Gamification: Understanding What Makes Games Addictive and Engaging

GAMIFICATION

Friday, February 3, 12

GAMES ARE UNIVERSAL
PART OF HUMAN STORY
“Play is a most fundamental human function and
has permeated all cultures from the beginning.”

HOMO LUDENS
“We play and know that we play, so
we must be more than merely
rational beings, for play is
irrational.”

VICTORY
...sweeter at the expense of others
An economist at the University of Bonn has shown that test subjects who receive a given
reward for a task enjoy it significantly more if other subjects fail or do worse—a finding that
upends traditional economic theories that absolute reward is a person’s central motivation.

Source: NEWSWEEK, 2011
Source: Homo Ludens, Johan Huzinga, 1938 2
5

GAMING HALL OF FAME
MOST DOWNLOADED iPHONE GAMES MOST POPULAR BOARD GAMES
ANGRY BIRDS CHESS
Launch the birds to get revenge on
the pigs who stole the birds’ eggs.
FEATURES: leveling up, rewards
CHECKERS

Over 200 million
MONOPOLY
minutes a day are
spent playing Angry SCRABBLE
Birds.

DOODLE JUMP CLUE Source: BeaumontEnterprise.com
Guide Doodle the Doodler up a
dangerous sheet of graph paper.
FEATURES: leveling up, rewards, status MOST POPULAR VIDEO GAMES
TAP TAP REVENGE 3 LEGEND OF ZELDA
FEATURES: rewards, status, countdown,
Tap the balls on the screen in time blissful productivity
with the beat to earn points.
FEATURES: leveling up, rewards, status, SUPER MARIO GALAXY
countdown FEATURES: leveling up, rewards
POCKET GOD SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2
Act as a god and rule over an island
of Pygmies FEATURES: leveling up, rewards
FEATURES: status GRAND THEFT AUTO 4
FEATURES: rewards, status, countdown,
PAPER TOSS blissful productivity, disincentives
Toss the crumbled ball of paper
into the basket. SOULCALIBER
FEATURES: leveling up, rewards, blissful
FEATURES: rewards, status productivity
Source: GizmoCrazed.com Source: gamerankings.com 3

WHY ARE THEY SO ADDICTIVE?
How can we spend so much time happily and heartily
engaged in front of screens?

There are several "hooks" that are built into games – video games
especially – with the intent of making them addictive:

The High Score

Beating the Game

Role-playing (RP)

Discovery

Relationship

Achievements

Simplicity/Interface*

* Specially for mini-game/apps-game
4
Source: http://www.video-game-addiction.org/what-makes-games-addictive.html

GAMIFICATION: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

start with add to the result
(basic elements of games) (things that aren’t typically (something that’s more engaging,
considered games) and even more fun)

REA L LIFE

5

IT’S EVERYWHERE THESE DAYS

6

THIS IS NOT A NEW CONCEPT

our world has been “gamified” since long before this buzzword existed. 7

SO HOW DO GAMES WORK?
AND WE’RE NOT EXACTLY AHEAD OF THIS TREND
The TBWA team at SXSW 2011 asked 8 interesting people 5 questions about technology, innovation
and the information economy. The buzzword status of “gamification” seems to be exhausted.

BUT UNDERSTANDING GAMES AND WHAT MAKES
THEM SO POWERFUL IS STILL USEFUL 8
Source: TBWA Projeqt, 2011

SO HOW DO GAMES WORK?
a dynamic in which to succeed,know-how and best practices for at
Concepts, techniques, one must return
Game dynamics developingsome and distinctive social games.
a predefined time to take successful
action.

{ ZYNGA has an internal playbook that has entered the realm
of legend, and even was even the subject of a lawsuit. }
SCVNGR has it’s own play deck where they explain nearly 50 different
game mechanics that can be mixed and matched to form the
foundation of any game. Let’s look at a few...

appointment dynamic
progression dynamic
influence and status
communal discovery
countdown
reward schedules 9
Source: Techcrunch 2010

GAME DYNAMICS APPOINTMENT DYNAMIC

definition:
in order to succeed, people must act at a certain
predefined time.

real world virtual world

“Spend $100, get a $10 gift Crops take a certain amount of
card” sales make the consumer To beneﬁt from happy hour time to grow so the user has to
Cafe World keeps your
have to return to the store at deals, consumers have to go to a return after x amount of hours
restaurant running in
another time to get their reward. certain bar at a certain time. to harvest the crops for money. 10
the background.

Source: Set Priebatsch TED talk, 2010

GAME DYNAMICS PROGRESSION DYNAMIC

definition:
when your pro g ress is tracked and then
represented back to you in a more relatable form
to encourage further involvement.


