“Gamification is not the same as game design, you uncultured swine!” Said one of us to the other. Of course, one week prior the person uttering those words had no clue that there was a difference, but after some online research, he knew and was eager to say so.
We had just come up with a brilliant (not really) idea of gamifying news consumption. Although we were wrong in our approach of gamifying news, which has been tried unsuccessfully by several other news sites in the past, we did learn a lot about Gamification and Game Design. So here it goes, what each is, how they are different, and what you should do and avoid when wanting to integrate them into your product.
The one thing to know before introducing Gamification and Game Design is this: human motivation can be separated into intrinsic (doing or avoiding something because we enjoy or dislike it; comes from within) and extrinsic (doing or avoiding something because of external stimuli, like rewards or punishment)
Gamification
Gamification takes game-like mechanics and applies them to non-game activities with the purpose of motivating us. It’s the usual approach of taking a product and adding systems where users earn points and badges and go through levels as they progress.
Game Design
I can’t possibly explain it better than Rahul Vohra from Superhuman, so definitely watch his talk, but I will summarize the key ideas here.
Game design is taking the game-like mechanics that motivate us intrinsically and designing systems with those mechanics at their core. It is born from a more complete understanding of human motivation and moves beyond extrinsic motivation (which gamification focuses mostly on) to intrinsic motivation. Appealing to users intrinsically is done by applying the following principles:
- Introduce concrete, achievable and rewarding goals
- Design for nuanced emotions — removing and/or providing specific feelings
- Allow users to feel in control by giving them rapid and robust controls
- Make fun toys that users want to interact with
- Create a flow that immerses the users into an experience
Using our product as an example, let’s go through each of the principles above.
At mediaBrew, the goal for users was to not just read the news like everyone else but to navigate the news enough to make up their own minds on the issues that mattered to them. One of the specific emotions users felt was being overwhelmed by the ocean of news, so our focus was to stimulate and make them feel at ease by giving context and a stepwise consumption of content. Our controls were the navigation tools that users used to move around the visual map of the news (by the way, everything in this paragraph was aspirational, we never quite got to accomplish our game design objectives, but let’s continue). We added several toys, like simple graphs that showed news statistics, as well as prices they could earn by accessing our site X number of consecutive days.
As for flow, the idea was to make each next step obvious, so users would never be left standing guessing “what do I do now?”. We thought to accomplish that via a series of missions users would go on, like looking at the same news from three different sources, then follow that task with simple quizzes and on to more missions, ultimately earning badges and points to keep them engaged and wanting to come back the next day. The trick here is to balance high perceived skill with high perceived challenge and to provide immediate feedback. The subject of flow is fascinating and I recommend learning more about it, but basically what you want is to match a high level of skill with a high challenge level. If skill is high and challenge low, you are relaxed or maybe bored. Conversely, if skill is low and challenge high, you are anxious. Neither of those feelings is desired (see image below for the full spectrum).
Now, what lessons did we learn after traveling the seas of Gamification and Game Design? Here they are:
Easy to Learn, Fun to Master
If you start learning basketball playing against an NBA team, you won’t have much fun. Neither will they. As per the flow chart above, the level of difficulty should increase with the level of skill.
A good gamified experience is one that is easy to get started, where people immediately learn something that invites them in. But it should have depth so people are not bored after five minutes of using it. You keep upping the difficulty and complexity as users keep improving their skill. You are dancing in that flow area in the diagram above.
Rewards
Say you have three types of rewards, A, B and C. The most valuable is A, then B, then C. What’s better, to get B or to get C? Duh, B of course. Well not necessarily. It depends on the context of how you earn each. See, gaining something is not an absolute benefit, it’s a perceived one.
It has been tested experimentally that players in a game can be more satisfied and engaged from receiving a surprise reward, even if lower in value, than an expected one. It’s a combination of our thrill for the unknown and the gamble that’s associated with it, but random prices can indeed be better positive reinforcers than fixed prices. So, if instead of getting reward B you were playing a game that offered you a magic coffin with a secret reward inside, and once you opened it you received reward C, you may be more satisfied.
The recommendation here is to use fixed (expected) rewards as well as surprise ones, to keep it interesting and engaging. To up your engagement level further, you should also include piecewise rewards.
