This document discusses how games and gamification can support the Quantified Self movement. The Quantified Self involves self-tracking one's personal data in order to gain self-knowledge and enable experimentation. While self-tracking is not new, the Quantified Self community shares data and learns from self-experiments. Games are engaging due to interesting choices and quantifiable outcomes. Both games and Quantified Self utilize personal data, so games could potentially support the Quantified Self by facilitating personalized experiments, promoting community, and influencing lifestyle and behavior changes. This may lead to meaningful health outcomes if the games drive engagement that generates useful self-tracking data and informs healthy knowledge and actions.

1. Quantified Self:
Games & Gamification
Boston – June 28, 2013Alan Au
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2. Biomedical informatics postdoc
Game industry journalist
Not a fashion/art director
Not a quantified self expert
http://twitter.com/#!/Alan_Au
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3. What am I playing?
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4. What is this talk about?
Quantified
Self
Games &
Gamification
+ = Games for
Health?
1 2 3
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5. Sense
Think
Act
5

6. Sense
Think
Act
HOW
WHY
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7. There’s data everywhere!
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8. What is data used for?
• Identity
• Research
• Commerce
• Health
• Curiosity
• Entertainment
• Understanding
• Improvement
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9. Quantified Self (QS)
1
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10. 10
Self-tracking is the cool new thing…

11. … but self-tracking isn’t really new.
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12. What do people self-track?
• Diet
• Exercise
• Mood
• Sleep habits
• Work habits
• Energy levels
• Personal performance
• Decision-making
• Happiness
• Overall health
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13. How do people self-track?
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14. Sense
Think
Act
HOW
WHY
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15. Why do people self-track?
• How late can I drink coffee and still sleep well?
• What’s contributing to my headaches?
• Am I allergic to my laundry detergent?
• Which type of pollen is making me sneeze?
• Experiment (N=1): Does X cause Y?
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http://quantifiedself.com/self-experiment/

16. 16
http://quantifiedself.com/conference/San-Francisco-2013/
Quantified Self -> Community

17. Sense
Think
Act
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Quantified
Self

18. Self-
tracking
Self-
discovery
Experiment
(N=1)
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Quantified
Self

19. Quantified Self = Self-tracking?
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Experiment (N=1)

20. Games & Gamification
2
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21. What is a game?
“A game is a series of interesting choices.”
– Sid Meier
"A game is a system in which players engage in
an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that
results in a quantifiable outcome."
– Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman
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22. Choices -> Quantifiable outcome
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23. Interesting choices = Engagement
Flow Channel States from "The Art of Game Design" by Jesse Schell
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24. Sense
Think
Act
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Games

25. Goals &
outcomes
Understand
rules
Gameplay
engagement
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Games

26. Games for Health (maybe?)
3
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27. The future of health?
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28. Both QS and games utilize data
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29. Can games support Quantified Self?
• QS is about personalized experiments
• Few games enable personalized experiments
• QS is about community and lifestyle
• Many games promote community and lifestyle
• Maybe no, maybe yes
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30. Self-tracking ≠ Game
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31. Self-tracking ≠ Quantified Self
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32. QS + Games = Games for Health?
• Games are entertaining
• Entertainment drives engagement
• Engagement generates data
• Data make tracking easier
• Tracking informs outcomes
• Are those outcomes meaningful to health?
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33. Sense
Think
Act
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Games for
Health

34. Implications for health
Sense = Outcomes, metrics, goals, rewards
Think = Knowledge, understanding
Act = Behavior, activity, intervention
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35. Healthy
outcomes
Healthy
knowledge
Healthy
behavior
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Games for
Health

36. We’re back where we started…
Quantified
Self
Games &
Gamification
+ = Games for
Health?
1 2 3
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37. … but with greater understanding.
Self-
Discovery
Choices &
Rewards
+ = Healthy
Outcomes?
1 2 3
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38. Thank you!
Ben Sawyer
Beth Bryant
Games for Health 2013

39. Additional information
• http://quantifiedself.com/
• http://social-qs.net/sqs/
• http://digitaltrends.com/gaming/game-on-the-two-trends-driving-
wearable-fitness/
• http://guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/27/nike-fuelband-
google-glass-quantified-self
• http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/24/worlds-a-game/
• http://techland.time.com/2013/03/11/south-by-southwest-sxsw-
quantified-self/
• http://theregister.co.uk/2013/03/29/feature_the_quantified_self/
• http://venturebeat.com/tag/quantified-self/
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