While gamification and gaming aren’t mutually exclusive, they certainly aren’t disconnected either.
Researchers have been exploring how games impact our brain development and influence everything from our social behavior to our emotional health. What they’ve uncovered is astonishing.
For a quick look at why gaming is good for you, check out the infographic below (who doesn’t love a good infographic?)
As affirmative as this infographic is, the public discourse around the negative impacts of gaming continue to garner a lot of attention in the media.
(Below is an unedited manuscript snippet of my book: Actionable Gamification – Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. If you like this post, you will LOVE my book).
Parenting Gamification: Your Parents are Bigger Than You!
Parenting is generally motivated by two Core Drives in my Gamification Framework Octalysis: Core Drive #2, Development & Accomplishment (reward when the child behaves), as well as Core Drive #8, Loss & Avoidance (punish/ground when the child does not behave).
However, the Chinese culture, along with many other Asian cultures, has figured out how to implement Epic Meaning & Calling into Parenting.
In the Chinese language, there is a word termed “Xiao,” pronounced “Sheeow,” which has no sound English translation, but is a concept that elicits: since your birth, you are in debt to your parents and you own your life and existence to them. As a result, you need to do everything possible to honor them and lift them up.
Many sources translate the word “Xiao” to the term “Filial Piety” – “a virtue of respect for one’s parents and ancestors.”
But it goes way beyond the word “respect.”
Once Chinese children start to comprehend the world, parents will tell them or play them stories where well-known children of “Xiao” in Ancient China fight tigers to protect their parents, warm up their parents mattresses before bedtime, or cut off their own flesh in order to feed their hungry parents. In one story, a 60-year-old man of “Xiao” pretends to play on the ground in a humorous way in order to entertain his 80-year-old parents. (Note: regardless of the tactics to educate such Epic Meaning & Calling, “Xiao” is truly a great virtue that is being lost in a new flat-world of instant gratification and self-centeredness).
Other examples of ? in the “24 Paragons of Filial Piety” include (thanks to Robbert Penner for additional research):
-a man sells himself into slavery to pay for father’s funeral
a man tastes his sick father’s stool
a woman cooks part of her own liver to feed her mother
an eight-year-old boy attracts mosquitoes to suck his blood so they won’t bother his parents
a father decides to bury his three-year-old son so he can afford to care for his mother. While digging the hole, he finds treasure and doesn’t have to kill his son.
While some of these true stories are disturbing, it illustrates how important Xiao is as a value within the culture. Of course, parents aren’t just hypocritically manipulation their children. Children see the exact same attitude of their parents towards their grandparents. The children who see their parents treat the grandparents poorly will most likely not buy into the Epic Meaning of Xiao.
In Traditional Ancient Chinese Culture, when one’s parents pass away, he needs to dress in a mourning dress, abstain from all entertainment and sometimes meat, as well as exclude social relationships for three entire years to express his sadness for his parents. This act is called “Shouxiao”, which literally means “guarding Xiao” and was traditionally set to be three years because Confucius stated that it takes three years for us to leave our parents’ arms, and hence it is proper to spend three years mourning for them.
Of course, in today’s modern society, much of the three-year mourning is lost and reduced to days or weeks as a symbolic gesture to honor one’s parents.
And because of this culture of “Xiao,” Asian children grow up feeling that they have to do a lot for their parents – they have to study hard; they have to find get into a good school that their parents can be proud of; they have to support their parents throughout life; they should live with their parents to always be available, and make sure everything is taken care of for their parents throughout life.
In contrast, in Western societies where the concept of “Xiao” is not as prevalent, people still respect their parents immensely, but often once they form their own families, they generally become a lot more disconnected and simply bring their children to grandpa and grandma once or twice a year, instead of constantly making life decisions that are tailored to their parents.
