2012 05-01 vator tv -science of gamification v01b-slideshare

The Science
of Gamification
Michael Wu, PhD (mich8elwu)
Principal Scientist of Analytics

Vator Spark
May 1st, 2012

Most images in this
deck have active links
to related resources.
Explore!

twitter: mich8elwu
linkedin.com/in/MichaelWuPhD 2

agenda
▪ Gamification basics
• What is gamification? What is it not?
• What does gamification mean to your business?

▪ Why gamification works? The behavioral perspective
• Motivation: the motivational psychology
• Ability: the access to resources
• Trigger: the proper call to action

▪ Applications + advance topics in gamification
• Overjustification + sustainable gamification strategies
• The evaluative framework + design paradigm for gamification (with examples)

twitter: mich8elwu

what is gamification?

twitter: mich8elwu

▪ Gamification:
• The use of game attributes to drive game-like player behavior in a non-game
context with predictability

twitter: mich8elwu

▪ Gamification:

• game attributes
• game mechanics, game dynamics, game design principles, gaming psychology, player
journey, narratives, incentives, etc.

twitter: mich8elwu

▪ Gamification:

• game attributes
• game-like player behavior
• engagement, interaction, competition, collaboration, awareness, learning, obsession,
and/or any other observed player behavior during game play

twitter: mich8elwu

▪ Gamification:

• game attributes
• game-like player behavior
• engagement, interaction, competition, collaboration, awareness, learning, obsession,
and/or any other observed player behavior during game play
• non-game context
• work, education, health & fitness, sale & marketing, community participation, civic
engagement, volunteerism, goodwill, etc. (anything but a game)

twitter: mich8elwu

what does gamification mean to your business?
▪ Understanding connection vs. interaction (engagement)
▪ Social networks connects people
• It determines who connects to whom
• But it doesn’t determine who interacts with whom

▪ A connection is required but not sufficient to guarantee
interaction
▪ Connection is easy to maintain, interaction is much harder
• Connection: only takes 1 action, no subsequent actions are required:
Once connected, you’ll always be a connection
• Interaction: requires persistent actions over time

twitter: mich8elwu

realizing the value of your connections
▪ The potential value of a connection is huge
• That is why Facebook received ~$40 billion valuation

twitter: mich8elwu

▪ Potential value through influence
• Connection to other fans, customers, or consumers
 can potentially influence them through WOM
 business gain value through customer acquisition & accelerated adoption
• But w/o interaction, there is no way to spread WOM

▪ Potential value through loyalty
• Connection to brands
 can potentially build stronger/deeper customer-brand relationship
 business gain value through persistent consumption of product & service
• But w/o interaction, you can’t build any relationship

twitter: mich8elwu

▪ The latent value of a connection (a fan /
friend) is the potential to interact
• When people actually interact, they can realize this
value
• If fans (connections to brands) don’t interact, they
cannot realize their latent value (e.g. WOM influence,
loyalty, etc.)

▪ Nevertheless, connections do have value,
interactions simply create greater value
▪ Gamification is great at driving action,
interaction, adoption, etc.
twitter: mich8elwu

what can gamification do for your business?
▪ 3 of the most common commercial use case of gamification
• Deepens engagement
• Internally: collaboration between teams + employees
• Externally: collaboration between customers
• Sustains loyalty
• Onboards new users (employees, customers)

▪ So what?
customer spending
average customer
2.5x community user
superfan 10x
twitter: mich8elwu

agenda



twitter: mich8elwu

what’s the magic behind gamification?
CommunalResponse Collection Countdown Discovery Variable Ratio
Fun Once, Cross Situational
Collaboration Delayed Lottery Reward Schedule
Reputation Fun Always Leader-boards
Mechanics
Fixed Ratio Status Free Lunch Serendipity Points
Moral Hazard SocialShell Game Communal
Reward Schedule
Modifiers of Game PlayCohesion Interval Discovery Loyalty
Rank Leader-boards Avoidance Reinforcement
Reinforcer Appointment Schedules Virtual Items
Reward Schedules Urgent
Privacy Envy Optimism Dynamic Chain SchedulesSet Completion Companion
Epic MeaningMicro Leader-boards
Loss Aversion Cascading Rolling Social Fabric of Games Gaming
ContingencyViral Game Mechanics
Free Lunch Information Physical Level Up Virality
Pride Achievement Theory Goods Behavioral Contrast Endless
Infinite Gameplay Combos Games
Disincentives Ownership Variable Interval
Reward Schedules Progression Dynamic
Fixed Interval Behavioral Momentum Blissful Ratio Reward
Real-time
Reward Schedules Extinction Productivitytwitter: mich8elwu
Schedules
Quest Mechanics linkedin.com/in/MichaelWuPhD 15

behavior model
▪ Fogg Behavior Model (FBM):
• 3 Factors underlying human behavior
• Temporal convergence of 3 factors

MotivationAction Ability Trigger

wants can told to

twitter: mich8elwu

behavior model
▪ Fogg Behavior Model (FBM): Trigger
• 3 Factors underlying human behavior
• Temporal convergence of 3 factors

