This post is a high-level introduction to Octalysis, The Gamification Framework I created Octalysis is a powerful Gamification Framework created after extensive research and study for over 19 years.
Gamification, a design approach centered around human motivation, takes elements from games and applies them to real-world activities. Octalysis emphasizes “Human-Focused Design” instead of mere functionality, optimizing human motivation and engagement within a system.
The framework comprises 8 Core Drives represented by an octagon shape, including Epic Meaning & Calling, Development & Accomplishment, Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback, Ownership & Possession, Social Influence & Relatedness, Scarcity & Impatience, Unpredictability & Curiosity, and Loss & Avoidance. By understanding and implementing these Core Drives, designers can create engaging experiences that cater to intrinsic motivators and promote positive user experiences.
What is Gamification?
Gamification is a design that places the most emphasis on human motivation in the process. In essence, it is Human-Focused Design (as opposed to “function-focused design”).
Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and engaging elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities. Click To TweetGamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and engaging elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities. This process is what I call “Human-Focused Design,” as opposed to “Function-Focused Design.” It’s a design process that optimizes human motivation in a system, as opposed to pure efficiency.
The Challenges with Function-Focused Design
Most systems are “function-focused,” designed to get the job done quickly. This is like a factory that assumes its workers will do their jobs because they are required to. However, Human-Focused Design remembers that people in a system have feelings, insecurities, and reasons why they want or do not want to do certain things, and therefore optimizes their feelings, motivations, and engagement.
Why Gamification drive human behavior?
The reason we call it Gamification is that the gaming industry was the first to master Human-Focused Design.
Games have no other purpose than to please the individual playing them. Yes, there are often “objectives” in games, such as killing a dragon or saving the princess, and sometimes saving a dragon, but those are all excuses to simply keep the player happily entertained.
Since games have spent decades (or even centuries depending on how you qualify a game) learning how to master motivation and engagement, we are now learning from games, and that is why we call it Gamification.
So in the past decade, I have been digging deep into forming a complete Gamification framework to analyze and build strategies around the various systems that make a game fun.
I saw that almost every game is fun because it appeals to certain Core Drives within us that motivate us towards certain activities. I also noticed that different types of game techniques push us forward differently: some in an inspiring and empowering way, while some in a manipulative and obsessive manner. I drilled down to find what differentiates one type of motivation from another.
The result is the Gamification Framework called Octalysis, designed as an octagon shape with 8 Core Drives representing each side.
With many years of trials and adjustments, I believe that besides a ninth hidden Core Drive called “Sensation,” everything you do is based on one or more of the 8 Core Drives.
The 8 Core Drives of Gamification
1) Epic Meaning & Calling
Epic Meaning & Calling is the Core Drive where a player believes that he is doing something greater than himself or he was “chosen” to do something. A symptom of this is a player that devotes a lot of his time to maintaining a forum or helping to create things for the entire community (think Wikipedia or Open Source projects). This also comes into play when someone has “Beginner’s Luck” – an effect where people believe they have some type of gift that others don’t or believe they were “lucky” to get that amazing sword at the very beginning of the game.
2) Development & Accomplishment
Development & Accomplishment is the internal drive of making progress, developing skills, and eventually overcoming challenges. The word “challenge” here is very important, as a badge or trophy without a challenge is not meaningful at all. This is also the Core Drive that is the easiest to design for and coincidently is where most of the PBLs: points, badges, and leaderboards mostly focus on.
3) Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback is when users are engaged in a creative process where they have to repeatedly figure things out and try different combinations. People not only need ways to express their creativity, but they need to be able to see the results of their creativity, receive feedback, and respond in turn. This is why playing with Legos and painting are fun in-and-of themselves and often become Evergreen Mechanics, where a game designer no longer needs to continuously add more content to keep the activity fresh and engaging.
4) Ownership & Possession
This is the drive where users are motivated because they feel like they own something. When a player feels ownership, she innately wants to make what she owns better and own even more. Besides being the major Core Drive for wanting to accumulate wealth, this deals with many virtual goods or virtual currencies within systems. Also, if a person spends a lot of time customizing her profile or her avatar, she automatically feels more ownership towards it too. Finally, this is also the Core Drive that makes collecting stamps or puzzle pieces fun.
5) Social Influence & Relatedness
This drive incorporates all the social elements that drive people, including mentorship, acceptance, social responses, companionship, as well as competition and envy. When you see a friend that is amazing at some skill or owns something extraordinary, you become driven to reach the same level. Also, it includes the drive we have to draw closer to people, places, or events that we can relate to. If you see a product that reminds you of your childhood, the sense of nostalgia would likely increase the odds of you buying the product. This Core Drive is relatively well-studied too, as many companies these days are putting a lot of priority on optimizing their online social strategies.
