Yu-kai Chou & Gamification

The 4th Core Drive of Gamification

Ownership and possession, the fourth core drive in my Gamification Framework Octalysis, is based on the principle that because you own something, you want to take care of it and improve it. In addition, you will also want to possess more of it.

Ownership and possession is position to the far left of Octalysis, and therefore represents the core drive which exhibits the strongest influence of Left Brain or analytical thinking. Here, decisions are based on more logical, calculating thought and the desire for possession as the primary motivating factors.

This is seen a lot in games that have virtual goods. In the Farmville example, you’re constantly striving to increase the value of your assets by developing the land, establishing higher crop yields, improving the quantity and quality of your livestock. You can further develop your property’s infrastructure and dwellings – establishing that country manor on your dream estate.

Because of that, you want to constantly invest more time and energy into expanding your farm by getting more cows, getting more fruits, but also buying items such as stables that you could put your horses in or grooming services to make them look “prettier.”

So, much of the time, when your user obtains this sense of ownership, it becomes very, very powerful. It’s theirs. And they now have a strong motivation to change it, to increase, and to improve it.

Ownership

Ownership in the Workplace

A good example that a lot of people understand is ownership in their workplace. Many people in the workplace feel like they don’t have ownership of their work. They’re just doing what their boss wants them to do and they don’t really get to feel that it’s their own project.

However, when people take ownership of their own projects, that’s when they work until 1:00 AM in the morning. They become tireless. They keep thinking about their work. They make their spouses upset by ditching other responsibilities (interestingly, some spouses are very good at making their significant others feel that they have less ownership over their own households. Not mine of course – my wife is awesome). The project is now their baby and obviously that’s also why people work harder on their own companies compared to just having a “job.”

Ownership on the Web

Oftentimes, if you get people to invest time into build something, like an avatar, they will take a personal ownership in the effort. When they start customizing their avatar or their website profile, they obviously invest a lot of time and feel “this is my avatar, this is my profile.” Now they develop a stronger relationship to it and they now want other people to see it – but they want to spend money and spend more time to make it look snazzier, with a better picture, and a nicer background. That’s obviously a good thing for the game designer.

Protection

There are also things that you may want to implement, such as Protection (Game Technique #36). Protection is a concept based on the occurrence that people start to develop a relationship with something that they are protecting.

Consider a game where you might start with a flock of sheep that you have to protect from wolves and aliens. As the game starts, you have to get rid of all the wolves that are approaching and then get rid of all the aliens that are trying to kill the sheep.

Eventually you begin to feel an attachment and a connection to the sheep. Now it doesn’t have to be sheep. It could be a snails too. If you’re protecting the snails, which aren’t normally thought of as that friendly or likable, from the wolves and aliens, you may eventually start to care more about those snails that you worked so hard to protect.

Collection Sets

One of the most common and effective ways to utilize the ownership and possession core drive is through Collection Sets (Game Technique #16). Say you give people a few items or characters or whatever, and you tell them that this is part of a collection set that follows a theme.

This creates a desire in these people to collect all the elements and complete their selection set. One example is in the game Geomon (recently stopped service as the team got absorbed into Yahoo). In Geomon, there’s the theme of the four-season deers. There’s a spring deer, a summer fire deer, and winter ice deer.

If you start off and capture the spring deer, it’s rather awkward to just stop only having one of the four season deers without having the other deer types. Now you’re willing to do a lot more work to get the other types. You may talk to people, negotiate, and even throwing in a few dollars just to finish that collection. Of coures, you may also want the whole dragon set, or the whole snake set.

On a website project, it would often be advantageous entice people into collecting badges. And then you tell your users that they have collected seven out of the ten “I’m Awesome” badges. They will then automatically think, “Hey, I take pride in the seven badges I have. How do I complete the set? How do I get to ten?” As such, you always want to get people to feel like they own something but they need more and give them a way to obtain more.

Earned Lunch

In gamification, we often talk a lot about rewards, giving people “stuff” to motivate them. There are a number of different types of rewards. Some things are freely given to users to make them feel special. We call these “Free Lunch” (#24) or “Beginner’s Luck” (#23). There’s also the Random Reward (#72) that you give randomly, so users are surprised and don’t lose interest.

Then there’s the earned lunch, which you have to work hard for. Typically users are told that in order to obtain something, they must perform certain tasks or meet a set of challenges. Once they have fulfilled the goals and received the reward, they feel like they have earned it, which gives them a strong feeling of ownership and possession.

An example that I like to use is the Kiip Reward Network. Kiip is based on the premise that when you work hard on something to obtain a reward (like a business coupon), you feel a greater sense of ownership. You value it more.