Motivation
activation
threshold
Action

Ability
twitter: mich8elwu

what motivates people
▪ Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943)
Game mechanics/dynamics
being-needs
(meta-needs) status, achievements,
ranks, reputation, etc.
deficiency social cohesion, virality &
needs most communal/community
dynamics
security, money
(gambling)
food, water, etc

twitter: mich8elwu

Game mechanics/dynamics
being-needs
(meta-needs)
Maslow’s meta-motivators:

twitter: mich8elwu

Dan Pink’s intrinsic Game mechanics/dynamics
motivators (2009)

DRiVE
Maslow’s meta-motivators:

twitter: mich8elwu

Dan Pink’s intrinsic Game mechanics/dynamics
motivators (2009)

ownership, blissful productivity,

DRiVE
autonomy
Maslow’s meta-motivators: serendipity, etc.

mastery points, progression, level up, set
completion, etc.

purpose epic meaning, quest, discovery,
justice, save the world, etc.
twitter: mich8elwu

Watson & Skinner: Learning & Conditioning
▪ Human behaviors are learned through conditioning
• Radical: disregard innate needs, only use external conditions & reinforcement
• The conditioned reinforcers (which are
usually some kind of points) are learned
and they become the motivator
• However, points themselves are not
inherently rewarding

▪ Proper use of points depends on
the reward schedule
• When, how many, and at what rate the
points are given (or taken away)
• Progression and level up dynamics

twitter: mich8elwu

Watson & Skinner: Learning & Conditioning
▪ Fixed-interval (FI) schedule
• Drives activity near deadline Reward Schedules
• Count down & appointment dynamic

▪ Fix-interval (FI) and fixed-ratio (FR)
• Learning new behaviors (e.g. training)

▪ Variable-interval (VI)
• Reinforcing established behaviors

▪ Variable-ratio (VR)
• Maintaining a behavior  game addiction
• Serendipity + surprise  lottery mechanic (anticipatory motivators)

twitter: mich8elwu

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow
▪ Flow: an optimal state of intrinsic
motivation
• Forget about physical feelings (e.g. hunger,
sleep), passage of time, and their ego

▪ Skill ~ Challenge  Flow
▪ Certainty vs. Uncertainty
• People love the control state
• People hate the boredom state
• People like arousal
• People dislike worry

twitter: mich8elwu

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow
▪ People acquire skills over time  move into the
relaxation/boredom state steep learning curve
to get back to flow
• We are motivated by challenges, shallow
surprises, and varieties, to avoid way too hard learning
boredom curve
• IRL, matching challenge to a bit too hard
people’s skills exactly is hard
• They are either too easy (boring)
or too hard (frustrating)
too easy
▪ In good gamification, we can
control the level of difficulty

twitter: mich8elwu

what empowers people with greater ability?
▪ Ability ≠ skill
▪ Ability is a measure of your access to the resources at the
moment when you need to perform the behavior
• Effort resources: physical effort + mental effort
• Scarce resources: time, money, authority/permission, attention, rare skills, etc.
• Adaptability resources: capacity to break norms, which may be personal
(routines), social, behavioral, cultural, etc.

▪ Ability is context dependent
• Depends on individual: different people have access to different resources
• Depends on context: access to resources can be lost and regained

twitter: mich8elwu

ability = simplicity
▪ 2 perspectives on ability
• User perspective: ability (reality) activation
• Task perspective: simplicity (perceptual) threshold

Motivation
▪ 2 ways to push a user beyond his
activation threshold
• Hard way: Increase his real ability
by motivating him to train & practice
• Easier way: Increase the task’s perceived
simplicity (or user’s perceived ability) Ability
▪ Simplicity empowers users  endows them w/ greater ability
twitter: mich8elwu

perceived ability (simplicity)
▪ A task is perceived simple if you can complete it with fewer
resources than you expect
• You expect the task to be harder

▪ Some game mechanics/dynamics designed to increase
perceived ability (simplicity)
• Divide and conquer
• Cascading information theory
• Chaining reward schedules
• Behavioral momentum (people’s tendency to follow personal norms, routines)

twitter: mich8elwu

what is a trigger and why is it needed
▪ Anything that asks the user to perform a behavior now
• User must aware of the trigger.
• Must understand what the trigger means.

▪ Why are triggers necessary?
• Unaware of his ability (e.g. resources needed)
• Hesitant (e.g. question his motivation)
• Distracted (e.g. engaged in another routine)

▪ Trigger is all about timing!
• Poorly timed trigger: spam mails + pop ups ads
• Good triggers are carefully timed to activate
when users have the motivation and the ability
twitter: mich8elwu

trigger depends on behavioral trajectory
▪ Has ability but not motivated: Spark
• built-in as part of the motivation mechanism

▪ Motivated, but lack ability (or
perceived ability): Facilitator

Motivation
activation
• highlights the task’s simplicity threshold
• often used with the progress bar dynamics to
create anticipation as user improve towards his
goal

