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Gamification 101:
An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics
to Influence Behavior
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Section I: Gamification Defined
- A brief overview of the terms, concepts, and history
Section II: The Business Value of Gamification
- How and why it works; examples of its use
Section III: The Building Blocks of Gamification
- The elements involved in creating a successful experience
Section IV: Summary and Next Steps
- Where to go from here?
Section V: About Bunchball and Nitro
- A brief look at the company and its offerings
Acknowledgements
October 2010
Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior
Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of
Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior
ga∙mi∙fi∙ca∙tion [gay-muh-fi- kay -shuhn]
integrating game dynamics into your site,
service, community, content or campaign,
in order to drive participation.
INTRODUCTION
Why Should You Care? Gamification — applying the mechanics of gaming to nongame activi- ties to change people’s behavior — is an important and powerful new strategy for influencing and motivating groups of people. The business community is just starting to realize the power it has to improve cus- tomer engagement, build loyalty, and incent employees and partners to perform at high levels. And the concept has the potential to solve a variety of problems outside the business world as well, in areas such as:
- Health & Wellness: healthcare cost containment, obesity programs, smoking cessation…
- Education & Training: e-learning, corporate and vocational training, online testing…
- Public Policy & Government: education reform, climate change, welfare reform… But beware of the hype! As with many new and promising technologies, there are already a lot of pundits who have jumped on the gamification bandwagon and hyperbole is flying. Simply Googling the word “gamifi- cation” brings up articles and videos with titles like “Gaming Can Make A Better World,” “The Gamification of Life,” and “The Gamification of Everything.” Understanding how and why gamification works, in what contexts it is most effective, and what the limits are of this approach will be highly useful in sorting out the useful bits. This report will help provide a basic foundation and definition for the concept of gamification. We plan to extend and build upon this foundation as we try to help move gamifica- tion from an art to a science. Please let us know what you think of this whitepaper by sending us an email at gamification101@bunchball.com.
I. GAMIFICATION DEFINED
Definition of Terms We’ll expand each of the following definitions in greater detail through- out the whitepaper. As an introduction, let’s give a brief overview of a few key terms that are central to this paper. Gamification At its root, gamification applies the mechanics of gaming to non- game activities to change people’s behavior. When used in a business context, gamification is the process of integrating game dynamics (and game mechanics ) into a website, business service, online community, content portal, or marketing campaign in order to drive participation and engagement. Participation and Engagement The overall goal of gamification is to engage with consumers and get them to participate, share and interact in some activity or community. A particularly compelling, dynamic, and sustained gamification experi- ence can be used to accomplish a variety of business goals. Game Mechanics & Game Dynamics These two terms are closely related and sometimes used interchange- ably. For our purposes, game mechanics are the various actions, behaviors, and control mechanisms that are used to “gamify” an activity — the aspects that, taken together, create a compelling, engaging user experience. The compelling, motivational nature of this experience is, in turn, the result of desires and motivations we call game dynamics. Game mechanics include:
- Points
- Levels
- Challenges
- Virtual goods and spaces
- Leaderboards
- Gifts and charity Game dynamics include:
- Reward
- Status
- Achievement
- Self-expression
- Competition
- Altruism
II. THE BUSINESS VALUE OF GAMIFICATION
Participation Drives Business Value Participation builds lasting relationships and impacts fundamental busi- ness objectives. If you can get people to participate and engage, your business wins. Gamification can drive virtually any kind of participation, including:
- Watching videos
- Listening to audio
- Viewing photos
- Opting in to email communication
- Creating content
- Answering questions
- Making a purchase
- Taking quizzes
- Searching for information
- Sharing personal info
- Rating products
Tracking Statistics Drives Participation
At its core, gamification is all about statistics. If two people play Mo- nopoly every day for a week, it’s going to get boring pretty quickly. But if they start capturing and displaying statistics — how many times each person won, how many dollars each winner had, which properties were most profitable — then the experience becomes more interesting. These statistics create another level to the game and motivate people to play more. In essence, the statistics become the game. Can you become the #1 ranked Monopoly player in your group of friends, in the state, in the country? Can you own Boardwalk and Park Place five games in a row, and thus win a special trophy? Can you earn Monopoly Points for every dollar you end the game with, and collect those points toward some ultimate reward? By capturing statistics, communicating standings, and rewarding ac- complishments, we create a new method to drive participation. Even though individual games (or other activities) may have lost their initial excitement, each episode becomes an entry into a larger game, one that creates a desire to make return visits in order to reach these new goals. Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior
- Reading articles
- Filling out registration data
- Voting on content
- Writing comments
- Participating in discussions
- Posting to forums
- Taking a poll
- Visiting repeatedly
- Visiting affiliated sites
- Recommending affiliated sites
Statistics
Status Achievement
Reward Competition
Who Is Participating?
