Correcting the Misconceptions Around the Philanthropist User Type and Purpose

Landscape 1485169810 Correcting the Misconceptions Around the Philanthropist User Type and Purpose

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 gamification!

However, what can happen is that the interpretations become more popular than the original and if you are not careful the meaning of the original is lost. This is true of one of the types in my Hexad – and I am not innocent in the issue! I have allowed the change to happen, even integrating it into the types and my motivation framework RAMP. The type in question is the Philanthropist and the motivation Purpose. Read More ...

Leaderboards: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Leaderboard Leaderboards The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Leaderboards have been a staple of gaming and gamification for as long as both have existed. From Space Invaders, to baseball, to your gamified CRM system – all have had leaderboards in there somewhere.

The reasoning goes “if you are the top, you feel special and if you are at the bottom, you don’t want to be there so are motivated to improve”.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? Instant engagement. DO well, feel special. Do badly, be motivated to do better. In some cases, this is can be the case. In sports, it is a way of knowing where a team is in the league and how many points they need to improve by. In space invaders it was a way to create a more social or even personal challenge in the game, helping to create that “one more go” feeling. If I have one more go, I know I can be better than AAA or myself. Read More ...

The Future of Gamification

Augmented reality 1476093062 The Future of Gamification

Recently I was honoured to be asked to be part of a documentary about games, their history, and evolution. One of the questions that I was asked that really got me thinking was “What is the future of gamification?”

I am asked this quite often and tend to go with a safe answer. In my view, we will not speak about gamification within the next few years. It will be spoken about in the same way social media or digital is, just  another part of various strategies. In the case of gamification, it will become part of a standard set of tools for experience design. Read More ...

Gamification User Types HEXAD Validation Study

1 O5FClRZSTMg4sSlO5WyJkA Gamification User Types HEXAD Validation Study

I thought it would be good to finally show you all the research results from Austrian Institute of Technology and HCI Games Group, Games Institute, University of Waterloo and of course Gamified UK around the User Types and the survey.

The link below will take you to a blog written by one of the researchers, Gustavo Tondello, who explains it all better than I can!

https://medium.com/@hcigamesgroup/the-gamification-user-types-hexad-scale-a6d8727d201e

Several studies have indicated the need for personalising gamified systems to users’ personalities. However, mapping user personality onto design elements is difficult. To address this problem, Marczewski developed the Gamification User Types Hexad framework, based on research on human motivation, player types, and practical design experience. He also suggested different game design elements that may support different user types. However, until now we were still lacking a standard assessment tool for user’s preferences based on the Hexad framework. There was also no empirical validation, yet, that associated Hexad user types and game design elements. A collaborative research project by the HCI Games Group, the Austrian Institute of Technology, and Gamified UK sought to accomplish these two goals: (1) create and validate a standard survey to assess an individual’s Hexad user type and (2) verify the association between the Hexad user types and the game design elements they are supposed to appeal to. Read More ...

Pokemon Go: The Good, The Bad and Some Lessons

Pokemon go logo 01 Pokemon Go The Good The Bad and Some Lessons

Writing about Pokemon Go is almost as popular as actually playing it, so I thought I would join in the trend.

TL:TR It’s great fun but needs to have some careful consideration around safety concerns

In case you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, let me just set the scene. Pokemon Go is a game based on the popular Pokemon franchise. It sees players using their mobile phones to hunt down and capture Pokemon in the real world. Using Augmented Reality (AR), Pokemon pop up all over the real world for players to capture and train. Once caught, they can be leveled up, evolved, battled with at Pokemon Gyms and more. Read More ...