Looking Beyond Academia: A Study on Best Practices in the Catalan Gameful Design Industry

The rise in popularity of gameful design in the last decade has allowed the related industry to evolve and expand, becoming an important trove of knowledge beyond academia and scientific research. This paper presents the main highlights of an in-depth study about the main characteristics and best practices of the gameful design industry in Catalonia (Spain), to provide a faithful picture of its current state and establish the degree of alignment of their internal methodologies with those proposed by academia. Results show that most companies tend to be small sized, with many different fields of application. Education and culture are the main ones, with tourism and health just behind. Their methods tend to be well aligned with those proposed by academia, but with a much greater emphasis in the use of co-creation processes and the integration of storytelling and aesthetics, over mechanics. They also propose the use of playful methodologies as part of their own in-house processes.