The Dark Side of Gamification: How we should stop worrying and study also the negative impacts of bringing game design elements to everywhere

There are always two sides to every story. This statement is true also for the most recent hype term gamification – i.e., bringing game design elements into non-game contexts – that has been used to improve users’ motivation and performance in various domains. Previous studies on gamification have mainly taken a positive approach towards the phenomenon and its implications. To depart from the existing research, this tertiary literature review assesses the negative effects of gamification (such as game addiction and ethical issues). The systematic literature review method is followed in collection of 22 literature studies published on gamification. The analysis of these secondary studies show that while several researchers acknowledge possible problems and consequences, there is a clear research gap in understanding the negative impacts of gamification. We categorize the presented negative implications to limiting and harmful issues. Finally, this study calls for further work assessing and defining the limitations and borders for the ethical use of game design elements in everyday life as well as for growing our understanding for harmful issues.