So, instead of just giving out free 20 percent discounts through a service, Kiip makes you play a game first or meet an app challenge to earn the reward. So you may have to beat your friend’s score, or improve your time before you are rewarded with that 20 percent discount from your favorite sandwich shop. Because you feel you’ve earned it, you are more likely to value it.

Build From Scatch

For your product, you always want to figure out how to get your users to increase their invested ownership and possession in the process. This is why it is often advantageous to have them involved in the development process from the very start – to “build from scratch” (#43).

Building from scratch means that instead of giving them the entire setup – giving them the fully furnished house and the character from the beginning, you want them to start off decorating the house from scratch. You want them to pick and place the beds in the house for themselves. You want them to choose a hair color and style for their character. You want them to select their preferred fashion statement. Like I said, when people are building something from scratch, they feel like, “I own this. This is my thing.”

But if you start off by giving them a perfectly enchanting character or a fully decorated home, they may not become as involved otherwise. Even if you tell them, “Hey, you can redecorate it or add things to it,” people will likely feel less ownership and be less engaged.

So it’s always good to appeal to your users by having them customize their own “thing,” build their own “thing,” and promote their personal feeling of ownership. Giving them more power, while also showing them what they can get more of in the things that they need, or can grab and get.

That is why introducing points is still valuable with many sites. Because now, there’s something that makes people feel like they’re continuously getting more of what they want, and we all understand that our needs are insatiable. We always want more. We always want to hit the next milestone and so it’s good to think about that and design that process into your product.

(Thanks to Jerry Fuqua for helping me tremendously on this post)

Google+ gets a C- in User Experience

Last week Google hosted their annual conference the Google I/O and released a new version of Google Plus.

The new one is an improvement, but still a major frustration for the majority of the people in my network. Even though they claim to have massive user growth rates, most of my friends said they just got pushed into using Google+ while checking GMail or other products and it’s extremely confusing and annoying. Not a good mark.

Therefore, I created a slide deck documenting the design issues Google+ has and the frustrations it could bring to users, in hopes that it would get the attention of Google so it could start to improve and actually become a site that people would love.

The slide deck is 129 slides, but don’t let that intimate you, as most slides only have one sentence in them and it reads quickly and I’ve heard it brings out quite a few laughs. Enjoy.

Some Big Takeaways

• Google+ has a lot of users, but very few people use it – just check out how many people +1ed the Google Blog compared to Facebook Likes
• The reason why this happens is primarily because people on the Google team are too smart, and cannot empathize with the mainstream user (like my mom)
• A great product makes mainstream users FEEL smart
• If users spend more than 4 seconds trying to find something, they already start to feel dumb
• Typing in Plus.Google.com to get to the site is already a big barrier for the mainstream user to use
• Automatic push-downs of content while people are still reading
• Google+ has a large amount of “navigation spaces,” which makes it incredibly confusing for the user (and 3 more dropdown lists!)
• Semi-Spammy Suggestions look like content, and content looks like Ads
• Editing background information is really hard
• Can’t really “Find” friends based on any criteria
• Getting to people’s profiles and photos is a huge pain (People -> Your Circle -> Search for Friend -> Double Click -> Profile)
• Auto-notifications really intrude into the Email space and settings are confusing to adjust
• “Trending Topics” show posts from last year!
• Google Hangout asks users to crash into random stranger’s conversations – awkward
• Local only gives an odd recommendation that is not needed.
• Socializing with users is hard
• When it comes to social, don’t focus on being smart. Focus on making your users feel smart

(Click here to view all the Video Gamification Episodes)

Video Tutorial for Gamification

Empowerment of Creativity is the 3rd Core Drive in Octalysis.

• It is the the ability to utilize your own creativity and immediately see the outcome, allowing you to try again and again to see the final outcome.
• A basic example is Lego: you give people the basic blocks, and there are infinite ways to put together the pieces and can entertain people for an indefinite amount of time without the content getting old.
• People are by nature creative beings. We like to imagination, invent, and create, and both the process and outcome of the process brings happiness.
• Think about games like Minecraft and Second Life.
• Games like that are engaging because it allows you to create your own world, your shelter, and even your own looks.
• Other social games like Draw Something (at least in the early scaffolding phase) as well as plants vs zombie.
• Draw Something was fun for a long time because it allowed both sides to utilize their creativity and see immediate results.
• The reason why it eventually dropped out was because of lack of fresh content (or challenges) and how people could just start to game the system by writing in the correct word.
• That’s another good lesson in Gamification: when a system is “gamable” it devalues the experience of those who are doing honest play and demoralizes the players.
• Plants vs Zombies, like any other “tower-defense” game, is about utilizing current resources and “plants” to solve a puzzle of zombie attacks. This allows people to utilize their creativity to create different solutions to solve the same problem, making it fun for each player to engage in the longterm.
• I mentioned that in Farmville, one of the best evergreen mechanics they have is the ability to allow users to make art with their farms.
• Even in the RPG game Diablo III, during the Onboarding and Scaffolding Phase, there’s a lot of Core Drive 1 (Epic Meaning & Calling), Core Drive 2 (Development & Accomplishment), Core Drive 5 (Social Pressure & Envy), Core Drive 6 (Scarcity & Impatience), but during the EndGame stage, Core Drive 3 (as well as Core Drive 4 and Core Drive 8) become dominant.  (more…)

Competitive gamification is certainly becoming a hot, new business theme in modern corporate development these days. It has been demonstrated to be effective in sales, where game mechanics based on competitive models are used to promote a “competitive interest” in engaging customers and closing deals. Now management is exploring other business functions which might benefit from competitive gamification mechanics and techniques.

But competition may not be effective, or even desirable in the enterprise setting. Why? Because it tends to create an unhealthy environment where employees put self interests above corporate and even customer interests. Instead of working towards a win for the company, a win for the customer, the individual just focuses on beating the internal competition – his colleagues and fellow employees. (To win the brass ring; that cash award or trip to Cancun.)

Gartner has predicted that 80% of the current enterprise initiatives in gamification will fail by 2014, primarily due to do poor design. Melissa Visintin further expands on this by stating that companies are trying to force game mechanics based on competition instead of understanding each situation and properly designing solutions based on the most appropriate mechanisms. It is not enough to simply throw together competitive game elements and expect the result to be effective.

What Exactly Is Gamified Competition?

A Working Definition of Competition

Mario Herger from Enterprise-Gamification.com explored the nature of competition from a number of perspectives. Drawing from Wikipedia, he has defined it in terms of ecology and sociology as:

“a contest between individuals and entities for territory, a niche, or a location of resources, for resources and goods, for prestige, recognition, awards, mates, or group or social status, for leadership.”

Notice the emphasis on the individual (or entity), and the need to “contend” or “contest” for something; implying that there will be a winner, as well as a loser. Maybe many losers.

In the enterprise this implies that we will have people competing with other people within the company. OK, that seems reasonable. But Mario Herger points out that this is contrary to the essential meaning of the corporation; yes, the very nature of an enterprise. For corporations are formed to bring people together and pool their different strengths in a collaborative setting. The fundamental design of an effective corporation taps the talents of its constituents to build something greater than the component parts. And yes, even more competitive in the external environment – the marketplace, where it faces the challenges brought forth by the other companies.

So now, do we want to introduce an anti-collaborative element – competition among the internal players, and potentially reduce their effectiveness as corporate team members? Possibly for customer engagement, but only after thoughtful analysis indicates that the benefits outweigh the risks, and possible long term detriment to the employees and ultimately the enterprise.

In general, adding the additional stress of competition to the challenges that employees face on a daily basis, will only result in a deteriorating situation with increased probability of burnout and uneven performance. Employees will become more motivated – to look for new opportunities elsewhere.

The Different Types of Competition

One perspective that we can view competition from is that of whether it can be deemed as healthy versus unhealthy. Mario Herger distinguishes between a “good” adaptive competitiveness and a “bad” maladaptive competitiveness by a set of specific characteristics.

Adaptive competitiveness has the following characteristics:

• Perseverance and determination to rise to the challenge, but bound by an abiding respect for the rules.
• The ability to feel genuine satisfaction at having put in a worthy effort, even if you lose.
• The fact that you don’t have to be best at everything, just in the domain you train for.
• Being able to deter or discourage gratification.
• Being marked by constant desire to strive for excellence, but not for the desperate concerns of rank.

Maladaptive competitiveness in contrast, is characterized by:

• Psychological insecurity and displaced urges.
• A person who cannot accept the losing part of competition.
• One who competes when others around are not competing.
• A person who has to be best at everything.
• One who doesn’t stop when the whistle blows.
• An individual who drags others into competition.
• One who will resort to cheating when he/she can’t win.

How Winners and Losers React

Now that we see that competition can be thought of in terms of adaptive and maladaptive forms, how do we view the players in these competitions? What are the common reactions that “players” have? Herger cites two Hungarian researchers – Martá Fülöp and Mihaly Berkics. They found that there are four common reactions for winners and losers.

Winners typically can either show:

• Joy, expressed through gleeful enthusiasm.
• Satisfaction with ones own competence.
• Denial of the win as way of social cautiousness. Those players would feel guilty and fearful of the losers’ reactions, like retaliation, so winners would mask their inner joy and not express it openly.
• Narcissistic self-enhancement, where the winners would feel a malicious superiority over the losers.

