Why would someone spend nine hours streaming to an empty room with zero pay? Twitch figured out the answer: show them a progress bar they can’t resist completing.
Yu-kai Chou and his team have developed over one hundred Game Techniques, some through observation and some through creation during client projects.
If you haven’t read Yu-kai’s book yet, get it now to learn the framework behind the Game Techniques (so you know how to apply them).
Table of Contents
About the Creator of the Octalysis Framework
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Definition & Primary Core Drive:
Definition of Achievement Symbol:
A visual icon that symbolizes an achievement from the user, such as a Badge, Trophy etc.
-Yu-kai Chou
Primary Core Drive:
Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
How Twitch Uses Achievement Symbols to Motivate Streamers
For starters, we’re going to go through over 100 game techniques. This is just Game Technique #2!, called Achievement Symbols.
I’m taking a look at Twitch today, which by the way is a platform I think you should all look into and understand.
It’s good to know because they are doing a lot of things from a design perspective that have captured the attention of a lot of streamers.
Those streamers have captured the attention of a lot of advertising dollars. There’s a big ecosystem around this.
I remember my aunt asking me about twitch several years ago when one of her students wasn’t showing up for class. That student by the way was streaming games on Twitch and on his way to becoming a pro gamer, or at least trying to.
Let’s look at this Achievement Symbol (icons for use) from the perspective of Twitch as a streamer.
Lately, I’ve been streaming a game that I like play which is actually a board game called Diplomacy.
If you haven’t played before I strongly recommend you get in touch with me and I’ll help you get started.
An achievement symbol is simply a way to show that I’ve developed or accomplished something: developing a skill or accomplishing some kind of goal.
And, yeah, it’s part of this larger reality of humans as goal-oriented beings. We like to see progress towards a goal. If we’re lost in the woods not sure how to get to the destination, not so much.
Recapturing my Attention (and Investment of Creative Labor)
Achievement Symbols that Twitch is using here help move me through the Onboarding process.
I’ve already experienced some friction in establishing my stream and getting my equipment right, and over 9 hours of streaming, but I’m not monetizable yet.
Eventually, I’ll attract advertising dollars to the platform and draw an audience. That’s the value tradeoff between the platform and me, the creator.
Right away you can see they have several achievement symbols to indicate what I can do here. Community, affiliate, partner, and so forth.
After viewing my Achievement Symbol from previous efforts, the reward acts as a trigger to view other possible goals.
Twitch recaptures my attention to bring me back into that activity loop. So, that is an extrinsic, but white hat; it feels good.
Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment is just one of the 8 Core Drives. And Achievement Symbols (GT#2) is just one of over a hundred Game Techniques.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- 90+ Gamification Stats, Examples & Cases with ROI
- How Reddit Uses Karma (Game Technique #1 — Status Points)
- Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
- The Strategy Dashboard for Gamification Design
- Books by Yu-kai Chou