Reading Time: 15 minutes (ish)
It’s that time of year again, where I list out all the posts of the year! It has been an odd year for me, with a couple of major job changes for me and other events! However, I have tried to keep up my blogging and have had a few popular ones this year 😉
Next year I am looking to get a new / updated book published (depends on who publishes it!) and who knows, I may even start looking at the PhD everyone seems to want me to do!
Have a great Christmas, if that is your thing, and I will see you all in 2018!!
1) Intrinsic Motivation RAMP Misconceptions
Posted on December 15, 2017 
As we head to the holidays I wanted to revisit an old “model” and just clarify a couple of items that have cropped up in conversation over the years. The item in question is RAMP. This, as you may remember, is my core intrinsic motivation model of Relatedness, Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Obviously, based on… More…
Posted in Gamification
2) Underjustification Effect
Posted on December 7, 2017 
Overjustification Effect Before we get onto Underjustification effect, let’s talk about its inspiration. Many of you will know about The Overjustification effect, first described by Daryl Bem in his work on Self-Perception theory in 1967[1]. Put simply it is the decrease of intrinsic motivation to perform a task or tasks when an extrinsic reward is… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
3) The 3 Layers of Motivation 2018 Edition
Posted on December 1, 2017 
Ok, so it isn’t quite 2018, but near enough! I wanted to present a new graphic for my Layers of Motivation (Found here), with a little bit of explanation about one aspect! For those that don’t know, this was created as a way to explain where purely extrinsic and trivial methods of motivating people, such… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Loyalty
4) Why Is Everyone Losing Their Minds Over Loot Crates?
Posted on November 27, 2017 
If you had not noticed, loot crates have been making some waves in the gaming world of late. Bonus containers awarded at the end of a game, these boxes deliver mystery rewards to the player when they finish. Most games use them to give the player “vanity” items, such as new clothes or gestures, but… More…
Posted in Gamification
5) HR Gamification Day 2017 – Slides
Posted on November 24, 2017 
Busy Busy Busy! This week I presented an introduction to gamification and play talk at the HR Gamification Day in Madrid. It was a fabulous event, with some amazing speakers. The venue was also just incredible! A big thanks to The Key Talent for the invite. it was fun meeting up with friends old and… More…
Posted in Gamification
6) The Danger of Solutioneering
Posted on November 13, 2017 
As with any new (ish) concept, gamification suffers from a great deal of misunderstanding in the public. As such people often don’t understand what they are asking for when they say “We want gamification”. To some, that might mean “We want a game”, to others it may be “We want to inject some game mechanics… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
7) Guest Post: Storytelling and gamification in education
Posted on November 8, 2017 
Today I am excited to be able to publish a guest post from a good friend of mine, Rob Alvarez Bucholska. We speak regularly and he is a great gamification educator. Here he speaks about how he uses storytelling in materials he creates for the IE Business School in Madrid. Enjoy! **** A while ago, Andrzej… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
8) Speaking at Gamification Europe 2017
Posted on November 6, 2017 
For those of you who are interested in gamification events and live in the UK or indeed Europe, November the 278h-29th should be pretty exciting for you. The first edition of Gamification Europe is happening in Brighton and the line-up is looking excellent! You will get to hear from the likes of Marigo Ruftopolous, Michael Wu,… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
9) Play Games, Enjoy Games and be a Better Gamification Designer
Posted on October 31, 2017 
Over the year my opinion on the need to love games to be a good gamification designer has fluctuated. In the early days, I was more flexible on the idea. It was all about psychology in a nearly pure form, understand behaviour and use that understanding to encourage the behaviours that you want. The “game”… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
10) What You Want vs What You Need
Posted on October 27, 2017 
My JuJitsu instructor always used to say, “I’ll teach you what you need, not what you want” This always struck me as a fabulous way to look at teaching in general and one that I used myself as a JuJitsu instructor, mentor and everything else I have done that involved passing information to others. Getting… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
11) Gamification Lessons from Candy Crush and Soda Saga
Posted on October 19, 2017 
Candy Crush Saga from King games is one of the worlds most played games, boasting 93 million daily players at one point! I have always avoided it, but my wife has been into it for years. Finally, when she was explaining a level on the spin-off game Soda Saga, I cracked and downloaded it. For those… More…
Posted in Gamification
