**5. Gamification in cultural spaces**

*'Digital technologies, in particular interactive storytelling and gaming, have a great potential for assisting both the education and entertainment of visitors in museums'. Danks et al. [42]*

In this section, we will consider the ability of gamified systems situated in cultural spaces to elicit the forms of pleasure posited above, with this by extension providing a method to assess the capacity these games offer to motivate and prolong engagement. Testing the hypothesis of Danks et al. above, there is now a growing repository of papers that explore gamification applied to cultural spaces, predominantly museums ([43–47] e.g. with [48, 49] both offering literature reviews). Beyond this, Scheuer [50] offers a useful study relating to the form the vast majority of projects take, this being an 'add-on' game, which augments an existing exhibition

*Right Game, Wrong Place? A Case Study: Using a Gamified AR Application in a Heritage… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107535*

rather than being developed as part of it. Furthermore, there is the consideration of purpose when applying these games, which the literature positions as almost universally related to learning, with motivations, when given any attention, generally seen to be derived from the act of learning. This is a position disputed by Martens et al. [51] who see the game as providing pleasure distinct from the wider goal of learning, with that pleasure providing the motivation to engage. However, in order to consider the characteristics of pleasure posited here, a reflection on specific gamified systems which have been, for the most part, directly experienced by the author will be most valuable to our purposes, with due effort made to offer examples in a representative range of forms.

## **5.1 High tea**

The first example is '*High Tea'* (Welcome Collection 2011). This browser-based strategy game was commissioned as part of the web presence for the 2010/11 Welcome Trust exhibition *High Society* with the *'aim of establishing new and meaningful engagement with the themes of the exhibition*' [52] and is still available to play at https://preloaded.com/work/wellcome-collection-high-tea/. In this game, users were asked to take on the role of the nineteenth century opium smuggler, developing a strategy to sell enough opium to the Chinese of the Pearl Basin to fund the purchase of tea to supply the expanding UK market. The clear intention here is to develop a compelling game whose mechanics not only motivate but also educate, with the motivating factor—the accrual of tea—being fundamental to the educational narrative. Exposing the dubious ethics of Victorian England and the historical appetite for narcotic substances—Opium or Caffeine—was key for the curatorial intentions of the wider exhibition.

This is a useful example for two reasons: the first relates to the mechanism of gamification in that the educational goal—the learning that is the primary task—is seamlessly integrated into the mechanics of the game. Points and scores are awarded in the form of currency or products (tea or opium), and levels and outcomes can be attained through the collection and distribution of these, but the process the player undertakes to achieve these goals is based on historical events and interactions. The game itself is thus the lesson. The playable moments that offer pleasure, primarily through achieving the increasingly challenging levels, simultaneously motivate continued engagement and deliver the educational goals of the game itself. The second is the distribution method chosen by the designers, who did not situate this within the gallery space, but made it available *via* online gaming platforms and their own proprietary web presence. This had the dual purpose of both widening, and making international, opportunities to consume, and of allowing players to interact in a context of their choosing, rather than being constrained to play during a visit to a cultural space.
