Games as (not) culture: a critical policy analysis of the economic agenda of Horizon 2020

This article presents a critical examination of European policy in relation to gamification. We begin by describing how gamification “traveled” as an idea, evolving from controversial yet persuasive buzzword to legitimate policy priority. We then focus on how gamification was represented in Horizon 2020: the flagship European Research & Development program from 2014 to 2020, worth nearly €80 billion of funding. The article argues that the ethically problematic aspects of gamification were removed through a process of policy capture that involved its assimilation in an established European network of research and small and medium enterprise (SME) actors. This process of “ethical neutering” is also observable in the actual funding calls, where the problematic assumptions of gamification around agency and manipulation are made invisible through a superficial commitment to vague and ill-defined criteria of responsible research and innovation

R-Abax: A radiation hardening legalisation algorithm satisfying TMR spacing constraints

Faults caused by ionising radiation have become a significant reliability issue in modern ICs. However, the Radiation Hardening (RADHARD) design flow differs from the standard design flow. Thus, there is not sufficient support from industrial EDA tools. In this work, we present a Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) Radiation Hardening (RADHARD) methodology, based on the replacement of Flip-Flops (FFs) to a TMR structure, consisting of a FF triplet and a majority voter, as well as a custom, Displacement-driven legalisation algorithm, called R-Abax, able to satisfy user-specified, minimum distances between the FFs of each triplet. Our RADHARD legalisation algorithm is fully compatible with existing EDA tools. By ensuring a minimum spacing between triplet FFs of each TMR structure, we reduce the probability of a particle strike affecting more than one triplet instances. We present the impact of our RADHARD flow, for a set of spacing constraints, to Power, Performance and Area (PPA) on a set of 11 OpenCores benchmarks. On average, a larger spacing between FF triplets worsens a design's Quality-of-Results (QoR), but not significantly, making our RADHARD flow attractive for reducing radiation faults. © 2020 IEEE

Gamification: What it is, and how to fight it

‘Gamification’ is understood as the application of game systems – competition, rewards, quantifying player/user behaviour – into non-game domains, such as work, productivity and fitness. Such practices are deeply problematic as they represent the capture of ‘play’ in the pursuit of neoliberal rationalization and the managerial optimization of working life and labour. However, applying games and play to social life is also central to the Situationist International, as a form of resistance against the regularity and standardization of everyday behaviour. In this article, the authors distinguish between two types of gamification: first, ‘gamification-from-above’, involving the optimization and rationalizing of work practices by management; and second, ‘gamification-from-below’, a form of active resistance against control at work. Drawing on Autonomism and Situationism, the authors argue that it is possible to transform non-games into games as resistance, rather than transferring game elements out of playful contexts and into managerial ones. Since the original ‘gamification’ term is now lost, the authors develop the alternative conception as a practice that supports workers, rather than one used to adapt behaviour to capital. The article concludes with a renewed call for this ‘gamification-from-below’, which is an ideal form of resistance against gamification-from-above and its capture of play in pursuit of work