12) Risk and Reward in Gamification
Posted on October 9, 2017 
Recently I have been playing a game called Punch, Punch, Kick, Punch (PPKP). It is a simple mobile game that only requires 2 buttons to play. One is kick, one is punch. As you play, you have to learn how to time the use of these buttons and the combinations that are most effective against… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
13) Reward Excellence not Mediocrity and Expectation
Posted on October 2, 2017 
When designing a reward system, it is easy to be tempted to reward everything! “Hey, you clicked on a button – woot”. “Awesome, you clicked that button twice, go you!” “OMG, you clicked that button 10 times now, you are the button king – have the button king badge!!!!!” The trouble with this is it… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
14) Optimal Experience in Gamification
Posted on September 25, 2017 
In gamification, we often speak about Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s Flow, a quick search of my site will bring up more than few posts on the topic. However, as I have pointed out before, we are not really talking about Flow but rather “Optimal Experience”. We speak about one very specific part of Flow, that of balancing… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
15) Ethics in Gamification
Posted on September 19, 2017 
I was recently asked to write an article on the ethics of gamification for the ACM’s student publication XRDS. Here it is! It should download a PDF. I would love to hear your thoughts 
The ethics of gamification Andrzej Marczewski XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 2017 frames are not supported If the ethics of… More…
Posted in Gamification
16) A Challenge for My Readers – Micro Story Telling
Posted on September 18, 2017 
It has been weeks since I last spoke about narratives and stories. I just wanted to pass a thought by you that fits in nicely with my stuff on Narrative Atoms and to set you a challenge. I saw a great article thanks to Rob Alvarez, Bucholska that had something very similar – 2 sentence… More…
Posted in Gamification
17) The Trouble With Types
Posted on September 13, 2017 
Player Types and User Types, I’m not gonna lie, I love ’em. I imagine that is obvious considering I have spent so long making my own! However, it’s time for a bit of a tidy up of misconceptions about types – a misconception my love of them may even have helped to perpetuate. Misconceptions Bartle… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
18) Keeping it Real in Fantasy Worlds
Posted on September 6, 2017 
A Game of Rules Richard Bartle recently raised a really interesting point about certain fantasy based shows and games after watching Game of Thrones. His complaint was that even in fantasy worlds, there need to be rules and those rules need to be stuck to. Anything that is not explained by the new fantasy rules of… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
19) I Am Applying Gamification Because…
Posted on September 1, 2017 
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one of the key pitfalls of applying something like gamification is not knowing what the problem really is or why you are applying gamification in the first place! A simple tool I like to use is this sentence, I am ________, because ________. You start by… More…
Posted in Gamification
20) Using Gamification to Elevate Design
Posted on August 29, 2017 
Whatever you think you think gamification is or what it is for, if you have used it it is usually for one reason – to increase engagement with something. You may not have defined engagement as such, you may have spoken about active participation, or learning transfer, or productivity increase. However, they all point in… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
21) New Book and some Slides
Posted on August 21, 2017 
Quick update of stuff! First, I have a new book out called “The Little Cog”. You may recognise that as I have told the story here before. It is about a little cog who is trying to understand his purpose in the wider world. It is a tongue in cheek message for managers everywhere –… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Just for Fun
22) The Intrinsic Motivation Fallacy
Posted on August 14, 2017 
“All you need is autonomy to be happy in work” This is a quote I have heard on more than one occasion in my life as a gamification consultant. I have even had a friend quote his boss to me saying the following: “You don’t need a pay rise, I read a book that siad… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
23) #Gamification: Voting Mechanics
Posted on August 10, 2017 
Balancing systems is a time consuming but highly important part of any gamified design. Getting the points per action right, knowing how to reward each activity. Ensuring the narrative is well rounded and keeps the pace going. Testing and retesting the team dynamics. Missing out this crucial phase can mean the difference between success and… More…
Posted in Gamification
24) The Game Thinking Spectrum
Posted on July 31, 2017 
A quick thought around my original Game Thinking content from a few years back. I often listen to others talking about gamification, serious games and the like, as if they had no relationship to each other. Whilst it is true that they all require different approaches to develop solutions with, they should not be considered… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
