GDC 2011 Serious Games Summit session on gamifying life, with Nike

The session was titled Gamification of Life + Social, Serious Gaming + Behavior Change Psychology = Games for Good! and belonged to the health track of the Serious Games Summit at the 2011 Game Developers Conference. Its description named four trends converging at once: mobile, social games, serious games and the gamification of life.

The organizers argued that combining these with research-based methods would open a market for companies, brands, game developers and casual players. The methods they listed were the Fogg Behavior Model, behavioral economics, positive psychology and purpose-driven marketing. The panel represented Nike+, Stanford's Persuasive Technology Lab, Xbox, Gameful.org and the Quantified Self movement.

Ricky Engelberg had worked at Nike for eight years in digital marketing and brand communications and held the title Global Digital Innovation Director. He set the direction for Nike's websites, mobile, gaming and social media, and for partnerships with companies such as Facebook and Google.

His projects included Joga.com with Google, the Global Football Social Network launched for the 2006 World Cup, and a collection of more than 1,200 Air Force 1 models for the shoe's 25th anniversary, where consumers voted on which classic to re-release. He also managed Nike's first partnership with EA Sports for in-game integration in titles such as NBA Live and NCAA Football. He also directed the digital experience for NIKELAB.com and worked on NIKEiD innovation projects, including the launch of NIKEiD on the iPad.

The Nike background in the session material describes NIKELAB.com as the destination for people who want to try Nike's most performance-driven products first. The interactive agency R/GA built it with Flash MX and Shockwave, and Tronic worked with R/GA on 3D product presentations that let visitors peel away layers of a product to see its structure and technology.

The site also held game-like experiences: a virtual football game with NFL players, a speed simulator that sends the user through three-dimensional environments to convey distance and velocity, and a floating shoe that the visitor moves by blowing into the computer microphone. Engelberg described the aim as letting consumers interact with products on a new level, and the site offered NIKEiD, a tool for choosing base colors and accents and adding a personal ID of up to eight letters or numbers to a pair of shoes.

The session itself dealt with a different question: how the same appetite for points, progress and social comparison can be pointed at health and behavior change. Its description frames that as an opportunity for companies, brands, game developers and casual players alike.

The Game Developers Conference is still held, now under the name GDC Festival of Gaming. Its site announces the next edition for March 1-4, 2027 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and opens a menu with passes, program, awards and partner pages. The GDC Vault site is online as well.