Piecewise are those prices that a user collects across time. Each is part of the puzzle and obtaining them is not only rewarding but also motivates users to keep going so they can finish the puzzle. After all, we seldom enjoy leaving things unfinished.
Each Person is Unique
I once heard a phrase that said “You’re unique, just like everyone else.” And another that goes “You’re unique, but that doesn’t make you special or useful.”
I love those phrases, but let’s forget about them here and focus on reminding users of their uniqueness. We don’t play a game because Caroline there gets really into it, we play it (at least in the long term) because we enjoy playing it. Similarly, you can use Game Design to personalize the experience for each user. That’s why many websites allow users to create avatars. There are two things to accomplish here:
- Give Agency — Allow users to make meaningful decisions
- Make Them Feel Special — We want to feel like we’re special, unique, and on a journey
Keep them in mind at every step of your design.
Good Content Always Comes First
One important thing to understand in user experience is that game design is only a means to enhance and amplify what you’re already providing. And what you should be providing is value. In the form of good content, or enhanced productivity, or whatever you want, but value at the center of it. Points and rewards are not why we use a game or tool. They are means for recognizing achievement, but they are not the end. The end is whatever value you attain in the process (e.g. skill, knowledge, saved time, etc.).
So focus on the core value you provide and let gamification and game design components be additional components. The cherry on the cake, but not the cake itself.
It’s Never Done
If you want users to keep coming back, it’s a good idea to keep them entertained in some way. And one of those ways is to constantly add or change elements over time.
Another is to use long-term progress-related rewards. For instance, the climbing gym I go to has this thing where they give you a pin with one of their mascots during your subscription anniversary. It’s a $5 pin, so it isn’t about how valuable it is, it’s about how unexpected it was the first time and how encouraging it has been every other time I’ve received it. Also, judge away but I never give gifts so people stopped giving me gifts and getting that pin is a big deal for me. It’s not the reason why I’m still a member, but it definitely helps in keeping me there.
Encourage the Right Values
This sounds more like a life lesson. You know what, maybe it is. Ok yes, it is. The lesson is this: the more something is incentivized, the more people will focus on it. It’s analogous to “you are what you measure.” So make sure that you are incentivizing what you want users to develop. One hidden gem in this lesson is that you can encourage things like loyalty, active use, or other metrics that make your product and business more successful. Remember the climbing gym pins? Well, I have thought about canceling my membership and opening it back up later on, but instead, I freeze it (at a small cost) so that I keep that streak of years going. With those pins they are encouraging permanence, and that is lousy for my wallet but good for their business.
“Right” in “encourage the right values” also has a moral dimension to it. At least one dating app company has publicly acknowledged that when some users first sign up, they get matched with a highly attractive profile that is actually just a bot (unbeknown to the user). Like a drug, the user gets that first hit and keeps using the site in hopes that more of those attractive matches will come. This is clever but morally obscure. So yes, do encourage the actions that will keep your users coming, except if the tacit agreement with your users is that by using your site now they will likely not have to use it in the future. Or in other words, don’t be a dick.
TLDR
Gamification and Game Design are not the same thing. Game Design focuses on intrinsic motivation, while gamification is more aesthetic and external. Both of them contain useful elements in their application of game-like mechanics to non-game activities.
By providing a concrete goal, designing for nuanced emotions, providing controls to the user, and giving them toys you can get them into an immersive and engaging experience (i.e. flow) that will satisfy them and keep them coming back for more.
From researching and testing the application of those principles at mediaBrew, we came up with useful lessons learned. Mainly, (1) make your experience something that is easy to get started with but that’s fun (and challenging) to master, (2) provide a combination of different types of rewards, including surprise ones, (3) take users on a journey that feels unique to them, (4) the toys are not the goal, make sure you provide value, (5) keep things interesting over time, and (6) encourage actions that promote continuing interaction between the user and your product.
Now go design the thing! And remember to test it extensively.
By the way, if you want to see how we are starting to apply these concepts to the seemingly non-gamy task of research writing, check out mediaBrew.io.
Next on this series:
- Your Product Idea, The Right Way
- Practical Guide to Conducting Customer Interviews
- Investors are People Too
- You had me at “You’re Wrong”
