Page 30 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014THEME 3Gamification, generating commitment to cultureby Sergio Jiménez Arenas www.linkedin.com/in/sergiojimenezarenas @gamktTHE CRISIS OF PARTICIPATIONAt the present time we live surrounded by a generalised crisis in participation in society as a consequence of the economic climate that has prevailed over recent years. In general, people in society feel disillusioned and unmotivated, not just because of economic considerations in themselves, but also as a result of the changes that are taking place in this new scenario.This crisis in participation can be seen in low levels of commitment in response to proposals made by organisations and institutions in the form of projects, products and services and this has led to a stagnation in consumption that affects the contraction in the markets of various industries and sectors of activity.As a result of this complex situation really innovative projects are emerging which generate value for society, but which fail to connect with the publics for which they were devised.Thus, in the cultural sector, for example, we can see how we are consuming less music, visiting cultural spaces such as libraries and museums less often, devoting less time to reading and visiting cinemas and this, together with other problems specific to each subsector has led to concerns for the future of our culture.The main cause underlying this complex scenario is probably that people are devoting less of theirAC/Eincomes to this kind of activity, but there are also some underlying intangibles related to disillusion and lack of motivation, and it is here that innovation can provide a catalyst to turn the situation around.It is precisely in this context that, for some years, there has been an industry that has not ceased to grow in market size and which, furthermore, was considered in 2009 to be part of our culture—the video game. This fact leads us to considerations in two directions.On one hand, it would seem that we are trying to flee from this difficult situation by searching for other kinds of experience based on emotion and amusement. But, on the other hand, and more importantly, we are also prepared to pay for this. That is how the videogame industry has become the largest of the interactive audiovisual leisure industries, even in our country. It has become the main support for entertainment and pastimes, its key mission being to generate business and attract ever more people to play these exciting and amusing games.With the appearance of new technologies and platforms and the explosion of social networks as a new form of interaction, and in the current context of the generalised crisis in participation in various aspects of society, why not use the same elements that videogames employ—and that people never stop playing with—but to achieve participation in our cultural proposals?WHERE WE ARE HEADING: DIGITAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF CULTURETHEME 3: GAMIFICATION, GENERATING COMMITMENT TO CULTURE CURRENT PAGE...30