Introduction

Recent decades have seen hints of an intriguing new trend where utilitarian and hedonistic systems are swirling closer together. The spiral has completely turned around by this point, and we are now witnessing the re-appropriation of hedonic or entertainment-oriented technologies for useful purposes. The phenomena known as “gamification” have swiftly established itself as one of the most significant advancements in the information systems industry and other disciplines. Instrumental information technology was originally appropriated to create hedonic information systems. Most notably, oscilloscopes a seemingly utilitarian system were creatively appropriated to create the first video games. Since then, video game consoles and other related technologies have spread widely. Fast-forward to the present day, where hedonic devices and software are pervasive and created solely to increase consumer delight. Digital games have also increasingly permeated our daily lives and have evolved into a popular form of entertainment those appeals to all demographics. We have, however, come full circle, and hedonic systems are now blending back into utilitarian systems and, maybe, new strains of utilitarian systems are developing from hedonic systems, particularly over the last ten years (Agarwal & Karahanna, 2000; Ajzen, 1991).

Games are especially renowned for their ability to engage and excite, and with playing it, players usually enjoy a range of emotions, include control, competence, enjoyment, immersion, or flow—all of which are indicative of behaviour that is intrinsically motivated. The self-purposeful nature of the action, as well as the involvement and enjoyment of the activity, is crucial components of playing games. Gamification technology seeks to capture, harness, and integrate this aspect of game activity into environments that frequently serve more practical purposes. A player must acknowledge the possibility of the outcome when they begin a game, yet the process is frequently pleasurable regardless of the conclusion. The amount of information on gamification is growing quickly and in various directions, but this is typical of any advancement with enormous potential and a horde of enthusiastic supporters. Consolidated efforts are required to put the literature and existing knowledge to useful use, to set the field's research agenda, and to control and capitalise on this progress. Although gamification is still in its infancy and is growing quickly, what is actually known about the phenomenon often comes from scattered sources and differing viewpoints (Alahäivälä & Oinas-Kukkonen, 2016).

Although some attempts have been made to integrate the gamification literature, earlier evaluations have tended to be somewhat narrow in their focus. A larger-scale analysis of the phenomena should serve to trace its evolution and advancement as well as help direct future publications and agendas in order to give academics and practitioners alike a more comprehensive view on the gamification phenomenon. Since gamification centres on the usage of leisure information systems and their design in a range of utilitarian information system contexts, we are adamant that it is an IS/IT phenomenon. Gamification appears to be underrepresented in IS literature, despite the fact that there is a wealth of literature on the topic that has been created so far (Alcivar & Abad, 2016).

Gamification

A substantial quantity of literature has been published on the subject of motivating information systems, particularly gamification, as a result of the topic's rising popularity in recent years from both academic and non-academic sources. Early in 2014, an assessment of 24 peer-reviewed, internationally published research papers formed the basis of the first attempts to map the literature under the banner of gamification. Since then, both academics and practitioners have expressed interest in the subject, which has grown greatly in popularity. Academic databases show evidence of the rising body of literature associated with the term "gamification" as evidence of the topic's expansion. According to their review, 330 hits were returned from a literature search using the terms “gamification,” “gamif”, “gameful,” and “motivational affordance” in the Scopus database. A comparable literature search in June 2015 yielded 807 results when the keyword “gamif” was used alone. In June 2016, as this article is being written, the latter search returns 1767 results. An overview of how the field of gamification is progressing is vitally needed to stay current with the research field. Although considerable literature mapping has been done after the Hamari study, a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon's development and investigation is still absent.

Agenda of Future Research

This review has provided the most thorough and extensive examination of gamification research to date; it is a field that has witnessed significant growth in recent years. Two factors motivated the wide-ranging review: In order to understand how gamification research has evolved and what kinds of knowledge have been acquired, it is helpful to have a broad perspective of the area. Additionally, having a broad look at the literature can provide useful insight that will direct future research efforts. We therefore present a research agenda for gamification in the following sections. The thematic, theoretical, and methodological agendas make up the three sections of the agenda. We propose 15 agenda topics as tangible recommendations for the future of gamification research (Denny, 2013).

Conclusion

The review is nevertheless constrained in several ways by the chosen viewpoint and methodologies. The subject of the current review is the phenomena of gamification at a high level. Evidently, there are differences, such as in how gamification has been described across publications or how the various affordances have been developed and used. There hasn't been any opportunity to delve deeper into specific research because the purpose is to provide a thorough review of a sizable body of knowledge. Some abstraction was definitely required during the coding and analysis processes, which led to the loss of some study-specific details. Additionally, the Scopus and AISeL databases were the only ones used for the literature search. Although we are confident in the thoroughness of our literature search, it is still possible that certain articles were overlooked because they were either not included in the venues listed in these databases or because of indexing mistakes in the databases themselves. In any case, the potential number of overlooked publications is probably modest, and their addition is not anticipated to materially alter the review's findings.

References

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Received: 25-Oct-2022, Manuscript No. AELJ-22-12855; Editor assigned: 28-Oct-2022, PreQC No. AELJ-22-12855 (PQ); Reviewed: 11-Nov-2022, QC No. AELJ-22-12855; Revised: 16-Nov-2022, Manuscript No. AELJ-22-12855; Published: 23-Nov-2022