On freerice.org, the bowl of rice On the new Ford Hybrids, a
grows to represent how much tree grows as the average MPG BlackBerry BrickBreaker has 34 As your Pokemon gain
rice you have donated as you increases, showing progress in levels that get progressively more levels, they evolve to
answer more questions right. helping the environment. harder as you beat each one. represent their progress. 11

GAME DYNAMICS INFLUENCE AND STATUS

definition:
the exertion of influence from one player to
another through social pressure.


Color symbolizes different levels of Girl Scout badges symbolize what When players progress through When Robot Unicorn Attack is played
status for credit cards, and every you have accomplished, which can levels of Modern Warfare, they on Facebook, a list of friends’ high
teime someone uses their card they be compared with other Girl Scouts, receive badges that show off their scores appear so you can see who
inﬂuence those around them. showing how experienced you are. level of skill to other players. has the highest score.
12

GAME DYNAMICS COMMUNAL DISCOVERY

definition:
the collective effort of a group to deal with a problem
that couldn’t be solved without collaboration.


This large-scale, real-world
Project Shiphunt included ﬁve
scavenger hunt was won by MIT An online community forms
The Fort Zed Community Energy high school students from
students who created a platform around the McDonald’s
Challenge has the community Michigan working together to
and incentives for sharing Monopoly game, where people
working together to become a hunt for a sunken ship in Lake
valuable information about the trade information and properties.
net-zero energy district. Huron.
location of the balloons. 13

GAME DYNAMICS COUNTDOWN

definition:
Players are given a time limit to complete a task. As time
winds down players become more frantic in completing the
task until there is no time left and the are forced to stop.


Bejeweled gives players a
In Fruit Ninja, players have a
certain amount of time to
In the ﬁnal round of Jeopardy, players have 30 limited amount of time to cut
identify the clusters of
seconds to submit their answer to the big question. fruit with their swords.
different types of jewels.
14

GAME DYNAMICS REWARD SCHEDULES

definition:
The timeframe and means through which tangible rewards are distributed. Three
main parts exist in a reward schedule:
• contingency: the problem that must be solved
• response: the expected action from the player.
• reinforcer: the expected reward that is given after the first two parts of the
reward schedule have been completed


In order to receive a new badge in
When flying, people receive rewards in direct relation to Call of Duty, players must be
their flying behavior. People earn points for flying, and successful in the problems they are
as they fly more and more, they level up in the type and presented with. Badges are the
amount of rewards they can receive. reinforcer, motivating further action. 15

WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN YOU GAMIFY

start with a vision change
enjoyment behavior engagement

16

BUT THIS CAN ALSO HAPPEN...

17

FALLING OUT OF ZEN

Not enough companies are asking themselves if anding a game level to
their experience is adding any true value to the customer experience

Google News Badges Tim Pawlenty Badges

Source: http://mashable.com/2010/07/13/game-mechanics-business/ 18

WHY DO WE CARE?

19

WHY DO WE CARE?

games are great and all, but we don’t need literal
games to make our brands better.

19

WHY DO WE CARE?

games are great and all, but we don’t need literal
games to make our brands better.

let’s look past the mechanics, to the deeper concepts
behind gaming.

19

CONCEPT REWARDS

Theory: If you provide people with rewards, they’ll be more
motivated to complete tasks.

important to know
the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards

If you offer extrinsic rewards
for things people are already Certain extrinsic rewards can
doing and enjoying, there could be irrelevant.
be negative repercussions.

in real life

People hike because they feel People in the corporate
good about themselves after. world are motivated by both
Extrinsic rewards would success and money. Without
probably do little to change this. the money, people would be
much less motivated. 20
Source: Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken

CONCEPT LEVELING UP
Leveling up is when a character experiences some sort of progression that usually
entails unlocking new abilities, skills, items, access to a new area of the game, or a
marker of a benchmark of how far into the game a character is.

important to know
Personal Competition Rewards for Voluntary
pride with others advancement action

LvL1

LvL 80
21
Source: http://www.giantbomb.com/leveling-up/92-475/

AND IT ALL COMES BACK TO MOTIVATION

infuse epic meaning
people will be highly motivated if they believe they are working to achieve
something great, something awe-inspiring, something bigger than themselves.

link/schedule external rewards
by linking reward to a series of challenges, people tend to treat these as
individual challenges and unlocking a step is viewed as an individual reward.

allow for learning
feedback enables learning, and learning allows for discovery, progress, achievement, satisfaction.
(double-loop learning: ability to modify or even reject a goal based on past attempts to achieve it)

22
Sources: Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken; Techcrunch 2010; Argyris, C.; Schon, D. (1978). Organizational Learning: A theory of action perspective.

APPENDIX

25

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

TED talks:
• Jane McGonigal, Gaming can make a better world, 2010
• Jesse Schell, Gaming can make a better world, 2010
• Seth Priebatsch, The game layer on top of the world, 2010

• gamification.org
• http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/the-gamification-of-healthcare.html
• http://bigthink.com/ideas/39192

• http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology
• Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, Johan Huizinga, 1938
(Google Books, Amazon)

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