This idea has occurred to me a bunch of times - looks like someone has finally gone and done it, and in some style.
When you play a game like World of Warcraft, or even Call of Duty, you do some pretty boring things to get Experience points (XP) or to get new perks or items - kill 100 deer in a forest, or play through several rounds using a low-powered weapon.
I’ve never done either of the above for very long, but when I do, I notice that I’m doing things which are more boring than tasks I’m putting off in real life, just in order to make a slightly meaningless number (XP) increase.
I think we humans just crave progress. Seeing a number increase by our efforts makes us feel like we’re getting somewhere, proves to us that we can change things. The problem is that in WoW, although the all-important number does increase, no real life progress is being made.
I had daydreamed, for example, about a central clearinghouse where you receive XP for charitable donations or volunteering; your Charity XP could be displayed on Facebook for example.
Anyway, RexBox have applied the principle to real-life To-Do lists for their new iPhone app; here’s the pre-release trailer:
More detail at http://www.rexbox.co.uk/epicwin/ .
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