25) Behaviour and Behaviour Change
Posted on July 28, 2017 
One of the things you often hear around talk of gamification is the term “Behaviour Change”. At one time, gamification experts and platform providers began to get nervous of the word gamification and started to talk about “Behavioural Science” and “Behaviour Change Platforms”. I remember writing a post somewhere about what would happen if you… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
26) Contextual Relevance in Gamification
Posted on July 24, 2017 
People often say that “Content is King”. I have always maintained that whilst that is true, “Context is Queen”, and we all know who really wears the pants in a relationship! When you create gamified solutions there is often a risk and even a desire to throw the kitchen sink at the design, deciding on… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
27) Gamification: When Badges are Better than Badgers
Posted on July 19, 2017 
Many years ago, I made a typo in a tweet when I mentioned badgers instead of badges. I even turned it into a blog, “Adding badgers would be more gamification than badges.” It was a slightly idealistic view of badges, where I was almost saying “don’t use badges as they are bad”. I was young… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Loyalty
28) Cognitive Dissonance and Gamification
Posted on July 14, 2017 
A few years ago, I was sat in a talk by a chap by the name of Mark Sorrell. He was discussing gamification and some of the issues with it. He himself worked in the games industry, in fact, the now heads up the new London based office of Rovio (they of Angry Birds fame).… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
29) Forced to have Fun
Posted on July 12, 2017 
Every office I have worked in has, at some point, tried to do something “fun” with their employees – usually whether the employees want it or not and often with the best of intentions! A great example of this is one previous employer deciding to buy a Wii for the coffee area. The idea was that… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming, Just for Fun
30) Keeping Children Safe in the Internet Age
Posted on July 7, 2017 
The world children are growing up in now is very different to the world their parents grew up in. Whilst many of the dangers may have stayed the same, the way they present themselves is often beyond the scope of understanding of many parents out there because they have no relevant personal experience to give… More…
Posted in Education, Opinion, Social Media
31) Motivait in the Raconteur and Other Cool Things
Posted on July 3, 2017 
Happy Monday all! No proper blog post today, head down on client work at the moment and trying to finish the updated chapters for the Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play Second Edition (looking for a publisher if you know any…) However, I wanted to share a couple of cool things from Motivait that we… More…
Posted in Gamification
32) Relatedness in Single Player Experiences
Posted on June 29, 2017 
I love multiplayer games. Very little beats the feeling of taking on real people and working with real people in a game. People provide much less predictable challenges than computer driven opponents. One thing that many multiplayer games miss is a good story. This isn’t always true, but the deepest narrative experiences tend to be single… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
33) User Type HEXAD Lenses
Posted on June 20, 2017 
One of the cool things about working at Motivait, is having access to some very cool and very intelligent people! One of those is a chap by the name of Carl Eacott. We met on Twitter some time ago and then months later discovered we lived on the same street. Since then, I have ended… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
34) 4 Simple Questions To Transform Your Gamification Implementation
Posted on June 19, 2017 
It is simple to jump to solutioneering as soon as you feel you have a problem that needs fixing. However, taking a step back and asking 4 simple questions can save you time and money in the long run. “What is the problem” “Why do we need to fix it” “What needs to change to… More…
Posted in Gamification
35) A couple of short stories
Posted on June 9, 2017 
I thought I would share a couple of “Near Future” short stories I have written recently with you. Hope you enjoy them More…
Posted in Just for Fun
36) Review: Eating Robots by Stephen Oram
Posted on June 8, 2017 
For openness, I was sent a copy of the book to review. A rare book review from me. Every now and again, thanks to previously running a review site, I get asked to review stuff. In this case, it was a book of short stories titled Eating Robots and other stories, by the author Stephen Oram. I… More…
Posted in Opinion, Technology
37) Her Story, Gone Home and Narrative Atoms
Posted on June 5, 2017 
Last week I wrote about Narrative Atoms in some details. They are basically small nuggets of narrative that can stand on their own but together build the bigger story. Two obvious examples that I totally forgot about are the game / narrative experiences of Her Story and Gone Home. Her Story is the fabulous creation… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