▪ Has ability and motivated: Signal
• should only serve as a reminder Ability

twitter: mich8elwu

trigger effectiveness depends on gamer archetype

twitter: mich8elwu

trigger effectiveness depends on gamer archetype
Bartle type Characteristics Effective trigger
Killer (<1%) highly competitive challenge them
Socializer hate confrontation, followers, value show that their friends are
~80% relationship doing it
Achiever spark trigger associated
driven by status (i.e. special access, etc.)
~10% with an status increase
Explorer driven by discovery & uniqueness of their call upon their unique skill,
~10% contributions, hate spatial & temporal limits no time pressure

twitter: mich8elwu

agenda



twitter: mich8elwu

beware of the moral hazard of game play
▪ Recall: Skinnerian operant conditioning
• The reward can be learned & become the motivator instead of the behavior

▪ Gamify flossing: reward with perks, say a toy
• What happens when the rewards can’t keep up?
• They lose ALL the motivation to perform the desired task

twitter: mich8elwu

the overjustification effect
▪ Rewarding people with extrinsic rewards
will decrease the person’s intrinsic
motivation for the gamified behavior
▪ Most commercial gamification :
• Perks moderate
• Cash scale
• Points large
• Badges scale

▪ These are all extrinsic rewards.
• Can gamification work in the long run?

twitter: mich8elwu

2 sustainable gamification strategies
▪ Bad news: gamification by itself is not sustainable long term
(especially those that uses extrinsic rewards)
▪ But it is very effective (in the short term) to get people start
doing something (e.g. foursquare)
▪ Use gamification to jumpstart some gamified activities that:
• Has long term intrinsic value
• Leaves enough data behind for the system to infer, reinforce, and reward the
users intrinsic motivation

▪ Gamification (i.e. the extrinsic rewards) then becomes a
secondary reinforcement for the primary value driver
twitter: mich8elwu

2 sustainable gamification strategies
▪ Value vs. motivation mechanism 2. track all
activities
gamification
3. infer intrinsic
motivation
intrinsic/ intrinsic
long term 1. Variety of
motivation
value motivating
activities/behaviors
extrinsic rewards extrinsic rewards
▪ Good news: gamification don’t have to work long term.
It just has to work long enough for:
• The user to realize the value of the gamified behavior
• The system to discover and reward the user’s intrinsic motivation
twitter: mich8elwu

an evaluative framework + a design paradigm
▪ If we know why gamification works, then…
• We can evaluate the effectiveness of any future gamification strategies

twitter: mich8elwu

speed camera lottery
▪ Desired behavior:
• obey the speed limit

▪ Motivation:
• win $ lottery

▪ Ability:
• the player is driving, and has
the ability to slow down

▪ Trigger:
• lottery sign on camera fixture
• this is a spark trigger
twitter: mich8elwu

Gap gamify store check-in
▪ Desire action: Motivation
• FB Places check-in

▪ Single appointment Trigger: appointment dynamic – time’s up trigger

• No reward for repeating
& maintaining the action

▪ Moral hazard of
gameplay
Ability: not everyone uses
• People want the reward FB Places. If target
(free jeans) much more demographic use it, then
than they want to check-in OK. They can check-in

▪ When 10,000th pair of jean is gone, people stop checking in
twitter: mich8elwu

gamification of work ≠ mixing games with work
▪ Sales execs fail to assign leads regularly
▪ Create an iPad/iPhone golf game for
lead assignment = desired behavior
• Motivation: new, fun, sales people love golf
• Ability: this actually reduces ability, b/c it’s less efficient, and takes more time
• Trigger: leads notification

▪ No convergence of 3 factors  bad idea!
• People may use it for a while due to novelty, but it won’t last long

▪ Don’t take it too literally, or you’re missing the point of
gamification
twitter: mich8elwu

an evaluative framework + a design paradigm
▪ If we know why gamification works, then…
• We can evaluate the effectiveness of any future gamification strategies
• We can design and create new gamification that drives a specific action
• It’s all about driving players above the activation threshold by temporal convergence of
1. Motivating them by positive feedback & positive, motivational psychology
2. Increasing their ability (or perceived ability) by simplifying the behavior
(provide users with the necessary resources to perform the behavior)
3. And then applying the proper trigger at the right time

▪ The magic formula of gamification
• Place the proper triggers in the behavioral trajectory of motivated players, at
the moment when they feel the greatest excess in their ability

▪ Design is iterative: what happen when it doesn’t work?
twitter: mich8elwu

the key to successful gamification
▪ Understand what actions you are trying to drive:
what are you trying to gamify
▪ Know your target audience:
who are you trying to gamify

▪ Deep behavior metrics and analytics
• Gamification is very data intensive and metric driven
• Rewarding the players fairly
• Infer user motivation from data
• Gamification effectiveness: needs feedback loop data for design iterations

twitter: mich8elwu

Thank you
Q&A + discussion

@mich8elwu
twitter: mich8elwu

2012 05-01 vator tv -science of gamification v01b-slideshare

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Ähnlich wie 2012 05-01 vator tv -science of gamification v01b-slideshare

Ähnlich wie 2012 05-01 vator tv -science of gamification v01b-slideshare (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

2012 05-01 vator tv -science of gamification v01b-slideshare