Gamification Framework
"Gamification is the application of game mechanics to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals." - Karl Kapp
What is Gamification
Gamification: A design experience for fun, happiness, and motivation
Gamification is a design experience for happiness and motivation. We should never forget that Design is Gamification’s most significant challenge and where all its power lies, like a double-edged sword.
Imagine you could create the perfect circumstances for a product to be successful before it’s even been designed. It’s safe to say you’d be a more confident and capable designer. This is the power that gamification, based on behavioral science, allows designers to harness.
There are two primary ways of designing a product:
Function-focused design (FFD) FFD assumes that people are robots, set to complete a task—think repetitive factory jobs.
Human-focused design (HFD) HFD is designed to optimize and motivate people’s feelings, making tasks a fun and engaging experience—think amusement parks.
Gamification is converting a product from a function-focused design into a human-focused design. It’s honing human motivation in a system rather than designing for the sole purpose of efficiency.
What is a game?
We've already stated that people play games because they experience emotions that are closely related to the main factors of happiness.
Mainly because games involve so many fun-creating elements and many ways to fulfill our very basic motivations, but... What is a game?
Well, defining a game is not one of the easiest things to do, it's not "nice and easy" to say what a game is and there are many definitions given by experts, all different and similar at some point.
What we can really do is analyze which elements all games have in common to define a game as an activity that involves (and here I quote Jane Mcgonigal, based on Bernard Suits):
A goal that we will try to achieve. In example, the goal of Monopoly is to make your "friends" go busted while you are the richest man in the world (could be true, but it’s only "your" world)
A set of rules that we have to respect and follow. In this same example, we can only roll two dices of 6 faces (wish we could play with a D&D '20s). These rules create the "frame" or "magic circle of Huizinga.
A voluntary and playful willingness to overcome obstacles, challenges, or just to play. No one wants to play monopoly if your MBA super cool teacher tells you to do so to learn. Well, maybe we do, but it won’t be that fun if a mark is given! Games are voluntary, and if forced, playing turns into working (This refers to Daniel H. Pink and his book "Drive")
Last but not least, games require continuous feedback on what we are doing. In monopoly, feedback is given through our friends giving us money for our streets. We did something right and we get confirmation of it. All the way around, when we pay, we know we didn’t do that much right. Negative feedback is also provided!
Points systems are the kind of feedback that almost all games use.
Why games drive human behavior
The reason we call it Gamification is because the gaming industry was the first to master Human-Focused Design.
Games have no other purpose than to please the individual playing them. Yes, there are often “objectives” in games, such as killing a dragon or saving the princess, and sometimes saving a dragon, but those are all excuses to simply keep the player happily entertained.
Since games have spent decades (or even centuries depending on how you qualify a game) learning how to master motivation and engagement, we are now learning from games, and that is why we call it Gamification.
The Success of a Product Isn’t Arbitrary
Gamification is more than adding game elements such as badges, points, and leaderboards to a product. It’s a careful study of what specifically motivates a person to use and enjoy an application.
Take a moment to think about these questions:
Why do people commit to spending hours writing articles on Wikipedia for free?
Why is Facebook so much more successful than Google+ and LinkedIn?
Given its simple graphics and gameplay, why is Minecraft such a highly played game?
Why do people still play ancient games such as Chess and Starcraft 1 while other, seemingly better games fade after only a few months?
The Octalysis framework is a gamification framework that answers these questions, explaining in detail why a product is enjoyable or tedious. Let’s take a closer look.
Major Gamification Pitfalls:
Manipulation – Gamification is about motivating users by enabling them to have fun, not tricking them into doing things.
Building a Game – If you overdo the game features, you’ll defeat the purpose of incentivizing users to complete real-world tasks.
Magic Paint – The system you’re gamifying must be good per se. If it’s subpar, gamification cannot make it a success.
Master the 8 Core Drives of Gamification
Core Drive 1 – Epic Meaning and Calling
Octalysis inventor Yu-Kai Chou explains Core Drive 1 as “the drive where people are motivated because they believe they are engaged in something that is bigger than themselves.”
Wikipedia The reason why people spend hours contributing to Wikipedia is because of Core Drive 1. Together, they embark on the epic journey of making the world a better place by documenting and spreading knowledge.
Free Rice is a trivia-based website that supports the United Nations World Food Program. For every question answered correctly by site visitors, Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice to people in need, playing off a Core Drive 1 concept called “humanity hero.”
Core Drive 2 – Development and Accomplishment
Core Drive 2 involves the internal drive of making progress, developing skills, overcoming challenges, and feeling a sense of accomplishment. An awareness of struggle is essential to Core Drive 2, as a badge or a trophy without a challenge is not meaningful and can even demotivate the user.
Twitter Due to the one-way nature of Twitter communication, people view gaining followers as an achievement. Since no one can be forced to follow anyone else, the only way to increase followers is by creating interesting content. This is a challenge that offers a true sense of accomplishment when overcome.