38) Narrative Atoms and The Soap Hero’s Journey
Posted on May 30, 2017 
A Narrative AtomNarrative atoms are small units of narrative or story that can, within the context of the overall narrative, stand alone. That does not mean they need to be completely self-explanatory, just sit comfortably on their own. In a standard linear story, each atom would be placed sequentially,… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
39) School Grades Are The Wrong Way Around
Posted on May 26, 2017 
I often hear people say that school is just a badly designed game. I have to agree. I also hear a lot that part of the problems is people chasing grades rather than mastery and that grades should be dropped. I have to partially disagree. I totally agree that school should be about master, not… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
40) Gamification Design Framework Toolkit
Posted on May 23, 2017 
Gamification Design Framework toolkit has been created as a way to help you design better gamified solutions. It is based on my Gamification Design Framework, a systematic way of building solutions that I have developed over the years. More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
41) Emotions and Gamification
Posted on May 22, 2017 
You may have noticed in my newest design framework that I mention emotions for the first time (I think) as a full consideration in my design process. I am by no means the first to think about it in a design framework. If you look at the MDA framework 1 the authors describe the aesthetics as:… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
42) The Paradox of Play
Posted on May 10, 2017 
Play from the Start When we are born, we don’t have a set of predefined rules imprinted on us about what we should and shouldn’t do or how we should and shouldn’t do it! Babies have a totally open and clear mind. They spend their time learning everything they can, using all their senses. They… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
43) Gamification Element: Investment
Posted on May 4, 2017 
I have just added a new element to the gamification periodic table, investment. Whilst I have Loss Aversion and a few other things that may seem similar, I have felt for some time that there was still an ingredient missing. It turns out, it was investment (I think…). Now, you may instantly think of investment… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Gaming
44) New Job, New Challenges, New fun!
Posted on May 3, 2017 
In August 2016, I started as a freelance consultant, contracting largely for Gamification Nation. An Coppens (CEO of Gamification Nation) and I had been friends in the industry for a number of years and almost as soon as I was made redundant from G2G3 and announced I was available for contracting, was there wanting to… More…
Posted in Gamification, Loyalty
45) 4 Tips to Balance Your Gamification
Posted on May 1, 2017 
There is nothing worse than playing against people who are miles ahead of you in terms of either ability or equipment. It is very demoralising to lose time and time again when in reality you never have a chance. Take leaderboards as a good example. Very often the people at the top are always the… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
46) Some Gamification Videos and a bit of Fun
Posted on April 20, 2017 
I’ve been busy making videos of late, here are the last few. Some tutorials, a few rants and a bit of fun Player Types and User Types in Gamification https://youtu.be/ndRUQl0cXQQ Ethics in Gamification https://youtu.be/p2c_soTmep4 Failure and Consequences in Gamification https://youtu.be/ramZsfAxbaU Stop Perpetuating Bad Gamification Design https://youtu.be/psS8EJqgtNQ The Games Invasion: Why It’s a Good Thing… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification, Opinion, Rants
47) The Games Invasion: Why it is Good!
Posted on April 14, 2017 
In 2010, game designer Jesse Schell spoke at the DICE summit about the impending invasion of games into everyday life. Many people felt the talk had a semi-apocalyptic feel, but I came away with a different opinion. His final words were words of potential positivity – if we took the correct actions. Here I talk… More…
Posted in Gamification
48) What’s the difference between Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Rewards
Posted on April 7, 2017 
A very common question in gamification is “What is the difference between Intrinsic and Extrinsic” when talking about rewards and motivation. Well.. Intrinsic motivation: Personal/internal needs and reasons acting. Relatedness, Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose are examples of this. You don’t play video games for the reward, you play because you enjoy them You read for… More…
Posted in Gamification
49) A Revised Gamification Design Framework
Posted on April 6, 2017 
I have created various gamification design frameworks over the years and this is the latest. It consists of three main phases; Define, Design / Build and Refine. Each phase contains iterative steps to consider as you build your solution. Big thanks to Roberto M. Alvarez Bucholska for being a great sounding board for some of this!!
