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But if we follow the proposed definition (Deterding et al. 2011), then another paradox of the term gamification appears. It is a question of integrating elements from games (game and game-design) into devices that have an objective other than play and entertainment. Gamification is not about making a game – if so what would we need the term for? Making a game, even a serious one, is not gamification – it is about bringing game elements to a different reality, and this at the device side. That is probably the entire problem: what is the point of bringing game elements without making a game? It smacks of the trickery that Erasmus practiced and stated about games to teach children, especially Latin, for it was difficult to “motivate” them, we would say today (Brougère 1995). It was a question of giving the “finery” or “appearance of the game” (Erasmus 1529), of giving the impression of a game, but above all not playing a game, especially since the term at the time evoked gambling and could not therefore be valued in education. Erasmus did not talk about motivation, but it is the most common term used to justify gamification, as Seaborn and Fels (2015) show, while at the same time emphasizing a rather loose use of motivational theories, which leads me to think that behind this modern notion lies a strategy of trickery or attractiveness to capture the user (Cochoy 2004).

The paradox is that gamification is in fact a degamification: it is a question of using a game (a video game at the origin of the concept), of taking elements and characteristics to implant them in an activity whose aims do not refer to leisure or entertainment games. If there is indeed deconstruction, it is the deconstruction that gamification operates in regard to the game, broken down into elements that are considered to have a play value in themselves, independently of the set to which they belong. It is therefore very clear that it is a question of degamifying a game. It is to undo the game, to escape from the game and to somehow transform a game into something other than a game (not even into a serious game that falls under another logic, that of producing a game). It is therefore paradoxical that a degamification process is called gamification; that we make people believe that we are transforming work or any other aspect of society into a game when we are using elements for an activity that asserts itself as something other than play and that we think would allow the attractiveness that we find in it. If it is not a matter of getting people to play, but rather engaging in an activity (e.g. shopping) and motivating them to do so, elements that would be supposed to capture costumers (such as points or badges) may suffice. We find here the origin of the concept related to marketing (whose purpose is to attract and capture customers), which may refer to the intention to motivate for objectives other than purely commercial ones, for example educational.

Following Bogost (2015), we can also wonder about the question of the elements that are transferred from the game to the gamified device. Indeed, many of these elements (competition, teams, rankings by level, emblems or badges, real-time feedback, clearly defined objectives, etc.) are not specific to the game, but are found in many practices because the game takes on characteristics from the world outside it. By taking over elements of the game, we can therefore take over elements, from outside of the game, which feed into the content of the game, without making the activity play. Counting points is an activity that is very present in some games, but just as much in everyday life, starting with school.