Question

orginal article on Future of Outdoor sports

Answer 1

Once the behaviour of distinct
subcultures, gaming has now
gone mainstream. Close to
30% of people today say that
they regularly use gaming
apps and gaming mechanics
have found their way into many
walks of life, used by brands,
governments and businesses
to incentivise loyalty and
stimulate engagement.
Games are powerful
motivationally because they
help participants see a narrative
of personal improvement,
drive competition and boost
morale with instant and
incremental rewards.
Points, levels, leaderboards,
challenges... these are all
dynamics familiar from
the world of professional sport.
But by leveraging new connected
technologies to imitate these
mechanics for a mass audience,
national governing bodies can
expose the average participant
to the competitive motivations
of professional athletes,
consolidate the identity of new
sports and incentivise spectating
non-participants (the “Fantasy
League” crowd) to get involved.
Moreover, the external
motivation of game progression
segues into the internal
motivation of personal
fulfilment when users are able
to customise the system to
create game-goals that fall in
line with their own interests.
Fitocracy, for example, is
an online game and social
network which uses points
and achievements to motivate
users to complete exercise-
based challenges. Users can
start following other users,
comment on their exercise
sessions and also give them
“props”: equivalent to “likes” on
Facebook. Friends aside, some
services even allow users to
“play against” their heroes.
The Red Bull Personal Best
challenges budding mountain
bikers to beat times set by
MTB (Mountain Terrain Biking)
champions Rachel and
Gee Atherton.