Gameful Design is design of learning environments (broadly interpreted) where game mechanics are intrinsic, in order to induce intrinsic motivation in the learner, similar to the motivation of someone playing a video game.

To cause this motivation, Skill Atoms are chained together. Players learn something, use it and receive a payoff, and this then enables them to learn and use the next thing.

This is different to gamification where elements of game design such as points and badges are added to an existing system, which is a more extrinsic motivation.

I see the problem with gamification is that it misses out the learning and enabling the next thing parts, and just focuses on doing something and getting a payoff.

Gameful Design relies on the assertion that people are motivated by learning whenever their basic needs are met, and that this is the basis for play for all ages. In gamified systems the payoff of points isn’t enough to encourage use by itself so you end up with rewards for points and then you’ve potentially got players cheating the system because the rewards are more important to them than the learning.

A teacher in TES a few weeks ago described what happened when he moved his Year 3 (about age 8) class away from points for completing work. He found that his students were as motivated as before and during a class debate it was decided that learning was a reward in itself – a move from a gamified system to a gameful one.

See papers by Dichev, Deterding and the article by Cook.