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Serious Gamification: On The Redesign Of A Popular Paradox, Steffen Roth Jan 2017

Serious Gamification: On The Redesign Of A Popular Paradox, Steffen Roth

Dr. Steffen Roth

We challenge the idea of the paradoxical nature of the concept serious games and ask how researchers and designers need to conceive of serious games so that they at all appear paradoxical. To develop and answer this question, we draw on a theory–method that considers all forms of observation as paradoxical. We then use the tetralemma, a structure from traditional Indian logics, to resolve the paradox of serious games into this larger paradox of observation. Consequently, serious games may only be consid- ered a paradox if we presume realities and define games as deviations therefrom. The increasing gamification of society, …


Religion, Administration & Public Goods: Experimental Evidence From Russia, Theocharis N. Grigoriadis Jan 2017

Religion, Administration & Public Goods: Experimental Evidence From Russia, Theocharis N. Grigoriadis

Theocharis Grigoriadis

In this paper, I argue that religion matters for the provision of public goods. I identify three normative foundations of Eastern Orthodox monasticism with strong economic implications: 1. solidarity, 2. obedience, and 3. universal discipline. I propose and solve a public goods game with a three-tier hierarchy, where these norms are modeled as treatments. Obedience and universal discipline facilitate the provision of threshold public goods in equilibrium, whereas solidarity does not. Empirical evidence is drawn from public goods experiments run with regional bureaucrats in Tomsk and Novosibirsk, Russia. The introduction of the same three norms as experimental treatments produces different …