There’s even popular Chinese literature and idioms such as “Bu Xiao Zhi Zi, Tian Di Bu Rong,” which means, “For a son without ‘Xiao,’ there is no space/tolerance for him in heaven or earth.” This means that if you do not have “Xiao,” you are such an epic scumbag you don’t deserve to have ever existed, and both the heaven and the earth are so disgusted by your existence they are spitting you out of their presence.
It is this type of Epic Meaning & Calling that motivates people beyond their self-interest, regardless of what they want for themselves or whether they feel good or not about it.
Even today, if my parents told me I don’t have Xiao because of any behavior, it would crush me emotionally and motivate me towards almost anything to amend it. Just because I understand the nature of the motivation does not mean I am exempt from it. It is something deeply ingrained within me and my values. In similar faith, my parents have never made that statement to me in my entire life, because that would be one of the greatest insults a parent can give. It is that serious and tangible when it comes to this type of motivation.
I know there’s been a few certified gamification courses out there, and I’ve heard mixed reviews about them. Some readers have told me that they have learned way more from my site than from other expert-certified courses, so they asked if I would create a certification program for them too.
I entertained the idea on my Beginner’s Guide to Gamification Video Series just to see what kind of interest I get. Level 1 Octalysis involves sending me a full analysis of any engaging product with the 8 Core Drives in mind. Naturally, like Octalysis, there are 5 Levels within this Certification, but so far only Level 1 is available to the public.
Interestingly, I received a decent amount of submissions, with some being better than others.
An Achievement Symbol is only valuable if it is an actual achievement (and Scarce)
This is a guest post by secret gamification agent and webland wanderer, Average Joey. Joey doesn’t believe in real names or for those bringing gamification to life, that you should worry too much about a single construction of reality. Imagine, explore, play. Isn’t that what games and life is all about?
750words.com: The Gamification of writing
I have been using Buster Benson’s gamified writing site, 750words.com, for over 100 days now and I’ll admit to having a bit of a site-crush. I visit it on a daily basis and though I’m only at the beginning of what might become a beautiful friendship, other long term users clearly feel the same.
Among them, many have been engaged with the site for years. Writing their 750 words every, single, day.
Gamification is often put forward as a solution that promises this kind of passionate and committed long term engagement. But how many gamified sites really embed themselves into your daily habits not just a month, but over years?
Firstly and importantly the site’s every design choice feels tightly focused around a central goal. Write every day.
Sounds easy, but anyone who’s actually tried to write that novel, get down some of that essay or write a journal entry after a long day knows that finding that writer’s flow is often difficult.
This is why it feels such an empowering first experience when you log-in to the site. Before anything else, any browsing or the site showing off, you are simply challenged to write. In our digital lives filled with endless procrastination and distraction at every turn, a blank page with its sole intent at its centre feels refreshingly honest.
This is simple Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (Core Drive 3). Like any sandbox game you are given the tools early on and all the freedom to attack it anyway you want. The site name itself is all the tutorial for the on-boarding phase you need and the objective is clear from the moment you type in the url, “750words”. Go.
Here’s how it could have all gone wrong; A standard frame of menus, the badges, list of other users and challenges all gamified elements used later, if introduced at this point would have been a disaster. Those sparks for another chain of thought and suddenly your writing muse has wandered off.
Instead the gamification recognizes the different player journey phases and by focusing in on empowerment gets you to that early win-state of a successful writing day completed.
For Autodesk, the software design and service giant, promoting trial period use of its key products and applications is an important strategy for engaging potential customers and stimulating purchase decisions. In particular, the company’s 30-day software trial period is considered to be critical in their marketing strategy and represents a major portion of the website traffic.
At the recent GSummit SF 2013 Conference, in the session “Converting Free Users to Paid: Gamification at Autodesk”, Autodesk Digital Marketing Director Dawn Wolfe and Resource Interactive Managing Director Steven Burke presented the results of two recent projects designed to increase the conversion rate for two Autodesk trial programs. Surprisingly, the first effort was wildly successful, but the second was a failure. We will investigate further and see why.
