Finally, it is worth mentioning that a significant issue has yet to be addressed. A proverbial "elephant in the room." Amidst all that has been discussed thus far, there is one notable exception pertaining to games that must be acknowledged. Even before imagining this dissertation, one thing was definitive in my mind: this paper will refrain from examining Gamification practices. Although Gamification appears to be a valuable tool for enhancing interaction and fostering connections among a various range of audiences - thus reinforcing the notion of games as effective means for cultivating socially engaged environments - it has recently become prevalent, particularly in corporate settings, for marketing or productivity purposes, thereby becoming intertwined with economic agendas.
Gamification can be a powerful instrument to make unpleasant or struggling tasks more enjoyable. Drawing the excitement contained in a competition into a learning process can be a very successful strategy, at the base of many educational providers. I personally had a lot of benefit from Duolingo interface, which is designed to make the user challenge themselves in learning a new languages. Education can gain a lot of engagement as a transitory phase in which students are not involved by the knowledge itself or struggle with specific learning difficulties, or in a moment in which concept to be transferred are too abstract to be deeply acquired. In such cases, other dynamics take place to organize the cognitive stimulation of brains. Of course, within this framework, music education benefit widely of games dynamics as part of the teaching toolkit.
However, due to its focus on the process rather than the content, this kind of exploitation contains many downsides. First of all, utilized as a means to revamp tasks to render them more appealing - whether to users or employees -, gamification is mainly employed for commercial objectives. Consequently, gamification can be applied to virtually anything with the aim of enhancing its desirability. A pertinent example of this is the recent surge in gamification within contexts such as warfare or the military sphere, exemplified by the French Gendarmerie Nationale recruitment campaign, which portrayed the recruitment process as akin to gameplay in a First-Person Shooter Game. This examples are not the only ones available, but certainly show a clear problematic within the gamification processes that requires a deep investigation.
Besides this complex and socio-political issues, the decision to exclude references to gamification stems not from the negation of the topic, which definitely exists and hold a place within the landscape, but from the inherent philosophical consequences it introduces to the envisioned perception and roles of games within society. Many of the previous definitions and reflections regarding the essence of play differ in several aspects, but tend to agree on the 'uselessness' of the practice in terms of survival necessity, or its 'unproductiveness' within contemporary socio-economic settings. “Summing up the formal characteristic of play, we might call it a free activity […] connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it”, states Huizinga. “Voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles,” as mention fascinatingly Bernard Suits, putting the stress on the role of rules as tools to “prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means”1. Learning a language on Duolingo is definitely less efficient than learning within a class, a teacher of even by themselves, due to the whole environment of the app with lives counting and limitation to play if too many mistakes are made.
With workplaces or economic-driven activities, the difference is even higher: games are used to propose in an engaging way activities that are not always welcome to workers in a companies. This happens because who work (especially with repetitive and low-engaging works) or who study spontaneously tend toward less effort, saving money and energy. Those who play, on the other hand, take special pleasure in testing their abilities and attempting to exceed their limits. In this way, the attitude is completely reversed to the prerogative of motivations external to the game, which work all the better the less aware the player is of them. In this way, what can be considered from the widespread adoption of ludological features within marketing strategy is the efficacy and influence of game structures and their ability to evoke individuals' intrinsic motivations. However, the full potential of games is not realized when they are utilized within contexts focused solely on achieving immediate results. Instead, the essence of gaming lies in its capacity to yield long-term outcomes. The inherent strength of games lies in their ability to contribute to the cultivation of culture and its particular features. Play becomes culture when its related rituals become entrenched within religious rites, social practices - and arts.
The list provided offers only a partial overview of the characteristics that define the similarities or discrepancies between these two distinct activities. While it outlines some aspects, there are undoubtedly more nuanced traits to consider. Keeping these nuances in mind is essential for navigating the landscape of music game pieces effectively.