Gamification is a strategy for influencing and motivating the behavior of people – any people, whether they are customers, employees, students, fans, constituents, patients, etc. And while it uses techniques from game design, it is not a new way to reach the gamer market. The audience for gamification is anyone you want to engage repeatedly in order to elicit a particular behavior.
Use Cases of Gamification
The following examples illustrate some of the applications in which gamification can be used to create business value.
Building and activating a community of members or fans
A common business goal is to pull together and engage a group of people with a com- mon passion or interest, and then to “activate” them to purchase. In particular, many marketers have been looking to leverage online social networking for this purpose, but the results have been mixed. Adam Sarner, an analyst with market research firm Gart- ner, has projected that over 75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies with Web sites will have undertaken some kind of online social-networking initiative for marketing or customer relations purposes. But 50 percent of those campaigns will be classified as failures.^1 And Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang concludes that “…many brands are wasting their time, money, and resources to reach communities in social networks without first understanding that the use case is very different than a microsite campaign.”^2 Through gamification, organizations can take back control of the brand experience by engaging users, encouraging them to join a community, driving active participation, sharing with friends outside the community, and even recruiting friends to join the community. Gamification enables you to turn customers into fans, and fans into evangelists. Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior “Companies of all shapes and sizes have begun to use games to revolution- ize the way they interact with custom- ers and employees, becoming more competitive and more profitable as a result.”
- “Changing the Game”, David Edery, Ethan Mollick (^1) http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10058509-36.html (^2) http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/07/18/forrester-report-best-and-worst-of- social-network-marketing-2008/
Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior
Driving engagement and loyalty
Loyalty has evolved beyond earning points for purchases to deeper cus- tomer engagement. Traditional redemption-focused loyalty programs created clever points systems and offered gifts or discounts in return for purchases. These marketers assumed that the best consumers will “burn” what they’ve earned, be satisfied with the reward, and come back to the brand in the future. Savvy marketers now realize that they must differentiate themselves from this foundational model, primar- ily because the rewards given by most loyalty programs offer far less competitive advantage in the age of the internet and global commerce. Using gamification, loyalty programs can significantly increase their effectiveness by adding more intrinsic motivators to the “earn” (points) aspect of the loyalty experience. Earning points mimics the elements of a game, including competition and the pursuit of a goal. Fun, compelling and addictive game play gen- erates exciting emotions that add to the player’s experience, whether the competition is solitary or involves others. An effective loyalty program views the entire “earn” experience as a game, one wherein the “play” is just as fun as the “winning.” Adding leaderboards and tiered- achievement levels will enhance the gaming aspects because people often desire the challenge of working for a reward. Essentially, the right level of challenge arouses and excites the brain. Setting and hitting milestones result in a repeated sense of accomplishment and boosts self-worth, leading to the ultimate satisfaction of reaching the goal and “winning the game.”^3 Example: Major Entertainment Company One of the largest entertainment companies in the world wanted a loyalty system that not only rewarded purchases, but also rewarded participation and engagement with their content, which includes major motion pictures. This program gave points for purchasing Blu-ray and regular DVDs as well as movie tickets. Buyers then redeemed those points for dollar-value products, like more DVDs. In addition, members can earn credits for engaging with their content, like watching movie trailers, visiting movie websites, playing games, and contributing con- tent. By combining offline purchase data with online engagement and participation data, they can now build a detailed profile of each of their customers. The resulting gamification campaign has:
Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior
Motivating behavior
Wherever there are people, there are people to be motivated.