6) Scarcity & Impatience
This is the drive of wanting something because you can’t have it. Many games have Appointment Dynamics (come back 2 hours later to get your reward) – the fact that people can’t get something right now motivates them to think about it all day long. This is the Core Drive utilized by Facebook when it first started: at first it was just for Harvard. Then it opened up to a few other prestigious schools, and eventually all colleges. When it finally opened up to everyone, many people wanted to join because they previously couldn’t get into it.
7) Unpredictability & Curiosity
Generally, this is a harmless drive of wanting to find out what will happen next. If you don’t know what’s going to happen, your brain is engaged and you think about it often. Many people watch movies or read novels because of this drive. However, this drive is also the primary factor behind gambling addiction. Also, this Core Drive is utilized whenever a company runs a sweepstake or lottery program to engage users. The very controversial Skinner Box experiments, where an animal irrationally presses a lever frequently because of unpredictable results, are exclusively referring to the Core Drive of Unpredictability & Curiosity, although many have misunderstood it as the driver behind points, badges, and leaderboard mechanics in general.
8) Loss & Avoidance
This Core Drive is based upon the avoidance of something negative happening. On a small scale, it could be to avoid losing previous work. On a larger scale, it could be to avoid admitting that everything you did up to this point was useless because you are now quitting. Also, opportunities that are fading away have a strong utilization of this Core Drive, because people feel like if they didn’t act immediately, they would lose the opportunity to act forever.
Left Brain vs Right Brain Core Drives
Within Octalysis, the Core Drives on the right are Right Brain Core Drives, being more related to creativity, self-expression, and social aspects.
The Core Drives on the left are Left Brain Core Drives, being more associated with logic, calculations, and ownership.
Note: the Left Brain/Right Brain Core Drives are not considered true brain science; they are merely symbolic as it makes the framework easier and more effective when designing. It’s useful dividing things up between the logical and the emotional, and I just named them Left Brain/Right Brain Core Drives so people can remember them easily.
Interestingly, Left Brain Core Drives are Extrinsic Motivators – you are motivated because you want to obtain something, whether it be a goal, a good, or anything you cannot obtain; on the other hand, Right Brain Core Drives are Intrinsic Motivators: you don’t need a goal or reward to use your creativity, hang out with friends, or feel the suspense of unpredictability – the activity itself is rewarding on its own.
This is important because many companies aim to design for motivation based on Extrinsic Motivators, such as rewarding users at the end. However, many studies have shown that once you stop offering the extrinsic motivator, user motivation will often decrease too much lower to before the extrinsic motivator was first introduced.
Companies should design experiences that motivate the Right Brain Core Drives, making something in itself fun and rewarding, so users continuously engage in the activity.
White Hat vs Black Hat Gamification
Another element to note within Octalysis is that the top Core Drives in the octagon are considered very positive motivators, while the bottom Core Drives are considered negative motivators.
Techniques that utilize the top Core Drives are called “White Hat Gamification”, while techniques that utilize the bottom Core Drives are called “Black Hat Gamification”.
If something is engaging because it lets you express your creativity, makes you feel successful through skill mastery, and gives you a higher sense of meaning, it makes users feel very good and powerful.
On the other hand, if you are always doing something because you don’t know what will happen next, you are constantly in fear of losing something, or because there are things you can’t have, even though you would still be extremely motivated to take the actions, it can often leave a bad taste in your mouth.
The problem with Zynga games, according to the Octalysis framework, is that they have figured out how to do many Black Hat Game Techniques, which drive up revenue numbers from users, but it doesn’t make users feel good. So when a user is finally able to leave the system, they will want to, because they don’t feel like they are in control over themselves, just like gambling addiction.
Keep in mind that just because something is Black Hat doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad – these are just motivators – and they can be used for productive and healthy results or malice and manipulative ones. Many people voluntarily submit themselves to Black Hat Gamification in order to go to the gym more often, eat healthily, or avoid hitting the snooze button every morning.
A good Gamification expert will consider all 8 Core Drives as a positive and productive activity so that everyone ends up happier and healthier.
How to apply Octalysis to actual systems
Now that we have the Gamification Framework laid out, the next step is to figure out how to utilize this framework.
Generally, any good and engaging product or system will have at least one of the Core Drives listed above.