The Autodesk Product Line
In general, Autodesk products are very complex, very powerful, and very expensive. Because of the complexity and sophistication, the learning curves are often quite formidable. Most users take weeks, or even months before they actually gain any true competency. They also represent a major investment, with the cheapest Autodesk product costing $1,200, while its more popular products will run $5,000 per license seat.
For prospective customers this presents a new challenge – how do they determine whether a product so sophisticated is justifiable for their needs. These are definitely not products that one would purchase without having a solid understanding of how they can help ones business.
The Autodesk In-Trial Program
To help engage prospective users (potential buyers), Autodesk offers an In-Trial program. Users can download software design programs and application suites for a 30-day trial period. During this period users can access online tutorials, documentation, and example file sets, to assist them in learning about the software and help assess the their need.
Autodesk’s In-Trial program is essential in promoting their software products, while at the same time, critical to the conversion process. In fact, trial downloads are the number one reason that visitors globally use the Autodesk website. As a result, there is a direct link between customer engagement with a trial and their propensity to make a purchase.
As an example, metrics for Autodesk’s 3DS Max product trial program shows that for prospective users who employ a trial three or more times, there is a 2x increased likelihood that they will purchase the product. (However, 80% of the trial users only open the product once.) It is therefore very important that the initial engagement with the trial users is positive.
The Autodesk In-Trial marketing team explored a new objective – how to increase the conversion rate of new prospects (the trial users) to purchasers. Based on their In-Trial data they hypothesized that by increasing the engagement level of the trial users, the likelihood of them purchasing the product would increase. (In theory, this would expose them to the most compelling aspects of the software products, creating incentives for the trial users and prospects to take the next step and purchase the products.)
Initiative 1: Gamification for the 3DS Max Trial Program
When the 2013 version of the Autodesk 3DS Max software was released, the company employed the digital marketing agency Resource Interactive to create a new, innovative way to increase the trial conversion rate. Resource actually developed an online game called “Undiscovered Territory” that took customers on an entertaining and educational journey.
The game was advertised within the 3DS Max trial software, providing an entry point into the actual game. Resource developed an entertaining storyline, which incorporated a worldwide race, numerous missions, awards, and Badgeville platform components. At the same time, they evoked social influence mechanics by connecting users with their social marketing sites and community platforms – including YouTube and Facebook. Overall it was a very robust experience for the users.
For 3DS Max, the target audience consists of special effects artists, graphics designers, and game developers. This is a pretty safe target group since most are already likely to be utilizing 3DS Max or another Autodesk development product. As such, the target market was considered to be well defined and safe- a necessary condition for engaging users in their trial program’s gamification platform.
If you have been on my site, you have probably heard/read about Octalysis for many times now. Right now I’m still covering the basic foundation of Octalysis Level 1 and a bit of Level 2 to my audience, just across different platforms: blogposts, Beginner’s Guide to gamification video series, Workshops, and an upcoming book. Even though through each medium you are learning something a little bit different, it helps you really nail in the 8 Core Drives and 4 Experience Phases, which is the center of my Octalysis Framework.
It’s always a joy to receive a lot of emails from people all over the world, either thanking me as they are using Octalysis regularly for their own products, or that they are teaching their students or clients this framework. My goal is to really proliferate this framework as much as possible (without really thinking about how to monetize), so the Gamification industry as a whole can really be boosted away from superficial and non-meaningful designs.
Five Hour Talk in 25 Minutes
Needless to say, my framework on Octalysis can go VERY deep, and I have done 5-hour workshops of this, while still not covering all the depth of this topic to make it fully realize its actionable potentials. Shrinking it to 25 minutes most scratches on the surface of the topic, but hopefully with my upcoming book “Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards” things will be much more deeper for my audience.
Every single month, there are over 42 million Facebook users play Candy Crush Saga by King. Are you one of them? The game is currently more popular than every other game on Facebook, including mega-popular ones like Words With Friends, Farmville, and Angry Birds.
