Mapping Brazil - Games: Gamification

Gamification is the application of game mechanics and game design techniques to other areas of activity to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals. In Brazil, gamification is used by marketing departments and consulting firms to encourage engagement with a product or service through point scoring, goals, rules, generating fun, reward and promotions.

A very creative gamification case took place in the state of Bahia in Brazil to face a lack of blood in its blood banks. The campaign “My Blood is Red and Black” removed the red stripes from its black and red jerseys and challenged the fans of the team to donate blood. Vitoria added one of the red stripes back to the jersey for each game as fans did their part and donated blood.

The campaign, that won the Richard T O’Reilly award for Public Service, led to a 46% increase in blood donations, generated more than one billion page views to the club’s website and 935 minutes of television exposure. In short, in addition to achieving the intended social objectives, the gamification campaign returned an estimated R$ 8 million in spontaneous media, over an investment of R$ 15 thousand.

Games in transmedia productions
According to Henry Jenkys, transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience” . So, a transmedia production employs multiple content formats/languages, delivered via multiple media platforms, so that each product provides a singular experience, while interconnected into a common universe, what potentiates a richer experience.

Jenkins describes a classic transmedia example, the The Matrix franchise, where “key bits of information are conveyed through three live action films, a series of animated shorts, two collections of comic book stories, and several video games. There is no one single source or ur-text where one can turn to gain all of the information needed to comprehend the Matrix universe” . He states that “transmedia stories are based not on individual characters or specific plots but rather complex fictional worlds which can sustain multiple interrelated characters and their stories”.

Some transmedia companies in Brazil are Punch, Santa Transmidia and mobContent.

The process of developing a transmídia universe is quite similar to the way game designers, writers and artists conceive and describe the story word in the GDD - Game Design Document, the art bible and the story bible. Jesse Schell, states that “a story bible lays down the law about what is and is not possible in the story world, making it much easier for everyone on the team to contribute story ideas, and ultimately making for a stronger story world that is well-integrated with art, technology, and gameplay” . Schell also defines the art bible as “a document that provides the artists with the guidelines to create a single, consistent look and feel, including character sheets, examples of environments, examples of color usage, examples of interface, or anything else that defines the look of any element in the game”.

As an example of such emerging sinergy between game and transmedia story world or universe development, in Brazil, we can mention the Prisma Criativo , an transmedia producer startup, incubated in PUC Rio Genesis Institute, that articulates two audiovisual producers and a game studio. Another example is Fableware , a storytelling developer that creates story worlds for games, audiovisual and transmedia projects.

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