The Acagamic

A neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal under­stand­ing of games has at its core the dopamin­er­gic reward sys­tem [cite]10.1145/1920778.1920780[/cite]. The the nucleus accum­bens, which is also dubbed the plea­sure cen­ter of the brain, is cur­rently under­stood as the crit­i­cal brain region asso­ci­ated with the neu­ro­trans­mit­ter dopamine, which in turn is impli­cated in habit for­ma­tion, reward-seeking behav­iors and addic­tion. The above [...]

Whether you like the new buzz term or not. Gamification — that is the use of engag­ing play­ing prin­ci­ples applied to desk­top and con­sumer appli­ca­tions, prod­ucts, and ser­vices — is a big thing in research and (non-game) indus­try. Even SIGCHI was kind enough to let us orga­nize a CHI 2011 work­shop on gam­i­fi­ca­tion. It is inter­est­ing that [...]