Is gamification BS?

While doing some research for our blog I ran into a very interesting posting by Ian Bogost who firmly believes gamification is an evil tool that serves no purpose but to comfort marketing folks about having a game strategy.

Bogosts describes gamification as a perversion to what once was the "mysterious , magical, powerful" world of videogames turning them into nothing more than another greedy media to hypnotize consumers.

As you know by now, here at Game On, we believe gamification is a lot more than low quality, empty videogames. For us this is one more tool to engage your consumers and if anything else, make their every day more fun (while keeping brand in mind). We are aware that there are a lot of empty applications out there, but hey! if there is something that can push us to help others, workout, be more productive and have fun at the same time, we are all for it!

What about you? Do you see a value in gamification or think it is just another marketing fad?