To me, gamification is suited for making necessary but painful tasks fun (e.g. cleaning your desk, tagging media, memorizing facts), but not for deep learning (e.g. algebra, quantum mechanics, object-oriented programming).
We tend to think of understanding as "deep" and competence as "shallow." We tend to think of solving a problem for the first time as the valuable part of learning, and solving similar problems over and over as a waste of time. Maybe we even see it as stultifying, or as cheapening the experience of learning. Yet practice deepens understanding, and even if you don't believe that, you have to admit there's a long way to go between "understanding" algebra in the intellectual sense and mastering algebra in the mindless way that lets you use algebra when your mind is busy doing something else, such as learning chemistry or geometry. Anything that makes practice a little bit less boring will help kids develop fluency so they aren't distracted by understanding algebraic manipulations when they're supposed to be thinking about something else and just doing the algebra.
We tend to think of understanding as "deep" and competence as "shallow." We tend to think of solving a problem for the first time as the valuable part of learning, and solving similar problems over and over as a waste of time. Maybe we even see it as stultifying, or as cheapening the experience of learning. Yet practice deepens understanding, and even if you don't believe that, you have to admit there's a long way to go between "understanding" algebra in the intellectual sense and mastering algebra in the mindless way that lets you use algebra when your mind is busy doing something else, such as learning chemistry or geometry. Anything that makes practice a little bit less boring will help kids develop fluency so they aren't distracted by understanding algebraic manipulations when they're supposed to be thinking about something else and just doing the algebra.