Gamification Will Eat Itself

Scott DodsonCOO, Product Owner

Bobber Interactive

MeMe

Me

• Chronic Entrepreneur

Used a Game LayerLayer of Abstraction

• Playful Perception• Mind numbing jobs• Dating• Holding a conversation• Sales – Cold Calling• Raising Angel/VCMoney• Game layers

worked!

Gamification

Examples ofreally good

gamification

*Not to scale

*

What went wrong?• Gamification seen as Manipulation• Extrinsic & Skinnerian/Behavioralist• Spawn of Marketing• Cookie Cutter• Broken & “Gameable”

OMFG

/Sigh…We are here

Deep Breath

How we get on the right road…

Gamification is actually working

• Big Door & Bunchball report ~80 mm users

• Page views 2x• Time on site 2x• Unique monthlies +30%• But still…

To get to the Plateau of Productivity…

• Gamification is not about:– Extrinsic rewards – Manipulation– Outer “shell” of game: Points, Levels,

Badges• It’s about creating Sustained

Engagement

Apparent Challenge

• Great games are hard enough:– Only 4% of games that go into

production are profitable• Add a “real world” activity and you

multiply the difficulty of success

Design for sustained engagement

“Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” – Bernard Suits

A Goal

Rules

VoluntaryParticipation

A FeedbackSystem

Designing for Sustained Engagement• I. Establish a different user

“contract”– A game is voluntary framework for the

user experience– Obstacles desirable!

Eustress / Satisfying Work

Designing for Sustained Engagement

• II. Design for flow; segment the experience

Mihalyi CsikszentmihalyiAmy Jo Kim

“Domain Resonant” Implementation1 2

3 66% more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator.

+

=

Designing for Sustained Engagement• III. Embrace the Domain; know the

Audience– Corollary: Build the right team

Two Types of Motivation• Extrinsic Motivation –

Behavior that is motivated by contingencies (rewards, punishments) that are separate from the enjoyment of the activity itself

• Intrinsic Motivation – The activity itself is its own reward because it is inherently satisfying. In particular, humans have specific intrinsic needs that motivate.

Framework/Context Critical

Designing for Sustained Engagement• IV. Motivational Psychology Critical

– Intrinsic needs satisfaction

3 Drivers of Intrinsic MotivationScott Rigby - Immersyve

• Feeling “good at” • Expanding

capability• Learning• Mastery

COMPETENCE

• Freedom and agency

• Exercising volition• Choosing• Many

opportunities for action

AUTONOMY

• You matter to others ,they matter to you

• Meaningful connections

• Competitive, cooperative,

• Even removed: characters in a book or movie, developers of an app.

RELATEDNESSC A R

Competence, Autonomy & Relatedness: most reliable predictors of engagement

• Multiple longitudinal studies with 20,000+ subjects

• Underlying psychological causality vs. solely outcome metrics (e.g., “clicks” or “fun”)

PENS predicts sustained engagement...

“Fun” does not.

(PENS) Methodology: Personal Experience of Needs Satisfaction Approach uses statistical regression analysis to predict long-term engagement

Competence, Autonomy, Relatedness

Predictive power with p values

<.01

PENS design: Competence• Scaled challenges (flow)• Clear & juicy feedback• Level=expanded capabilities

PENS design: Autonomy• Mechanics of Choice and Opportunity• Open Environment - Playground• Progression choices (class, tree-structure)• Sense of purpose/volition

PENS design: Relatedness• You matter to them, they matter to

you– Competitive cooperative

• Reciprocity awesome; synchronicity, meh

• Player to Player; P2NPCs; P2Dev; P2Brand

Hey! It’s the Hero of Kvatch! I can’t believe

it! Wow!”

“…Brave, brave Sir Robin…”

Summary

• I. Establish a user contract of “game”• II. Design for flow; segment the

experience• III. Game designer must embrace the

domain • IV. Focus on satisfying Intrinsic needs

Thank You!

• /scottcdodson• First Name at bobberinteractive.com• @Gamebiz

Gamification

• Swoopo• Zappos• Foursquare: Bad --> Better!

Gamification = engagement through intrinsic needs satisfaction• ARGS• Geocaching• Nike+• DevHub• Priceline• GreatWolf Lodge / MagicQuest• Slot Machines• Playboy- Miss Social• Starbucks

Credits• Scott Rigby- CEO Immersyve, author, Glued to Games (with Richard Ryan)• Jane McGonigal-Creative Director, Social Chocolate, author, Reality Is Broken, Ph.D.

Berkeley• Sebastian Deterding-PhD at the Research Center for Media and Communication at Hamburg

University• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Claremont Graduate University, former head of psychology at the 

University of Chicago• Amy Jo Kim- designer of social gaming systems, PHD University of Washington• Wanda Meloni, M2 Research:  http://slidesha.re/gg49nb• Dr. Byron Reeves of the Department of Communication at Stanford &

J. Leighton Read, Executive Chairman, Seriosity, Inc., authors of Total Engagement• David Edery Principal, Fuzbi co-author with Ethan Mollick of Changing the Game: How Video

Games Are Transforming the Future of Business• Gabe Zichermann and Joselin Linder authors of Game Based Marketing

http://gamebasedmarketing.com/ • James Currier of Ooga Labs who also credits Clay Shirky and Bret Terrill • David Helgason CEO of Unity• Jesse Schell, Professor of Entertainment Technology  CMU, CEO Schell Games. Jesse’s talk from

DICE: http://tiny.cc/TebRw • Rajat Paharia Founder of Bunchball , building gamified, meta-game experiences for clients such

as WB, Hasbro, NBC Universal, Victoria’s Secret, Comcast• Keith Smith, CEO Big Door.• My sincere apologies to anyone on this list or otherwise who feels they were not properly

credited. Kindly point out my error and I will edit accordingly.

More Domain Specificity