Who Doesn't Love to Play?

Like I've said before, I think that the concept of gamification (when done right) is really on to something.  As the title of this post says, who doesn't love to play?  Like a baby or a dog, play comes naturally to many, as a way to explore the world around us.  If you can turn a mundane activity into something exciting and engaging, I think it makes sense that people will have an easier time completing that activity.  Similarly, if you can weave some gamification into unpleasant or difficult things, such as working out and eating right, which people know that they should be doing, it might makes those activities more approachable as well.

There are, of course, many different types of players in the world.  One experience that is extremely fun to one person might actually be demotivating for another.  The professor of my course gave us a laundry list of what experiences might be considered fun.  Some of these include: winning, problem solving, exploring, chilling out, teamwork, recognition, collecting, surprise, imagination, sharing, role playing, customization and goofing off.  This list, while not nearly exhaustive, shows that there are many different ways that players find fun in games.

One example that my professor brought up was a cute and simple idea that Volkswagon had to change a behavior.  They made the steps in a metro station a piano, which encouraged individuals to take the stairs instead of the escalator.  You can see the effect here.  More people switched to the stairs because it was suddenly 'fun' to walk up them and hear the musical notes.  Volkswagon has also used fun to create an initiative to motivate individuals to throw their trash away in public parks instead of littering.  They've done this by creating 'the world's deepest bin', which can be seen here.

So how exactly do we begin to think about how anything can be gamified?  I think understanding the basics was something that I hoped to get out of this class.  My professor delivered when he explained something he called the pyramid of elements within gamification.  At the base of the pyramid are components.  These are the 'nouns' of the game, as they are specific instances of the higher elements.  Examples of components are: achievements, avatars, badges, boss fights, collections, content unlocking, gifting, leaderboards, levels, points, quests, teams and virtual goods.  The middle of the pyramid is the mechanics.  These are the 'verbs', as they drive movement forward in the game.  Some examples of mechanics are: challenges, chance, competition, cooperation, feedback, resource aquisition, rewards, transactions and turns.  Lastly, the top of the pyramid are the dynamics.  These are like the 'grammar' of the game.  Examples of dynamics in a game are: constraints, emotions, narrative, progression and relationships.

The most common elements found in games come together to form the PBL Triad.  Points, Badges and Leaderboards are the three top things that tend to be present in most games or gamified platforms.  Points keep score, provide feedback and display progress.  Badges represent achievement, signal what is important in a game and are a social display of status.  Leaderboards rank individuals to give feedback of the competition, but can often discourage the players that aren't doing as well.  Because of this, leaderboards often show only your friends in the game or individual players who are matched more closely to you on these leaderboards.

What's incredibly interesting to me about these gamification concepts is that they use communication and psychological theories of behavior change to impact human activity.  I hope to be able to write a few posts on specific behavior theories that I've studied in school and maybe even share some academic work with you all on these particular theories.  I truly think that it is fascinating and can help us work towards helping people make sustainable behavior change, even outside of games.

-Vicky