Jane isn't really writing about Gamification so much as she is writing about how games in general can make us and our lives better. She is not so focused on more trivial things like badges, point systems, and leaderboards but rather on what makes us as humans respond to a good game and what it is about games that is so engaging.
She proposes a framework for what defines a game. The four traits she explores are goals, rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation.
Her section on positive psychology and particularly the insights drawn from the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in regards to flow and how games can help people reach a flow state. The four intrinsic rewards essential to happiness that we can get from playing games listed in the book are: satisfying work, the experience of being successful, social connection, and meaning.
The book is extensively researched and the footnotes are a treasure trove for anyone who wants to understand the literature and theory around serious games. The statistics the book includes for the amount of time that is invested in playing games is mind boggling.
A quote that deserves more contemplation from the end of the first chapter:
"When we realize that this reorientation toward intrinsic reward is really behind the 3 billion hours a week we spend gaming globally, the mass exodus to game worlds is neither suprising nor particularly alarming. Instead it's overhelming confirmation of what positive psychologists have found in their scientific research: self-motivated, self-rewarding activity really does make us happier. More importnatly, it's evidence that gamers aren't escaping their real lives by playing games.
They're actively making their real lives more rewarding."
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