The way to use Octalysis is to identify all the game mechanics that are used to appeal to each Core Drive and list it next to the Core Drive of the Octagon.
Afterwards, based on how strong these game mechanics are, each side of the Octagon will expand or retract.
If a side crosses the inside Octagon, then that side is extremely weak and the Gamification expert needs to improve on that area.
Of course, this is all very abstract, so let’s look at a few examples.
A few Gamification examples with Octalysis
Here’s an Octalysis did for a few products online:
And this is just Level 1 Octalysis
20 years of Gamification study and implementation resulted in a very robust framework that can become actionable towards driving higher user metrics. As people get more and more advanced in Octalysis, they can learn higher levels (up to 5 Levels…there are only a handful of people in the world who know what level 4 and above), which incorporates much more advanced design principles and in-depth analysis.
Level 2 Octalysis
Once level 1 is mastered, one can then apply it to Level 2 Octalysis, where we try to optimize experience throughout all four phases of a player’s journey:
- Discovery (why would people even want to start the journey)
- Onboarding (how do you teach users the rules and tools to play the game)
- Scaffolding (the regular journey of repeated actions towards a goal)
- Endgame (how do you retain your veterans).
Factoring in the 4 Phases of a Player’s Journey
Getting a feel about what players feel across the journey.
Level 3 Octalysis
Once you mastered Level 2 Octalysis, you can then push it one level higher to Level 3 and factor in different player types, so you can begin to see how different types of people are motivated at different stages of the experience.
Pushing up a level further – Factoring Bartle’s Player Type
This way the Gamification Designer can feel that there’s something for everyone at every stage.
The Octalysis Tool
Many fans of Octalysis over the years have helped contribute to making the framework more available to the public. They made an Octalysis Tool, which is not 100% perfect from an UX standpoint, but it has been a very useful tool for my clients and many people practicing Octalysis. Click here to check out the Octalysis Tool.
The Long Journey to GOOD Gamification
As you can see, creating a rich gamified experience is much more than simply slapping on various game mechanics to existing products. It’s a craft that requires a lot of analysis, thinking, testing, and adjusting.
While there are 5 Levels in total, Level 1 is usually sufficient for the majority of companies trying to create a better-designed gamified product and experience. Higher Level Octalysis processes are there for organizations that are truly committed to making sure that they push their metrics in the right direction while improving the longevity of a gamified system. Many games are only popular for 3-8 months, but ones that have good Endgame design can last decades or even centuries.
If the world adopts good gamification principles and focuses on what truly drives fun and motivation, then it is possible to see a day where there is no longer a divide between things people must do and the things they want to do. All people have to do is play all day. This way, the quality of life for everyone will be significantly higher, companies will perform better because people actually want to do the work, and society overall will become more productive. This is the world that I have dedicated my life to enabling.
Check out the video walk-through of the 8 Core Drives
Check out the video walk-through of Octalysis
Watch all of the videos in the Gamification Video Guide here.
This is very interesting and quite fresh, I am a game designer myself and got introduced to gamification by choice. the difference is that I knock out technology and try a very hands on approach. I also present and talk a lot about gamification, is it OK for me to use your framework as reference in my talks and presentations, is there any more material that you can share to help me out here.
Edward L Hey Edward. Sure you can use Octalysis for your talks and presentations! The reason why I created Octalysis was to get the world to do gamification better, so nothing makes me happier than this 😀
I’m in the last week of Kevin Werbach’s course on gamification at coursera.org
I posted a link to this article on the forum and I hope a lot of those people come here. Kevin has a great course but I would have liked to see Octalysis mentioned (though i have a dozen videos left to watch) when i stumbled here (kind of a lie, your ideas are the only ones i found that didn’t use babblegab) it was a breath of fresh air! Octalysis uses all the terminology that could be considered babblegab but for readers attuned to gamification the terms are known. In my area of gamification (EFL) it is essential that i use plain English and simplify complex terms.
IanEdwards2 Haha, no I don’t think Werbach’s course covers my framework. Can’t blame him – Octalysis was mainly for my internal use and I didn’t publish it until he has completed his first course. Now that he is going through the second course, I’m guessing he likely wouldn’t update too much of the core content – we’ll see.
Thanks for the mention! 😉
my vision of schools in the future involves rewritten textbooks that leverage game mechanics and literary skills to produce books that students both want to read and may not be able to put down. Envision the child under the blanket with a flashlight and a well written text ( on a device they wouldn’t need the flashlight ). Engaged in making the best or most original solution to the question posed by the teacher ( could be through distance learning or in the classroom ).