- Sales people and channel partners can be incented to grow revenues and focus on desired product mixes via competition and challenges.
- Call centers and customer support organizations can be motivated to deliver superior customer service through a customer feedback mechanism or other metrics.
- Employees can be motivated to pursue optional training initiatives that enhance their careers and make them more valuable to the company.
- Patients and health insurance customers can be incented to adopt and stick with healthy lifestyle choices that extend their lives and reduce healthcare costs. Gamification can be applied across a broad spectrum of situations where individuals need to be motivated or incented to pursue specific actions or activities. Example: HopeLab HopeLab is an innovative organization whose mission is to drive positive health behavior in young people. Fighting chronic illnesses like cancer, obesity, and depression, HopeLab uses games and con- nected devices to create the most effective motivational methods. For example, the Zamzee device is worn on a belt or carried in a pocket, and it monitors physical activity throughout the day. Plugging it into a computer, this data is converted to points that can be redeemed for virtual goods and real-world rewards, including the ability to donate to a cause. Though the product is still under development, a pilot study showed that kids using the Zamzee device and website were about 30% more active than those who did not.
Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior Competitions Competitions enable your users to challenge each other to get the high score at some activity. Once everyone has done the activity, the user with the highest score wins a reward while all the losers get a consolation prize. This is great for “multiplayer-enabling” one-player games and other single user experiences. For example: “I just scored 500,000 points at Asteroids, I dare you to beat that!”
Game Dynamics Satisfy Desires
Why are people motivated by game mechanics? Because of game dynamics. People have fundamental needs and desires — desire for reward, status, achievement, self-expression, competition, and altruism among oth- ers. These needs are universal, and cross generations, demographics, cultures, and genders. Game designers have known for years how to address these needs within gaming environments, and gamification now enables these precepts to be applied more broadly. By wrapping the appropriate set of game mechanics around your website, applica- tion, or community, you can create an experience that drives behavior by satisfying one or more of these human needs: Reward Human beings are motivated by receiving rewards — something of value given for some kind of action. A reward, tangible or intangible, is presented after the occurrence of an action (i.e., behavior) with the intent to cause the behavior to occur again. With gamification, the primary reward mechanism is through earning points or the equivalent (like frequent-flyer miles). But obtaining virtual goods, leveling up, and even completing achievements also satisfy this desire. Status Most humans have a need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, at- tention and, ultimately, the esteem and respect of others. People need to engage themselves in activities to gain this esteem, though. All ele- ments of game mechanics drive these dynamics, with leveling-up (such as getting a gold or platinum credit card) being one of the primary motivators. Challenges, Trophies, Badges, Achievements Challenges (aka trophies, badges, or achievements) give people missions to accomplish and then reward them for doing so. Challenges give people goals and the feeling like they’re working toward something. The general ap- proach is to configure challenges based on actions that you’re tracking, and reward your users for reaching milestones with trophies, badges and achievements. Trophies, badges, ribbons, etc. are the visible recognition of having reached new levels or completed challenges. One of the keys to making levels and challenges effective is providing a forum for users to show off their achievements, like a trophy case or user profile page that displays their badges. These have counterparts in the real world as well, as in Scouting merit badges, colored credit cards that indicate high spending limits, or colored frequent flyer cards that indicate member status. Virtual Goods For a game economy to be effective over time, it helps to have a place to spend points, provide an incentive to earn more, and offer the ability to customize something that reflects a personal identity. Virtual goods help achieve all of this and are a great vector for creativity, competition, and self-expression in the community. Virtual goods are non-physical, intangible objects that are purchased for use in online communities or online games. Users purchase virtual goods like clothing, weapons or decorations to create an identity for their virtual self while comparing and “showing off” with their friends. Virtual goods can also be used as a revenue center, by selling users virtual goods for real dollars. Leaderboards Most of the successful games ever created have wisely implemented a “high-score table.” They bring aspiration, “fame,” and your name in lights. They also indicate “how am I doing” against friends and against everybody else. In the context of gamification, leaderboards are used to track and display desired actions, using competition to drive valuable behavior.
Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior Achievement Some (but not all) people are motivated by a need to achieve, to ac- complish something difficult through prolonged and repeated efforts, to work towards goals, and to win. People motivated by achievement tend to seek out challenges and set moderately difficult (but achievable) goals. Their most satisfying reward is the recognition of their achieve- ments. Self-expression Many people want and need opportunities to express their autonomy and originality, to mark themselves as having unique personalities from those around them. This ties into the human desire to show off a sense of style, identity, and personality and to show off an affiliation with a group. Using virtual goods is a common way for players to create their own identity, whether they are earned through rewards, received as gifts, or bought directly with real currency. A person’s avatar can often serve as a rich focal point for expression. Competition Individuals can also be motivated by competition. It has been proven that higher levels of performance can be achieved when a competitive environment is established and the winner rewarded. That’s because we gain a certain amount of satisfaction by comparing our performance to that of others. All elements of game mechanics tap into this desire, even self- expression, but the use of leaderboards is central to display competi- tive results and celebrate winners. Most all games provide at least a simple top ten list, and using that public display to indicate new levels achieved, rewards earned, or challenges met can be a great motivator to other players. Altruism Gift-giving is a strong motivator if you have a community where people seek to foster relationships. Not all gifts are equal, so in a world of free and commodity items, motivated gifters will seek out a more valuable form of expression, either through money or through time spent earning or creating the gift. In gamification, gifting is an incredibly powerful acquisition and reten- tion mechanic. You receive a gift from someone that pulls you into the game, and then you’re incented to send gifts to all your friends, creating a great acquisition loop. And every time you receive a gift, it pulls you back into the application to redeem it, so it serves as a powerful reten- tion vehicle as well.
V. ABOUT BUNCHBALL AND NITRO
Bunchball: The Industry Leader in Gamification
Bunchball is the leading provider of online gamification solutions, used to drive high value participation, engagement, loyalty and revenue for some of the world’s leading brands and media. Customers including Warner Bros, Comcast, Victoria’s Secret PINK, USA Network, LiveOps, and Hasbro use Bunchball’s Nitro gamification platform to create compelling, meaningful and enjoyable experiences for consumers, employees, and partners. Based in Silicon Valley and founded in February 2005, Bunchball’s investors include Granite Ventures and Adobe Systems Incorporated. For more informa- tion, visit Bunchball online at www.bunchball.com.
Nitro – The Participation Engine
Nitro enables you to track and reward participation across the Internet by adding game mechanics to your websites, Facebook applications, and mobile applications. The Nitro solution includes the following: Proven Gamification Platform
- Nitro, the industry’s most scalable, reliable gamification platform. Expert Program Design Services
- Build your own solution, or let us help you - we’ve created more Gamification solutions than the rest of the industry combined. Comprehensive Program Management Services
- Strapped for resources? Let us manage your program. Advanced Analytics Services
- Data-driven insights into user behaviors and how to drive them. The Nitro gamification platform is a highly scalable and reliable Cloud-based service for gamifying websites, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and mobile applications – it has served over 80 million unique users and 4 billion transactions to date. Nitro’s flexible architecture enables our customer’s engineering teams to get up and running quickly, while our powerful administration tools empower the site production and marketing teams with real-time control over online user behavior. The platform delivers the industry’s most comprehensive set of game mechanics, including:
- Actions
- Challenges
- Trophies
- Badges
- Achievements
- Points
- Levels
- Leaderboards
- Virtual Goods
- Virtual Rooms
- Avatars
- Groups
- Competitions
- Real-time Notifications
- Newsfeeds
- Trivia
- Poker
- Comments
- Friends
- Facebook and Twitter Connector Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior
bunchball.com We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of many others to the ideas outlined in this paper. In particular, we would like to give special mention to Kathi Fox, Amy Jo Kim, Barry Kirk, and Gabe Zichermann.
