Video: a compelling lecture about fun - http://vimeo.com/74943170
Quotation: "Fun is related to structure, not to affect. So you can't 'add fun' to something, no more than you can cover broccoli with chocolate... You can only craft structures that might, sort of, excrete fun under certain conditions. And there's this paradox... Play is an activity of freedom and openness and possibility, but it's one that arises from limiting our freedoms rather than expanding them."


(27m01s, quotation from 17m47s; see also MacIntyre)

Video: you know his videogame is different because the talk includes a slide on "Executing Emotional Catharsis" - http://youtu.be/S684RQHzmGA



(39m05; Jenova Chen, Journey)

Article: on videogames phases when you feel least in control of your life - http://goo.gl/7D2Dn
(1000 words, Justin Davis)

Video: imaginary gamification - http://youtu.be/1AJpKt6UP08

Article: On marketing by piggybacking on habit loops - http://goo.gl/69CuV
Summary: "The marketers needed to position Febreze as something that came at the end of the cleaning ritual, the reward, rather than as a whole new cleaning routine." Additionally because consumer's loyalties are up for grabs around major life events, supermarkets work to identify pregnancy etc early through shopping patterns.
(6900 words; Charles Duhigg, New York Times)
[On curation: This lengthy story was repackaged for Forbes which ended up with more traffic. Noted then discussed by the three parties. (via)]

Two good gym ideas: Gym-Pact makes you pay more if you don't go - because we're motivated more by immediate consequences than future possibilities. Fortum Active is an idea for a gym where the energy you generate discounts your electricity bill (2m38s). (via Boston Globe and Alex Steer)

On Quora: What's the difference between user interface design and user experience design? Answered by Xianhang Zhang with reference to urinals.

How do you make it fun? Make it ludic: Scvngr, who make location-based real world gaming, codify 47 game elements.