What needs to be done is an octalysis of curricula along with creative text writing or a flexible teacher able to research materials in preparation for a live presentation possibly utilizing web 2.0 information technology
IanEdwards2 Awesome Ian! There’s so much to do in education, but just needs to be designed right!
Brilliant, again, Yu-Kai. In your “comments,” you referenced a business article and the octalysis. Can you send a link to that article? I would like to explore this further and look forward to reconnecting with you. And Ian, I’d love to learn more about your vision for gamifying text books. I’m on the same page and interested in comparing notes.
AudaciousInnov8Hey! Thanks a lot! Here’s the article on Octalysis for Business Research: http://www.yukaichou.com/strategy-gamification/fds-business-analysis-system-octalysis/
🙂
IanEdwards2 Haha, that’s great. A lot of people have found Octalysis useful. Hopefully you will too! 🙂
IanEdwards2 Hey Ian! Thanks for commenting 🙂 It’s not a problem commenting on my blog. It’s very welcomed as I love engagement!
Richard Bartle’s theory is one of the more established concepts in Gamification. A lot of people have modified that to make it more sophisticated, but I so far haven’t seen the need.
i don’t see your discussion on bartle’s types but i searched it out and took a quick look (i’ll read it carefully later) it is slightly similar to Jung’s archetypes which Joseph Campbell worked with for ‘hero with a thousand faces’ these ideas are important when creating npc that will be believably real, not like the one-liner type dialogues from everquest. i want to gamify textbooks to make the data fun, the lessons meaningful, and memorable.
a large amount of work has to be done to convert knowledge into an interesting read
but it is very exciting! (i will try and stop adrenaline fueled posting on your blogs, sorry!)
i used an older article of yours which mentioned foldit, now i have come back to see what else you have to offer… and WOW! this octalysis (nice name) is a perfect tool to use to compare and contrast projects. but i have only read a small amount of what you offer, i will be spending a lot of time here (this month at least)
so… thank you!
i like to learn
A good article of gamification
@Spices Exporters Thank you Spices. Your comment means a lot to me.
I really like this article in that it does a good job of compartmentalizing the various aspects of gamification. Although any of the 8 aspects can be used, it seems that if you know your audience and what will work best for them, specifically the left vs right brain segmentation, using these as a guide will help to build out a pretty functional and robust system.
My challenge with game mechanics is how to implement (as in defining the system, not the actual code) a well rounded system within an existing platform. Specifically in user driven ecommerce platform, where purchases are the ultimate end game, but things like sharing, shop / buyer recruitment and feedback are very important.
@LeviRosol Thanks for the comment LeviRosol. The good thing about Octalysis is that it is not a cookie cutter solution for websites, but it helps you figure out what works best for your site and your customers.All the things you stated are what I call “Desired Actions,” and you need to create “Win-States” for your users to accomplish the desired actions. I’m not able to go into too much detail here, but hope this helps a tiny bit!
Hello, first, I want to say, that I like this work; it compartmentalizes discern aspects of gamification theory understandably. I’ve got a question. This semester, in my University (studying Informatics) I would like to focus my Bachelor thesis on Gamification and I’ll be implementing a gamified app on Android. I would like to ask, if you have some tips for me, on what should I focus in my thesis. The problem I have is, that gamification is, I think, for the most part, a psychological topic. I like that, however I need to fit the gamification concept and the thesis into the informatics context as much as possible, in order to vindicate, that the thesis will be instructive and from my field. What do you think?
Hey Mimkorn!
Thanks for the comment! It’s awesome that you are learning more about Gamification as part of your studies – I wish I had that in school. As for advice, I think it is a bit too vague for me to provide anything useful, but feel free to use Octalysis as part or main of your thesis. I’ll be a resource to you if you choose to do that.
Thanks!
YK
@mimkorn That’s interesting. The good thing about gamification is that most implementations are still done in software, and games are software too, and also it’s about analytics, big data, optimization, so most people feel like it is relevant to technology and informatics. You still have to figure out how to spin it though.
Still yet I have heard only one thing that Black hat means bad and it definitely gives good results but on the other hand it may effect your work in negative terms too. So I think it’s better to avoid black hat to focus on white hat techniques.
