Game designers hate gamification (taking something that is not a game and turning it into one). They feel that it cheapens their craft to throw points and badges on something to get more people to do it. Gamification employs strong psychological effects to modify behavior. So, is adding a leader board to make your customers click a button good or evil?
I recently took a gig with BigDoor, a Seattle gamification provider that helps other companies gamify their web site. I wrote earlier about BigDoor’s WordPress plug-in and toolbar. I cited it as bad example of balancing intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been excited to refine my understanding of gamification and understand BigDoor’s longer term intentions.
There is good gamification and bad gamification. Bad gamification is slapping extrinsic rewards (or a contrived story) on top of an interaction. Good gamification amplifies the intrinsic rewards of a particular behavior – to increase the feeling of fun, flow, or accomplishment of the player. Players know bad gamification when they see it, because it doesn’t take their interests into consideration. Good gamification aligns the needs of both designer and player.
Gamification needn’t look like a game. If your application domain is movies (Netflix), auctions (eBay), or social connections (Facebook, LinkedIn) – simply highlighting the right numeric counters and lists is sufficient. Gamifying acknowledges your user’s inner drives, their ability to learn, and increases their receptiveness to your application’s benefits.
As a software developer, I’ve intentionally stayed away from game development. Tracking points, levels, and awards always seemed like unwanted complexity. I didn’t see the value of unnecessary obstacles for users. Application design is a difficult thing. Creating something that is easy to learn and use, and valuable enough to come back to every day is tricky. User acquisition and retention are huge and common business problems.
Good application design requires listening carefully to what users say and do. Empathetic design teaches (or advises) a user on what to do. Over time, I’ve also learned to pay attention to user’s hidden desires. Game mechanics utilize a subset of psychological drivers that determine why people do what they do. Chris Cunningham, author of the forthcoming O’Reilly gamification book even went so far as to say that bad gamification is simply that which ignores the player.
You cannot increase the intrinsic value of something by adding game mechanics. You CAN make the value more visible. You CAN change the paradigm and context of your site visitor from user to player – increasing their engagement.
Air miles programs are bad gamification. Do you play the air miles game? I didn’t until very recently, because it is a poorly designed game. Rewards (free flights) are only available to expert players. Most programs are hard to sign up for, track, and claim. It does not making flying more fun. So, until recently I’ve ignored them.
Why did I start caring about air miles? I read an online report on how to hack the rules. As I got older and accumulated more travel history, I got a feeling that I might be missing out. Money was slightly tighter, so the extrinsic rewards became more desirable.
The game itself is definitely not motivating me, it’s my cognitive awareness of the rules. Knowing the rules (primarily rotating credit cards and watching for bonus opportunities) increases my ability to play. Now I’m looking for more opportunities to win (spend money with an air miles card). It’s a horrible game, but I have the feeling that I can stick it to the man somehow, that “I can win this.” It is unfortunate that the game doesn’t provide this on it’s own.
Gamification is re-contextualization. It is possible to add fun by illustrating the rules. Good apps highlighting what is important and give you an excuse to do something. This converts a *user* into a *player*.
CityVille is brilliant (but bad) gamification masquerading as Game design. Zynga has perfected the gamification of inviting and buying (disguised as sharing and building). CityVille is certainly *not* optimized to be a fun virtual city planning game. It doesn’t maximize your creative building pleasure, though it does offer some intrinsic rewards:
- guided creativity
- feeling of building something (with friends)
- blingyness, positive feedback
As you learn the rules, you build a mental strategy for winning, and get hooked based on the appointment dynamic of scheduling your crop harvesting. For me, the trap is easy to fall for. I’m competitive, I love to build stuff and show it off. If your friends play, that makes it OK. The more friends that play, the better your progress.
It doesn’t take long before you run into a wall where your fun ends and doing things that benefit Zynga become a requirement (you must pay or invite to continue). The sinking feeling you feel at that moment, is the line between good and bad gamification. It isn’t bad to expect players to pay (or send uncomfortable invitations), but at this point the rewards all swing in Zynga’s favor. You realize you aren’t playing a game, but participating in the gamification of inviting and buying – and it ceases to be fun.
Good gamification balances the desires of players with the needs of the application designer. If you need to rely on bad gamification (purely extrinsic rewards that create a game un-related to the intrinsic benefits), you’re admitting that you can’t squeeze any more intrinsic value out of your product.