LinkedIn In the early days of LinkedIn, people rarely completed their user profiles due to poor visual feedback of the progress made (insufficient Core Drive 2). However, after implementing a profile progress bar, LinkedIn increased their completion ratio by a staggering 60%.
Core Drive 3 – Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback
Empowerment of creativity and feedback relates to when users are engaged in a creative process. This involves giving users the freedom to express their creativity, get feedback, and make adjustments.
Minecraft is a prime example of Core Drive 3 because users are given the ability to express creativity by using simple building blocks to craft complex structures and make adjustments as they go.
Chess has stood the test of time due to its focus on Core Drive 3. It’s a uniquely creative game that allows players to shape highly personal playing styles. In fact, there are approximately 140,100,033 possible positions to play in a game of chess.
Core Drive 4 – Ownership and Possession
Users are motivated because they feel like they own something. When players feel ownership, they want to improve, personalize, protect, and get more. In the real world, this is what drives us to make money, but it can also be tied to elements with sentimental value such as collecting baseball cards or customizing a Dropbox folder.
Pokémon focuses heavily on a Core Drive 4 concept called “collection set.” Each Pokémon captured is added to a collection and gives users a sense of ownership. Once players catch a few Pokémon, they gotta catch ‘em all, and the hunt continues.
Farmville makes players constantly strive to increase the value of their assets by developing land. This includes seeking higher crop yields and improving the quantity and quality of livestock, both of which are motivated by the sense of ownership players have for their digital farms.
Core Drive 5 – Social Influence and Relatedness
Social influence is related to activities inspired by what other people do, think, or say—basically, what every social media platform is built on.
Relatedness centers on emotional associations and feelings of nostalgia such as meeting an old friend or finding a product that brings back memories of childhood.
Groupon was one of the first companies to turn an eCommerce platform into a social event. If enough people sign up to buy a particular item, the reward is a substantial discount. Happy users then invite other people to join and share the benefits (social influence).
Amazon People trust what they can relate to. In fact, approximately 60% of Amazon’s revenue comes from the recommendations section. A well-known example is, “Customers who bought this item also bought…”
Appealing to an emotional connection (relatedness) with other users builds a sense of trust and lowers the threshold to buy something.
Core Drive 6 – Scarcity and Impatience
Scarcity and impatience motivate us because we are either unable to obtain something immediately or because there is great difficulty in obtaining it. If you can’t have it, you want it.
Sales
Often times, sales promise bargains that are only available for a limited period of time—“70% OFF. Today ONLY!”
The existence of the sale is scarce, and people are motivated to act with a sense of urgency.
Facebook In its early days, Facebook was only available to Harvard students. This caused impatience among other university students who wanted to access the platform. Once Facebook was finally made available to other universities, people flooded in due to the exclusivity (scarcity) of it.
Core Drive 7 – Unpredictability and Curiosity
People are curious beings. We have no foolproof way of predicting the future, yet we’re always thinking about what will happen next.
Unpredictability is a powerful force in motivating people to keep pressing on until they have clarified the unknown. We’re driven by the chase.
Gambling is fueled by the feeling of unpredictability. Being able to pull a lever and not knowing the result creates a thrilling experience.
TV Series A good television series will add a cliffhanger at the end of every episode to create a sense of anticipation for the next. This appeals to the audience’s curiosity and desire to clarify the unknown.
Core Drive 8 – Avoidance and Loss
Avoidance and loss motivate by the fear of losing something or having an undesirable event occur.
Marketing campaigns often target Core Drive 8 with tactics like, “If you don’t sign up now, you’ll lose this chance forever.” In fact, psychology studies suggest that we are more likely to act based on avoiding loss rather than making gains.
FIFA 18 has a concept called “Player of the Month,” where a famous footballer is available for purchase, but only for a limited time. This motivates FIFA players to act and buy in order to avoid losing out on a good opportunity.
Black Friday is a great example of how limited opportunity can motivate people to act with an extreme sense of urgency. Once a year, on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, products are priced a lot cheaper, and people flock to stores to avoid losing out on sweet deals.
🔥 Top three quotes from our Instagram page
Sell the problem you solve. Not the product you make.
Product management is about finding a product-market fit and then maintaining that fit as the product and market evolve. — Marty Cagan
The goal of product management is to enable a team to build a product that people want to use.
Shower Thoughts
“Every once in a while, far in the depths of a landfill, a packing bubble finally pops under too much pressure.” SOURCE
“There is probably a tastier bird that we’re missing out on because evolution didn’t favor it.” SOURCE
“Considering how much our gut affects our brain, food itself is psychoactive.” SOURCE
“Of fictional clowns, Ronald McDonald has a much higher body count than The Joker.” SOURCE
“30,000 years ago, someone looked at a cave painting and sneered that they coulda done that.” SOURCE