@Troy Smith Thanks for the comment Troy. White Hat and Black Hat Gamification is basically what everyone out there is debating in terms of whether gamification is inspiring users to become more engaged, or just manipulating them to achieve results. White Hat Gamification gives users a “good feel” at the end of it, while Black Hat Gamification achieve results but could result in a bad taste in the mouth. If someone was to utilize Black Hat Gamification, they need to let the user know about that. The user voluntarily signs up because both the Game Designer and the Gamer wants to achieve the same results at the end (staying fit, being on time, doing work/homework). Black Hat in SEO is bad because Google doesn’t like it because it’s trying to trick their search engine, so they penalizeheavily on behaviors like that. For Gamification, the “Google” is simply the users, and AS LONG AS they voluntarily agree to be “tricked” (same principals as hypnosis), it is fine.
Thanks! I’ve seen Kevin Webach’s course and its great. I think what would be even more helpful for his course is to go through examples of how to gamify something from scratch.
Sounds great. Let me know if you would like to use Octalysis in anyway 😉
More to think about! Just taking a course from https://www.coursera.org/course/gamification taught by Kevin Werbach . This article is advanced level, great explanations, and very interesting.
Thanks! I’ve seen Kevin Webach’s course and its great. I think what would be even more helpful for his course is to go through examples of how to gamify something from scratch.
We will check it out in a few hours and also will go one step further and try to model a design process derived from product goals through octalysis to conception.
Pretty confident this will work out well.
Sounds great. Let me know if you would like to use Octalysis in anyway 😉
Haha, gotta hustle on the internet!
Also, if you want to find out how to run a full Octalysis, I’d be happy to work that through with you (including the second layers etc.)
Its seriously been helping me with a lot of things, and my goal is to get as many people to use this frame work as possible. Let me know if you would like that 😉
Oh – you already did. My bad! You’re fast, man!
Haha, gotta hustle on the internet! Also, if you want to find out how to run a full Octalysis, I’d be happy to work that through with you (including the second layers etc.) Its seriously been helping me with a lot of things, and my goal is to get as many people to use this frame work as possible. Let me know if you would like that 😉
Awesome! Thanks a ton for that. looking forward to comparing what you and I found. 😛
Thank you sir! And good catch!
I was making the Facebook one with a Twitter template, and I think I exported it before hitting the “save” button.
I will update soon 😉
Hey there!
Great framework. Love the thoughts and will use it on a couple of our services. A small flaw I found which you might want to fix: The facebook image shows bulletpoints from the twitter image (in Scarcity and Accomplishment).
Cheers from Germany!
Tim
Thank you sir! And good catch! I was making the Facebook one with a Twitter template, and I think I exported it before hitting the “save” button. I will update soon 😉
Haha, this is excellent. Thanks for the share!
You would probably enjoy watching this video about unethical game design…
http://www.gamearena.com.au/videos/latest.php/5-inch-floppy-60–unethical-game-design
Haha, this is excellent. Thanks for the share!
Jay:
Thanks for the insightful comments:
1. I actually had a HUGE internal debate whether Social Pressure should be more blackhat or not, and have it switch with Unpredictability. I was thinking that unpredictability (or the human mind for novel items) is not a bad force. However, mostly because gambling is the deadly forces that utilizes that drive (and its makes people completely irrational) so I decided to keep that as blackhat, while social pressure – at least everyone knows WHY they succumb to it and generally it is pretty positive. This is why social games (like farmville) would still have a better reputation than gambling 🙂
2. Perhaps the spiderwebs should be clearer…its generally not meant to be obvious but just a very light benchmark on where things should be at. I like your example though and will think more into it (but I think what I have so far is more visually interesting :-P)
3. Yea, I plan to pump out a bunch of these examples with my framework now that i have the foundation built. I already have a lot of these stuff planned, and even for things like Parenthood! (Most parents use Avoidance – grounding the child, no longer loving the child etc etc, and some sense of accomplishment – candy and rewards. The Chinese use the “Meaning & Calling” drive by teaching kids something called “Xiao” which is a philosophy that kids owe everything to their parents and should sacrifice themselves to take care of their parents…or study hard for parents…etc etc)
I can also say quickly that Foursquare mainly focuses on very light social pressure (letting your friends know where you are at), Development and Accomplishment (check-in count and badges) until it turns into Ownership (Mayor). It could try to incorporate others too to make it more successful and more mainstream.
Hey Roman,
Haha, yes, there’s a lot of potential to bring this framework into usefulness. I’m surprised that you found the business-octalysis article too 😉
I would love to meet up when you are here. San Jose is right where I’m at. Lets meet!