So what makes the game so addictive and leaves players clamoring for bonuses like new episodes, extra lives, and charms and boosters?
The answer is actually quite simple. King has implemented aspects from all of the 8 Core Drives of the gamification design framework Octalysis into their game, and those drives work together to create an incredibly addictive experience that is currently earning over a million dollars every single day thanks to in-app purchases.
How are they hooking you, exactly? Let’s look at each of the core drives of Octalysis and see how Candy Crush Saga implements each one.
Game Core Drive #1: Epic Meaning and Calling
Unlike most games, Candy Crush Saga does not have a particularly compelling narrative that, on its own, convinces the participant to take action. True, you ride a little train solving problems in the magical world, but it’s mostly just funny problems such as helping a magical dragon bathe in candy, which is not a very strong “I’m doing this because it’s a mission bigger than myself.”
Instead, the epic meaning and calling comes from game techniques such as Beginners Luck, Destiny Child, and getting a Free Lunch.
Players experience Beginner’s Luck (Game Technique #23) when they start the early levels, which allow them to easily get three stars for matching candies and crushing them.
As they continue playing, many players can go through the first 10 levels and get three stars on each on the first try. This makes them think, “Hey, I’m pretty good at this – I should keep playing.” They feel like they are destined to take this journey and see how far they can get without losing lives.
As they progress even further through the levels, players start to unlock charms and boosters that give them extra moves, special abilities, and cool new ways to crush candy. Now, eventually they’ll have to pay for these terms and boosters, but initially, they get 1 to 3 freebies that they can use during the game. This is the Free Lunch (Game Technique #24) that makes them feel like they are getting bonuses due in part to their performance.
Almost every addicted player feels these three mechanisms during the on-boarding process, which is in the first 35 levels. Not surprisingly, these first 35 levels are free and help players get acclimated to the game before the levels start costing money.
Gamification Core Drive #2: Development and Accomplishment
Candy Crush Saga, like most Facebook games and iPad apps, uses tons of rewards to show progress and demonstrate accomplishments to the player. As I mentioned before, on each level players earn up to three stars and also get a score based on how many points they earned throughout the level.
There are also Fixed Action Rewards (Game Technique #7) built into the game. The most obvious one is that if you beat a level with at least one star, you’ll unlock the next level. Of course, the next level is just another puzzle to figure out (an intrinsic motivation that ties to Core Drive #3), but the tangible reward is in the accomplishment of progressing through the map, which shows one long, continuous train track. The player always knows where she is on the track and always knows the next action she needs to take in order to move forward.
One of the most important things in any game design is to make sure the user isn’t stuck for too long. This is where they introduced the Glowing Choice (Game Technique #28). When the player doesn’t make a move within 10 seconds, Candy Crush Saga will offer a hint that appears to have no rhyme or reason. The goal of this is just to make sure no one is stuck at any point for too long without finding any next steps at all.
Additionally, the iPad app allows you to connect to Facebook, which automatically connects you to all your friends who are playing the game. At the beginning of each level, you’ll see a Leaderboard (Game Technique #3) which includes where you rank amongst your friends. The leaderboard gives you all sorts of metrics you can try to achieve, including what your friends scores for that level. This motivates players because they can see their own progress against their friends’ scores, stars, leaderboard positions, and number of levels beaten or progress within the game (This of course leans heavily on Core Drive #5: Social Influence & Relatedness too).
Finally, Candy Crush Saga is divided into episodes, most of which have 15 levels each (the first two episodes are the only ones with 10 levels). The last level in each episode is almost always the hardest and simulates the Boss Fight (Game Technique #14) that is typical of traditional video games like Mario Brothers or Donkey Kong. Beating this last level lets the player progress to the next episode, which gives players a huge sense of accomplishment.
Gamification Core Drive #3: Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback
