engagement through gamification

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi

engagement through gamificationPier Luca Lanzi – Politecnico di Milano

Design Methods and Processes – May, 19th 2016

what is gamification?

gamification is …

the use of game elements andgame design techniques innon-game contexts.

gamification is …

the use of the elements of playin non-game contexts.

what game elements?

points, progression, levels, social graph,avatars, quests, resource collections, etc.

what is the goal?

to engage users in an activity

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttp://gamification.jp/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/FinishedRegisteration3.png

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttp://www.4everfitness.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Nike-plus-Track-your-daily-runs.jpg

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttp://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/09/12/cars.waste.fuel.wired/

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/9301.language-quality-game-player-instructions.aspx

Three Application Areas

• External§Marketing§ Sales§Customer engagement

• Internal§HR§ Productivity enhancement§Crowdsourcing

• Behavior change§Health and wellness§ Sustainability§ Personal finance

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttps://cmffmc.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/2012-trends-3-gamification-the-new-seed-of-all-digital-strategies/

a brief history of gamification

History of Gamification:Cracker Jack & Toy Surprises

• In 1912 the Cracker Jack company starts putting prizes inside the box• Similar approaches are since

then used in chewing gums• And also detergents

http://peterbright.info/weblog/last-complete-batman-abc-gum-cards-1966-pink-back-batman-abc/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crackerjack2.jpghttp://marcoeula.tripod.com/

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttp://blog.libero.it/kittyAle/2413436.html

https://bsa-brmc.org/sites/default/files/pictures/meritBadges.jpg

History of Gamification: The Serious Games Initiative & Games for Change

http://www.gamesforchange.org/

Gamification as a Service 20

History of Gamification: Social Change

behavior change

The Fun Theoryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iynzHWwJXaAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRgWttqFKu8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCt_MzsnIUkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ9uT23ixLc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWG6IWgX0Q8

so what is gamification?and what is not?

Gamification is not …

• “Making everything a game” or a “Virtual 3D World”

• Any games in the workplace

• Any use of games in business

• Simulations (although they may constitute serious games)

• Just for marketing or customer engagement

• Just PBLs (points, badges, leaderboards)

it is not about “making games”Gamification is not about game-making. It is about using game-like mechanics to

modify a behavior, improve a business process, or customer experience, or profits.

Stop thinking about how you can build a real-time strategy game with resources allocated according to your customers needs and star t focusing on tweaks and

behavioral changes that improve your users’ experience and your bottom

know what you aretrying to achieve

Gamification is not about trying to make a game. Thus, what is the point of your game? To increase consumer engagement? Can you measure success?

How will you know if you have succeeded?

List the three major goals you want to achieve through “gamification”.

Make the goals measurable.

games are rubbishat customer acquisition

Gamification won’t work as a way of acquiring an audience, it will be a total waste of money. Gamification is effective to encourage behaviors amongst users, to keep

them engaged with a brand or to spread a message.

It should not be used to get customers in the first place.

retention is crucial whatever the gamification objective is, users should be coming back regularly rather than just once. Users are more likely to remember the message if they come back every day for seven days. If you want them to share with their friends, they need to

spend some time to feel that is useful, fun or rewarding.

games are not justabout competition

“gamification” often translates into points, badges and leaderboards.

The general assumption is that the desire for people to beat the top of the leaderboard will do the rest. But it won’t.

Gamers have different goals and many of themare not fulfilled by points, badges, and leaderboards.

foundations

everything has thepotential to be fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8VHc49ZdP4

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O1gNVeaE4g

status is everything

The Evolution of Loyalty

• Loyalty can be defined as encouraging an incremental choice in your favor when all things are mostly equal

• Loyalty and consumerism share a long and varied history

1800buy 10 get one free

1930redeemable giftsvirtual currency

1980sloyalty systems

2000svirtual rewards

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O1gNVeaE4g

status, access, power (SAP)this acronym identifies the system or rewards (each potential prize) in order from the most to the least desired, the most sticky to the least sticky, and the cheapest

to the most expensive

Status

• Defines the relative position of an individual in relation to others, especially in a social group

• The benefits and rewards status provides give players the ability to move ahead of others in a defined ranking system

• The ranking system need not be based on the real world at all

• Status works perfectly in a purely constructed environment

• Badges and leaderboards are typical status items

Badges, Levels and Leaderboards

• Badges§ Badges are a known status item§ They can be given out virtually or physically§ They must be visible to other players in the game; otherwise,

their meaning and valuation is limited

• Levels and Leaderboards§ Levels and leaderboards are another way to indicate that a

player has more or less status or achievement in a given game; they can be a powerful tool in your quest for engagement.

Access

• Gilt Groupe is a social website for flash sales of high-end fashion

• Top 1% players receive a 15-minute head start for all sales

• The prize doesn’t cost a thing to the company but it is very valuable to the player

• Instead of offering top customersdiscounts or giveaways, members receive early access

• American Express clients alsoget early access to tickets etc.

• Awarding power to your players offers some form of control over other players in the game.

• A good player might be asked to serve as a moderator on a forum.

• Players will work for you for free, power benefits to them are huge

• Most forums, as well as World of Warcraft, successfully offer positions of power to players

• This is the least powerful rewards or prize

• If there are great items to give away, and if players are expecting to receive free items, stuff can be a strong incentive.

• Once the item has been given away, however, the incentive to play is finished.