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New to Gamification? Check out my post What is Gamification & my Gamification Framework: Octalysis

This is a guest post by Steven Laird. Steven is currently a Systems Integration Consultant at Accenture and is interested in the intersection of technology and psychology. He believes a gamified culture may be the answer to a countless array of world problems afflicting the human condition.

Can Gamification really turn traditional drudgery into productive engagement within the enterprise?

In a world where creative and innovative tasks are becoming an increasingly greater part of the world economy, it seems the archaic carrot and stick tools of motivation used throughout the Industrial Revolution are un-evolved tactics that fail to truly engage the modern day individual. Perhaps one of the biggest indicators of a lagging workforce culture can be seen in how the U.S. loses nearly $370 BILLION annually due to disengaged employees according to a Gallop Poll.

With such staggering disengagement and worker dissatisfaction, I can’t help but wonder… what if I could harness that zen-like focus I get when I’m fully immersed in a video game for twelve hours straight onto my real-life work instead?

Well, it turns out a hoard of start-ups and large corporations have also caught a whiff of what’s cooking and have started to build gamification applications and programs which have turned into a $100 million industry overnight that is expected to grow to $2.8 billion by 2016. Although there are many successful gamification examples that have cleverly incorporated game mechanics such as leaderboards, badges, and progress bars to provide real-time feedback and increased engagement, you have to wonder how in the world could you possibly make the most mundane tasks intrinsically motivating.

Despite the huge risk that 80% of current gamified processes may fail by 2014 due to employers simply replacing one extrinsic reward (money) for another (badges), there are actually quite a few enterprise gamification successes that have spawned from carefully applying game mechanics to fit the unique needs of each organization. As you’ll soon see, even the most mundane tasks can be successfully gamified to increase engagement. It’s time to take back that $370 billion and make a dent in our national deficit.

1. CRM: Salesforce Motivation integrated with Nitro/Bunchball

If you have ever worked in any sales related role ranging from door to door soliciting or the dreaded cold call, you know firsthand how demotivating a multitude of rejections can be. Although thick skin and a narrowed focus on the prize can get you through the day, in the end it’s team competitions, leaderboards, and rewards that have typically had the most success in motivating sales forces.

While I’m not particularly excited about these extrinsic rewards and believe that there’s a lot more intrinsic tactics that we have not fully tapped into yet, I do agree that providing real-time feedback and visibility into tasks is a first step. Remember how in the Disney animation Monsters Inc., Sullivan and Randall had a competitive rivalry to be on the top of the leaderboard? It was apparent that the tracking and real-time feedback significantly affected the monsters’ behavior in speed and focus on the job.

Salesforce Motivation uses these same proven techniques to replace manual processes with a user-friendly sales application that displays a team leaderboard, a progress bar, and a featured challenge that can be customized. Team standings display which teams are leading in points and progress bar while the rewards tab offers either real life or virtual goods selected by employees. Moreover, Salesforce Chatter allows for teams to easily exchange info and keep each other updated in a collaborative manner. While many sales jobs have not typically screamed of intrinsic motivation, let’s face it, we all have to sell every day in some shape or form. Now with this tool, sales teams can get a steady diet of real-time feedback to keep them gunning on achieving their short and long-term sales goals.

2. General Business Application: Badgeville with Yammer

What do you get when you combine one of the largest gamification companies with one of the leading social media plug-ins? Yammerville… I made that up but in all seriousness, Badgeville has become a dominant force in enterprise gamification with over 150 major deployments with major companies such as Deloitte, Samsung, Dell, and my own company Accenture. Similar to Salesforce Motivation, Badgeville provides an out of the box SaaS service that has many customizable options for companies to configure any type of goal ranging from task related goals such as completing expense reports to learning goals such as leveling up a key industry skill. With the integration of Yammer, companies are able to leverage gamification and social reputation so that when badges are achieved from a goal, these achievements can be published through social media to provide visibility throughout the entire company.

While I personally have never cared too much for posting an accomplishment through social media, I have found myself twiddling on my own Accenture profile and seeing how I can complete certification trainings or volunteer events in order to get the added bonus of a virtual badge. Although badges run the risk of sapping intrinsic motivation and creating gaming/manipulation of the system behavior, I have found that these badges can actually enhance intrinsic motivation, serve as a pseudo resume, and expose me to other skills/interests that I already have a liking towards.

When extrinsic rewards such as badges are paired carefully with a goal that you already have intrinsic motivation for, the effect can be positive. If extrinsic rewards such as prizes or money are large enough that they supersede intrinsic motivation, then all the unintended behaviors I mentioned are likely to occur and the benefits of gamification are lost. Because of this fine line and need for customization, Badgeville has created a gamification framework that can apply to a myriad of companies. Whether this is just a scheme to boost revenues or an effective methodology to improve productivity in enterprise remains to be seen.

3. Social Media: SAP Community Network

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