Here is Why Medium is a Successful Online Game (Platform)
And how that can help you keep going if you want to
I love being — creating and getting inspired — on Medium. It’s a great community to be with, to create for, and a vast vault of resources of what I call “awareness boosters.”
I also love turning my life into games, ever since I discovered its power.
So, after I permitted myself to write on Medium about Medium, it was only a matter of time (a very short one, grin) that I would be writing about the parallels between Medium and games.
Why drawing parallels between Medium and games makes sense.
There are so, so many advantages of turning something or anything into fun games.
Here is a listicle with twenty-one reasons I could think of why it makes sense turning project management into games:
But the first and foremost reason I found for myself to keep on turning anything into fun games was that I remove the drama and weight I used to attach to almost anything I was up to.
If it’s just a game, then there’s not so much at stake there, is there?
And even if something is at stake, removing the weight and drama helps me focus on whatever I want to give my attention to and step into its flow.
Another prominent reason, and as I call it, the main feature of my approach to turning life into fun games — Self-Gamification — is that I am both the designer and player of my self-motivational games. I have all the tools to adjust my games' design so that the player, myself, keeps being happily engaged and having fun.
And then there is the most spectacular reason of all. Any project, any activity we are up to, including writing on Medium, is already a game because it has the same main game components.
Considering Medium’s game components.
My favorite definition of games is by Jane McGonigal in her bestselling book Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World:
“When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.”
If you “strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities” from Medium, you will discover all these four components too.
Goal
“The goal is the specific outcome that players will work to achieve. It focuses their attention and continually orients their participation throughout the game. The goal provides players with a sense of purpose.” — Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
Medium has several goals or at least one for each of its games. I’ll talk about that a bit later.
But doesn’t this statement sound like an epic goal:
“We’re creating a new model for digital publishing.”?
It absolutely does for me, and that rolling globe of words is such a gameful feature that I can’t look at it without a smile. There is also a fun spinning cube at the bottom of Medium’s About page that took a couple of seconds of my attention, where I ended up grinning with a win-like feeling as I recognized the words on the sides of that cube.
Rules
“The rules place limitations on how players can achieve the goal. By removing or limiting the obvious ways of getting to the goal, the rules push players to explore previously uncharted possibility spaces. They unleash creativity and foster strategic thinking.” — Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
If we take the writing rules on Medium, then there are at least two sets of them:
There are also rules for readers, such as those related to membership and the number of articles you can read without being a member.
Feedback system
“The feedback system tells players how close they are to achieving the goal. It can take the form of points, levels, a score, or a progress bar. Or, in its most basic form, the feedback system can be as simple as the players’ knowledge of an objective outcome: ‘The game is over when …’ Real-time feedback serves as a promise to the players that the goal is definitely achievable, and it provides motivation to keep playing.” — Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
For readers on Medium, the feedback system might not be as straightforward visible as for writers. But if you think of your reading list or the number of your comments, you have some score there too.
But for writers, these even look like a leaderboard for one person or a leaderboard, where your stories compete with each other. I am talking about the stats and Medium Partner Program pages accessible when you click on your picture.
Voluntary participation
“Voluntary participation requires that everyone who is playing the game knowingly and willingly accepts the goal, the rules, and the feedback. Knowingness establishes common ground for multiple people to play together. And the freedom to enter or leave a game at will ensures that intentionally stressful and challenging work is experienced as safe and pleasurable activity.” — Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
Voluntary participation is closer between Medium and games than for other real-life situations like projects or jobs, where you need to sign a contract. Just like in games, you can come and go to Medium as you wish. You can quit altogether, or you can stop for some time and come back again. And just like in games, you can become a little (or more) dependent on that game.
Medium is a game platform … and something more as well
As I was contemplating this article's content, I realized that Medium was not just an online game. It was an online game platform because it has several games:
- for readers
- for writers
- for those who create their publications
- for those who work on Medium
- for those who contribute to Medium’s publications
- possible other I might have forgotten and don’t know about
The article I wrote recently about Medium and conversations I had with its readers in the responses made me aware of something else. We create our own games on Medium, at least as writers. But readers have their gameplay too, depending on how often they read and at what time of the day. Some develop a habit of opening Medium in the evenings after putting children to bed or before their own sleep.
This realization was complete when I checked out what Roblox is:
“Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system that allows users to program games and play games created by other users.” — Wikipedia
My children love playing Roblox. And my son loves creating his games there as well. He doesn’t earn money with that (and I don’t know whether it will ever be his ambition), but I read many stories about how teenagers earned money for their studies by creating Roblox games. Here is just one of the articles about that.
And isn’t Medium both of these things too:
- a game platform, with the quests, rules, and feedback systems defined by them, and
- a game creation system, where you can determine your own approach to reading and writing (= being) here on Medium?
Yes, it is.
Final words coming back to the reasons why
When I remind myself of these parallels between Medium and games, I realize that the fact that they change their “game design” as often as they do might be one of the keys to their success. That is what all long-living and successful games do — they don’t stop evolving.
Then there’s the reminder of Medium being a game that helps me stop my daydreaming and stop putting too much weight on my “success” on Medium. I wouldn’t make a single game responsible for all of my happiness. I do realize that happiness is a way, a process. So why would I expect Medium to be responsible for my excitement and engagement in writing? There are so many writing “game platforms” I can test and enjoy. But I also can continue playing here.
I recently participated in a global online event involving game and gamification designers. And one of them pointed in chat that there is a trend in the game industry to bring multi-dimensionality into the communication between the gamers where they could express the excitement with other players' moves, especially in the massively multiplayer online games. These ideas include adding some kind of applause, highlighting, and praise. Doesn’t’ that sound familiar to you?
When I told him about claps, highlights, and responses on Medium, he answered that he is in awe of what Medium does in terms of game design.
I learned that the first reason why game designers create games is that
“Good Reason #1: It’s Fun
“Inventing a game is a cool experience. People in the game industry are interesting, friendly, intelligent, and love to have a good time.”
— The Game Inventor’s Guidebook: How to Invent and Sell Board Games, Card Games, Role-playing Games & Everything in Between!
These words describe to the last letter the main reason why I don’t want to quit coming back to Medium:
- It’s fun.
- Writing here is a cool experience.
- People on Medium (designers, readers, writers, publication owners) are interesting, friendly, intelligent, and are here because they love to have a good time and enjoy what they do.
I hope that this article helped you relax a little about your time on Medium and enjoy it as you would a fun game platform and an exciting game creation system where you can create and continue developing fantastic games of your own.
Thank you for reading!
If you enjoyed this article, then in addition to the ones referred to above, you might also like this one:
P.S.
To stay in touch and keep updated on the fantastic possibilities of turning life into fun games offers, join my e-mail list, Optimist Writer.
