prototyping skills. Further, they can improve their collaboration and presentation skills in this course.
Tutorials and Open Lab Sessions
The sessions are accompanied by tutorials where students learn the basics of developing games (e.g. in Unity3D or Roblox), as well as discuss current challenges in the implementation of their projects.
Our students can work in our Lab with latest gaming hardware, VR and AR devices.
Prerequisites
Profound English skills are required. Further, creativity, experience in HCI, user experience, prototyping, and software engineering are helpful. Participating students should be motivated to work on a challenging topic in interdisciplinary groups.
Registration
The number of participants for this course is limited. If, due to capacity restrictions, a selection of students in courses with limited admission capacity becomes necessary, a decision on admission will be made after the registration period has expired. Please also note that registration for the course does not automatically lead to admission nor registration for the module examination. Please see website for details on the application process.
Please sign up in our VC coures (A link will be provided soon).
Lecturers
Prof. Dr. Benedikt Morschheuser
Partners and guest lecturers in summer semester 2025:
Project partners:
VW CARIAD SE
Guest lecturers:
Robin Modisch – NeoBird Games, Nürnberg
Daniel Fernández Galeote − Game Designer and Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Dr. Velvet Spors − Lecturer of Interaction Design, University of Tartu, Estonia
will be announced in the lecture
Relevant Links
- Further details can be found in UnivIS
- Course materials and forums are available on the Virtuellen Campus