Gamification has become quite the marketing buzzword lately, even if the concept has been around awhile. Like many made-up words though there’s a lot of confusion about what it really means.
Wikipedia defines it nicely: “Gamification is the use of game design techniques, game thinking and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts”. Gamification.org, a wiki developed to be a resource on the subject, adds to that definition the helpful phrase ‘to make them more fun and engaging’.