I thought we all agreed gamification was deeply uncool and never to be mentioned again? That hasn’t stopped Classcraft’s RPG-based program for schools spreading to 25 countries and planning to go freemium.

I'm guessing that you've played a lot of video games using your hands. Well, how many have you played with your mouth? Probably fewer. Maybe none?

Over the past couple of years, gaming accessory maker Razer has made big splashes at CES with ambitious projects aimed at changing the the way we game. The Nabu smartband is out to change the way we live.

If you went up to the average student and asked them if they wished school was more like a video game you would almost certainly get a passionate "YES!" I'm sure if you asked most adults they'd also put their vote in favor of making their tedious work day more fun and exciting. Gamification is in no way a new idea,…

In July 2011, after a somewhat clueless Al Gore keynoted the Games for Change conference in New York, Kotaku wrote that the former vice president should try playing a video game. In March 2013, Gore announced that he had done one better and created a video game instead. And guess what it's about?

Recently, people wanted to gamify things. That's "game-i-fy," as in "turn stuff into games," which more or less meant "add points to stuff we don't like to do to make those things more fun."

I've never been one of those people that considers shopping "fun." I shop because it's necessary, because I need something. If gamification has taught us anything though, it's that all it might take for something to become fun and interesting is to make it a game.

To help spin the good spin in its current stoush with Hamas, the Israeli Defence Force has launched a program called IDF Ranks. Which is, essentially, a game about being a mouthpiece for the Israeli Defence Force.

Last year I profiled Fitocracy, which isn't a video game per se but a gamified fitness regimen that draws from concepts familiar to role-playing video games. One MMO analogue it lacked, however, was the idea of player-vs.-player combat.

If you ever complained about homework increasing as the days got longer and the weather warmer, well, the tables have been turned. Ben Bertoli is up late doing a lot of it himself as the school year ends.

Tomb-sweeping is usually a very somber affair, usually. Now in a surge to promote eco-friendly "burials" and body disposals, China has gamified the tradition.

Editor's Note: Ben Bertoli is a longtime Kotaku reader and commenter, a lifetime, dedicated video gamer, and a sixth-grade teacher in Indiana. He reached out to Kotaku this past week to share the story of how he turned his class into a role-playing game. The enthusiasm and motivation of the children in Bertoli's class…

Greg Costikyan on the subject of gamification. Or, turning things/activities that aren't games into games.

The things that make us reconsider who we are and what we believe in are often bizarre, random, coincidental; sometimes completely unremarkable save for the sudden realization that concusses you. Lately, things I’ve been reading and playing have coalesced into a divine cognizance for me. I’ve been reconsidering my…

Playing video games and doing laundry are two activities that don't go well together at all, unless you're Kingston University design student Lee Wei Chen, who has used his magical powers to combine to join the two tasks in unholy matrimony.

Gamification is a polarizing and divisive topic with many proponents and vocal skeptics and cynics. But it is not bullshit. Gamification is real and its benefits are tangible. Gamification is here to stay.

In his short treatise On Bullshit, the moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt gives us a useful theory of bullshit. We normally think of bullshit as a synonym-albeit a somewhat vulgar one-for lies or deceit. But Frankfurt argues that bullshit has nothing to do with truth.

Microsoft Word's loathsome Clippy, the Crazy Crab of application mascots, is making a comeback. Yes, really. Killed off in 2007, Microsoft is now using him as the tutorial host introducing you to the wonders of the latest round of whatever useless bloatware they're heaping on Office.

Gamification is the act of applying video game-like rewards to non-gaming situations as a form of motivation. Imagine earning experience points for taking out the trash, or scoring well on a customer service survey, or learning how to create homemade explosives for use in terrorist acts.

Some time last year, I landed in Los Angeles. I was catching a connecting flight, the bane of the expedient traveler. But I was unusually happy for the brief stop. I'd been changed by something in my phone.