Welcome to this week's question of gamification. My name is An Coppens, I'm the show host and the CEO or chief game changer at Gamification Nation. And this week's question is an interesting one which was asked at a conference of people who make a simulations. Primarily question was is gamification just simply manipulation? And I didn't have a chance to answer the question there. And then so I also had it in my mind and sort of play with my mind what is manipulation really. So if we think about it, how and what do we consider manipulation? So I went on a bit of a fact finding mission to get the sorts of dictionary explanation of manipulation before sort of jumping in and giving my opinion on, you know, is gamification manipulation. Yes. No. Or, you know, is it as black and white as that and in the dictionary, when we look at manipulation, it says, "it's the skilful handling, controlling or using of something or someone, whether it's a sculpture you made in an art class or how you convince your friends to do your homework. Both are considered manipulation in the negative sense. It's also explained as exerting shrewd or devious influence, especially for one's own advantage. And so it sort of shows even in, I suppose just pure dictionary terms where you're trying to explain a concept. It's not that straightforward. It's not always negative. It's also not always positive because if we look at is from making a sculpture perspective, because money pinata, it comes from the Latin handful. It's, you know, it could be handling something and skilful handling can be positive. If it is, let's say a sculpture handling a piece of wood or a piece of clay or a piece of stone to sculpt a beautiful piece of art out of it. Yes, it's manipulating the brick to become something different and you wanted to be, and you know, for some people that's probably why did you waste a really good break or really good piece of wood. But for others it's, it's an amazing piece of art and I think it's not that far removed from, you know, when we actually give or exert influence over an individual or someone to do something. Manipulation can be, you know, something good and something bad. And I see it as, you know, a potential of having two faces, both positive and negative. And I actually see gamification in very much the same light. Any good tool used for bad reasons or bad purposes will have bad outcomes. And you know, that's the same with great technology to world over. Even games on simulations can be used to influence people to make decisions that really you want them to consider twice or maybe not make at all. So it's, it's not as clear as black and white. It's more of a gray scale. And then it's kind of how many shades of gray do you need to go to before? For you. It's a, it's a no, no. So if we look at gamification, so gamification in my view is a contains nudges. It contains game elements. It contains an element of understanding human behavior and what are we tending to do and tending not to do and how can we then come to an outcome that is best for the individual for whatever older purpose the gamification was designed for. So let's look at it from a coaching perspective and that smile original background. So I come I suppose to, to world of gamification through the lens of, Oh, a former coach, I was first a sports coach. I coached basketball for years and years and also played basketball for years and years. So for me, coaching always was about understanding where the individual is out with their skills level and then trying to, you know, nudge them forward into their next level of ability. I think back to the team, I coach two of the longest, which were in basketball and in Belgium we had the microbes, the microbes were the youngest possible kids that could take up basketball. You had to be five and a five years old on that category. I think around even all the way to nine if I'm not wrong...