Periodic Table of Gamification Elements… More…
Posted in Gamification
50) The Periodic Table of Gamification Elements
Posted on April 3, 2017 
Just a quick post to officially introduce the Periodic Table of Gamification Elements. This is all 51 of my Gamification Mechanics and Elements in a pretty table Buy the poster here https://www.redbubble.com/people/gamifieduk/works/25949573-periodic-table-of-gamification-elements Other “Wisdom” Memes… [slideshare id=72858460&doc=generalmemes-170306132757&type=d] Some music I’ve been recording for fun (updated often). Videos with my kids (Challenges mostly) https://youtu.be/B3-rq6cwIMo And finally…. A game made in… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming, Just for Fun, Rants
58) Misunderstanding Gamification and Over-Promising
Posted on March 3, 2017 
A quick mini-rant Gamification is not about making games. It is about using elements of games in other areas to increase motivation, engagement, fun (at times) and to encourage specific behaviours. This may include games, serious games, mini games etc – but more often than not, it doesn’t have to. It also doesn’t mean that… More…
Posted in Gamification, Rants
59) What’s With the Ninja Monkey?
Posted on March 2, 2017 
A question I am asked a lot (I get asked all sorts, you may have noticed), is why did you call the book Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play? There are actually two answers to this, the “official” one and the “Unofficial” one. The official one is in the book and reads I went through… More…
Posted in Gamification
60) Strategy: A missing component in Gamification
Posted on March 1, 2017 
One of the more common questions I get about gamification is “what is the difference between games and gamification”. I have spent lots of time writing about that exact issue, the Game Thinking pieces are my most concrete thoughts about the topic. However, just recently I was playing North vs South on the iPhone and… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
61) Diminishing Effect of Rewards
Posted on February 20, 2017 
One of the things you discover when you have kids is just how much you must bribe them to achieve anything. This is especially galling when, like me, you understand the behavioural impacts of using rewards to modify behaviour etc. One of the things this has shown me is the existence of an effect I’m… More…
Posted in Gamification
62) Narrative Atoms, Story and History
Posted on February 14, 2017 
A revisit to an old set of thoughts I had on what Narrative is. My general thought is that narrative is real-time telling of a first person experience as it happens. A story is all of the narratives put together from the first “Narrative Atom” of the story until the last! History is the collection… More…
Posted in Gamification, Just for Fun
63) 5 Steps to a Happier Life with Gamification
Posted on February 8, 2017 
Ok, this sounds a little “self helpy”, but it came to me when I was doing a lecture for a group of Masters students at Kings College recently. I ended the talk, rather by accident, with the following advice “Always be sure you know why you are doing things, understand their purpose. It helps to… More…
Posted in Gamification, Opinion
64) Really Simple Gamification – Randomness
Posted on February 7, 2017 
Recently my daughter decided to start her YouTube videos again. Previously she had been doing “opening” videos, where she opened toys nod spoke about them. However, now she wanted to do some more fun spots, with challenges. Her first idea was “The Hot Sauce Challenge”. Basically, eat a spoon of really hot sauce and record… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
65) Correcting the Misconceptions Around the Philanthropist User Type and Purpose
Posted on January 23, 2017 
One of the things that happens when you create popular frameworks and the like, is that people like to interpret them to fit their needs. This is why I created the User Types Hexad in the first place – so that I no longer had to interpret Bartle’s Player Types to fit my needs in… More…
Posted in Education, Gamification
66) As Promised – Signed Books for Sale
Posted on January 18, 2017 
Hi all. Just a quick one here, as many of you know who were at GWC16, I was waiting for a shipment of books to sell there. Well – I finally got them at the end of last year. If you would like to purchase one, please fill in the form below and I will… More…
Posted in Gamification
67) Punishing some by rewarding others
Posted on January 10, 2017 
RANT ALERT! Fairplay is very important to me and it annoys me when I see things that, in my mind, show a lack of fairness. Recently my daughter was legitimately off school with illness. She had never really taken time off school before, so we knew that she was serious when she told us she… More…
Posted in Gamification, Rants
68) Battlefield 1, RAMP, User Types and Awesome Gaming
Posted on January 3, 2017 
Over Christmas, I started to play Battlefield 1, a game that I was especially looking forward to given my love of the series. I’ve not had as much time to play video games as I would have liked over the last 12 months, so I’ve been making the most of this opportunity. I may even… More…
Posted in Gamification, Gaming
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