• In other words, stuff is only good until it is redeemed, which is the exact length of time your players will engage in the game.

Players cannot accurately price status, access and power

Thus they tend to overvalue them.

When assessing the importance of not having to waitin line, most people overvalue their time saved.

Similarly, people cannot quantify the minutes they got to meet with Lady Gaga backstage after winning a contest.

The price of this valuables is almost always cheaper—and the reward stickier—than giving away free stuff.

motivation

reinforcementstudies how we convert expected rewards into player action by

varying the reward quantity and delivery schedule

Fixed-Interval Reinforcement

• If a mammal such as a lab rat is given a pellet of food once an hour, during the 59 minutes between receiving each pellet, the animal will invariably go off and do something else in its cage. Only at the 60th minute will it come back to get the dispensed pellet

• The structure is similar in form to many Industrial Era jobs. A worker gets a paycheck every two weeks. What happens in the interval between paychecks is completely aligned with that end result. The worker will only do exactly what is required of her during the days in between to ensure that she will get her biweekly salary

• Not surprisingly, fixed-interval reinforcement schedules tend to yield low levels of engagement

Variable Ratio, Variable Schedule Reinforcement (Operant Conditioning)

• In this model, the lab rat doesn’t know how big the reward will be or when it will happen, but it knows that at some point it will come.

• The rat will press the dispensing pedal in its cage endlessly until it gets its reward. It is exactly the model used in slot machine gaming, as well as for almost every other archetypal gambling model.

• Another name for this behavior modifier is operant conditioning, and it is undeniably addictive to mammals.

Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Motivation

• To understand player motivations we need to understand where motivations come from

• Psychology has divided our motivations into two groups: intrinsic and extrinsic

• Intrinsic motivations are those that derive from our core self and are not necessarily based on the world around us

• Extrinsic motivations are driven mostly by the world around us, such as the desire to make money or win a spelling bee.

three views

Daniel H. Pink

• In Drive, Daniel Pinks attests that cash is a weak reward for getting players to complete complex tasks• The research he rounds up shows how

an extrinsic motivator like cash doesn’t work when people are given lateral-thinking tasks. • In other words, when cash is introduced

as a motivator, people’s performance on creative or complex tasks drops.• Thus, he contends that cash rewards

are bad for incentivizing creative thought.

Dr. John Houston

• Exceptionally competitive people can be self-destructively competitive.

• People—principally achiever/killer types—with a high level of competitiveness compete even when there is nothing to be gained

• Moreover, they tend to compete even when there’s a clear disincentive to do so

• When told that they must collaborate with a partner, hypercompetitive people will continue to try and figure out how to win, even against a friend, even when there is nothing to win.

Overjustification/Replacement Bias

• Replacing an intrinsic motivation with an extrinsic reward is fairly easy

• When a child who plays the piano simply because she enjoys it is introduced to competitive piano playing, many changes in her behavior can occur.

• For instance, if she begins to win competitions, then subsequently loses, she will stop playing piano

• Extrinsic rewards crush intrinsic motivation, which never returns

• The challenge for overjustification as a design constraint is that it’s not obvious that we care to preserve intrinsic motivation if the player is failing

• For instance, if a player is really intrinsically motivated as an accountant, but he’s not good at his job, why would we want to preserve his intrinsic desire?

over-justification effectrewards used as extrinsic motivators can

eliminate existing intrinsic motivation

self determination theory

Limits of Behaviorism?

• Why people slow down evenwhen there is no lottery butonly the speed indication?

• Behaviorism would suggests that it works for the lottery

• What does lottery add?

• But it also somehow work without the lottery to certain extent

Danger of Behaviorism

• Behaviorism by focusing on the reward distribution do not consider what might really motivate people

• Potential abuse/manipulation (use to convince people to do things they don’t want to do, to become addicted)

• It tends to make us behave like casino-owner

• Hedonic treadmill: when people become accustomed to rewards these must remain in place to keep people interested and maintain behavior

• Overemphasis on status (everyone is not Tom Stuker)

Self Determination Theory

• Comprehensive theory of human motivation

• People are not always motivated by rewards

• The motivational spectrum

The Motivational Spectrum

• Amotivation§No motivation whatsoever to do the task

• External regulation§ I do because I feel obliged to do it

(no perceived locus of control)• Introjection§We take external motivators and make our own (status for

instance – other people will value me – I take their view about status and make it my own through introjection)

• Identification§ I can see some value in it

• Integration§Complete alignment internally between me and the thing

• Competence§ Persons’ sense of ability, that they are achieving something in the activity

• Autonomy§ Persons’ feeling that they are in control through meaningful choices

• Relatedness§ The activity is connected to something beyond yourself, give some sense

of meaning or purpose (social interaction, greater good, etc.)

and now the end is near andso I face the final curtain …

“If you build it, they will come.”(not really)

it is all about engaging the usersand rely on their motivations

mastery

you are not the mountain,you are the sherpa

designing for the novice,considering the elder

what about serious games?

they are games! Games that have a majorobjective that is not enter tainment but still games!

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gehaZkV8034

Books and Videos

• “For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business” Kevin Werbach• “Gamification by Design” Gabe

Zichermann & Christopher Cunningham• Jesse Schell @ DICE2010

§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLwskDkDPUE§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPfaSxU6jyY§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NzFCfZMBkU

• Gabe Zichermann§ (old but gold) https://youtu.be/6O1gNVeaE4g

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