Hey James,
As I wrote in my other article on Farmville, I completely agree that Farmville is very “black hat” 😛
However, Farmville is a REALLY boring game that masters game mechanics to get people addicted, so its important to learn how they incorporate those elements and so we can learn to use that to Gamify useful activities!
Thanks for the comments!
Cool framework! I have maybe 3 comments:
1. The social pressure one is interesting, because it looks a little like it’s on the black hat side, but all the “neighbors” and “friends” and other examples seem to indicate that the drive is more about positive bonding & being part of a group/team, and less about pressure to conform (although that does, of course, play a part).
2. I find the spiderwebs being built outside the octagon a little harder to read than necessary. Maybe if it was more like here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12720462/spider-radar-chart-for-ios
where the 100% value for a given side of the octagon means that the graph is colored just up to the edge of the shape, rather than being built outside of it? It’s hard to explain, but I think the graphic could be clearer.
3. I would like to see a few more examples, like maybe foursquare? How about the Pepsi Challenge? Or McDonalds Monopoly? Or the Buy 10 Get One Free coupon from Yogalatte? I think you could talk about a lot of ideas here.
Good stuff!
Jay: Thanks for the insightful comments: 1. I actually had a HUGE internal debate whether Social Pressure should be more blackhat or not, and have it switch with Unpredictability. I was thinking that unpredictability (or the human mind for novel items) is not a bad force.
However, mostly because gambling is the deadly forces that utilizes that drive (and its makes people completely irrational) so I decided to keep that as blackhat, while social pressure – at least everyone knows WHY they succumb to it and generally it is pretty positive. This is why social games (like farmville) would still have a better reputation than gambling 🙂 2. Perhaps the spiderwebs should be clearer…its generally not meant to be obvious but just a very light benchmark on where things should be at. I like your example though and will think more into it (but I think what I have so far is more visually interesting :-P) 3. Yea, I plan to pump out a bunch of these examples with my framework now that i have the foundation built. I already have a lot of these stuff planned, and even for things like Parenthood! (Most parents use Avoidance – grounding the child, no longer loving the child etc etc, and some sense of accomplishment – candy and rewards.
The Chinese use the “Meaning & Calling” drive by teaching kids something called “Xiao” which is a philosophy that kids owe everything to their parents and should sacrifice themselves to take care of their parents…or study hard for parents…etc etc) I can also say quickly that Foursquare mainly focuses on very light social pressure (letting your friends know where you are at), Development and Accomplishment (check-in count and badges) until it turns into Ownership (Mayor). It could try to incorporate others too to make it more successful and more mainstream.
i wonder if anyone has an excel script or something to make preparing octalysis charts super easy to add to documents? i am just fooling with MS office to try to make a reusable octagonal radar chart. but i am no guru.
I’m working on an App that could do it automatically. Stay tuned 😉
I don’t know if your found this yet but someone made an app: http://www.yukaichou.com/octalysis-tool/
Hey, great approach of a structured design to monitor these 8 core principles.
It will work pretty good for analysing an exisiting business activity ant then to compare it with different games by laying the business-activity-octalysis over your gamification-octalysis.
Now, if we combine this with player-types/ manager-types (I use to use a similar graphik like you to analyse the player-behaviors) perhaps we achieve a more forward looking tool that will be useful for brainstorming about a gamified system and it also becomes even more human centered 🙂
Great post. Thanks. I’m in San Jose from mid December till mid January. Would love to meet eventually to talk about this… 🙂
Hey Roman, Haha, yes, there’s a lot of potential to bring this framework into usefulness. I’m surprised that you found the business-octalysis article too 😉 I would love to meet up when you are here. San Jose is right where I’m at. Lets meet!
Great article. I do think its a good start and having one of those pillars can be helpful. I don’t think looking at games like farmville are good examples of gamification though. I would say most of their mechanics are “Black hat” to mostly to drive users and not fully engage with a “game system”. It makes users burnout after time, not really sustainable and more about addiction. I think you did a great job on this and would love to hear more about your findings so far.
Hey James, As I wrote in my other article on Farmville, I completely agree that Farmville is very “black hat” 😛 However, Farmville is a REALLY boring game that masters game mechanics to get people addicted, so its important to learn how they incorporate those elements and so we can learn to use that to Gamify useful activities! Thanks for the comments!
Looks pretty solid. Haven’t had time to really dig in.
Not sure about the black hat / white hat thing.
In SEO, black hat is bad. Saying twitter is using black hat gamification is a fairly negative connotation, which they probably don’t deserve.
Thanks for the feedback Mack. Yea I have to think about that. I think its pretty catchy, but maybe at some cost…