Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 8 – Leveling Up in Life
This continues the Readalong by Erik van Mechelen of Jane McGonigal’s ‘Reality is Broken’ with insights from Yu-kai Chou’s Octalysis Framework. For in-depth discussions of this book and others, join Octalysis Prime.
tl;dr Games that add value to life are worth creating.
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
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 Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Summary
In this chapter, McGonigal introduces us to games that accompany real life activities.
She explains how their inclusion of intrinsic motivation alleviates boredom (JetSetter), stems anxiety (Day in the Clouds), makes us run harder (Nike+), and hang out with friends more in new places (Foursquare).
It is a great survey of the underlying studies and behavioral psychology.
Analysis
The examples in this chapter won’t surprise anyone reading in 2017, but I was drawn into a reflection on Foursquare, a popular app that is no longer high on the App Store charts.
McGonigal rightly points out that instead of a game that rewards you for what you’re already doing, like Nike+, Foursquare “is a game that rewards you for doing new things, and making a better effort to be social.” This taps directly into Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness.
Designers will notice a problem here, however. Once I ‘rediscover’ (if I ever forgot) that hanging out with friends is a fun and healthy activity, I can stop using the app.
If I take this undesired action (for Foursquare), all I lose is a digital ‘Mayorship’, which, unless you are someone who gets really attached to things that don’t exist, is easy to let go. This is a classic failure of Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance — the stakes simply aren’t high enough to keep users engaged.
Creating Endgames is one of the most challenging elements of behavior design in any experience.
What do you think?
What games are adding value to your life?
Let me know in the comments or on Octalysis Prime‘s community.
Related Reading
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 9 — Fun with Strangers
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 7 — The Benefits of Alternate Realities
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- The Endgame: Experience Phase 4
- What is Gamification?
- Books by Yu-kai Chou