Opinion

Dynamic Narrative Analytics: Turning Player Data Into a Playable Story

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Dna2 Dynamic Narrative Analytics Turning Player Data Into a Playable Story

One of the greatest lies we’ve told ourselves in gamification (and business in general) is that numbers speak for themselves. They don’t.

Numbers sit there, mute and smug, like a cat perched on a bookshelf—daring you to make sense of them. And like a cat, they’ll let you project whatever meaning you want onto them… until you get scratched.

That’s where Dynamic Narrative Analytics (DNA) comes in.

This isn’t about algorithms. It’s not about drowning in dashboards. It’s about recognising that every dataset tells a story—and if you don’t write the story, someone else will (probably in PowerPoint, with clip art). Read More ...

What Would Mario Do – A Simple Decision Tool!

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Super Mario Bros on the NES has been around for a very long time now, yet still, it exudes class and is a masterclass in game design. One of the reasons for that, in my view, is the simplistic choices that Mario has to make in the early stages of the game – especially the first screen. He has essentially four choices, two when presented with a bad guy and two when presented with an obstacle.
  • Obstacles: Use it, avoid it
  • Bad guys: Kill it, avoid it

So, when Mario is faced with an obstacle, he can try to break – which might yield goodies or just clear his path. He could try to just move around or over it, or he can use it to get to higher parts of the screen (or lower if you consider a pipe taking him to bonus sections).

All those choices have value in different situations for him, but they are all simple.

When it comes to a bad guy, he can choose to jump on it or avoid it totally. Again, both valid options. In fact, it is possible to complete Mario Bros without ever killing a non-boss level bad guy! However, you are encouraged to kill the bad guys as it gives Mario more points and can, at times, help him reach new areas.

If we simplify things down even further, we could consider these choices as just Embrace it or Avoid it. If the obstacle is in my way, break it, thus using it, embracing its usefulness to open a new path. If it looks “hinky”, hit it and see what it does – again embracing it as useful. This might give you a special mushroom or coins. If you need to get higher up the map, use the obstacles to jump up. If it is in your way and seems to have no benefit – just avoid it!

With the characters in-game, most of whom are bad guys, we have the same basic choices. You could just avoid them if you see no benefit in engaging with them, or you could jump on them – using them to increase your score.

How Does This Relate to the Real World

Translating this into our lives, if we come up against an obstacle, we could ask ourselves “What would Mario do?” He would either find a way to make use of the obstacle, or he would find a way to avoid it. If we are presented in real life with people, we can again ask the same question. If he felt that in some way that interaction with the person would be beneficial, he would interact, otherwise, he would avoid them.

Dealing with People

This sounds mercenary, but it really isn’t – it’s just a little oversimplified. For example, my youngest daughter. She enters the room to talk to me. I ask what Mario would do. I analyse that she is likely to want to speak about Roblox, so I could decide to take the option of avoiding her! However, I could also decide to make embrace her presence whilst she is there, by giving her a massive cuddle. This benefits me as it is awesome and makes us both feel good. So, I would say that listening to a conversation about Roblox, whilst having a cuddle is win win for us all! In the work world, this is very applicable to the people around you. Embrace the knowledge they have where you can and try to be kind to them.

Now we take the example of my eldest daughter. She is confronted by someone at school who isn’t very nice and wants to start an argument. She asks herself what would Mario do? He might decide to jump on the bad guy, but his only reason to do that would be to increase his score or get a jump boost. Fighting with this person in school does nothing to improve my daughter’s situation, there are no points to be scored to new areas of the school to be accessed by jumping on her head. In this situation, where there is no benefit to using the person, Mario would simply avoid them. Thus, my daughter would decide to ignore the bully and walk past.

The lesson here is to embrace the people who will enrich our lives in some way and avoid those who won’t!

Dealing with obstacles

On to obstacles. In real life, unless you are a free runner, you are very unlikely to be presented with obstacles that require you to physically break them or climb over them! However, we all have obstacles. Projects that we find hard to complete, topics we find hard to learn etc.

So, what would Mario do? Again, he would weigh up the pros and cons of making use of the obstacle in some way or avoiding it. If you are trying to learn something new, you must decide if it is really worth doing. Now, there are some subtleties to this. If you are at school, you have less choice. In Mario terms, these difficult learning tasks would be seen as the blocks that you either need to break through to get to new areas of the map, or the ones you need to jump on or use to get to higher sections of the screen. They can be used in beneficial ways. Same with projects and tasks you may be working on. They may be difficult, but they open up new opportunities on their completion. However, if something has no benefit whatsoever – avoid it! Don’t let worthless, draining obstacles get in the way of you doing greater things.

Again, the lesson is simple. Embrace those obstacles that enrich your life in some way and avoid those that don’t!

 

Multiplayer bonus level

One last thought on this. If you come up against an obstacle that you know is of benefit to tackle, but you are not sure you can, think multiplayer, ask for help from those around you that you know can assist – I am sure that Mario would call on Luigi if he could.

This way you are blending the best of both worlds, working with someone who you know can enrich your life to tackle a problem that will also enrich maybe both your lives in some way!

So, next time you are faced with a challenge of some kind, be it people or task-related – just think “What would Mario Do – Embrace it or Avoid it?”

Game Based Solutions – Focus on Outcomes not Methods

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After a lovely 3-week break from writing (my longest since about 2012!!), I am back.

I will get back to the “Introduction” series next week and will hopefully compile them into a new book soon as well.

But I wanted to just share a little thought with you.

Gamification, as a term, seems to be getting less popular. Sure, it is still getting search a lot, but I am seeing fewer people using the term to sell products. It is often relegated to the second or third thing on their list if selling points, rather than the first thing as was popular a few years ago.

This is exactly what I have predicted in numerous posts and interviews over the years and fills me with happiness. Why? Because it means that gamification is no longer a trend, it is becoming part of good solution design. That said, I am a little disappointed that it has still not made it into the Oxford English Dictionary (see the header image)!

However, there is still a familiar issue, one that I have been fighting for years. The need to talk more about the method of solving problems than the objectives and outcomes of solving the problems.

This is why I often talk about Games Based Solutions rather than specifically gamification. I solve problems using solutions based on or inspired by games in one form or another. That could be gamification, serious games, simulations, game-inspired design – and so on. The specific method is much less important than the desired outcome and meeting the objectives of the desired outcome!

Don’t get bogged down in terms, let the word gamification pass into natural language and we can all just move on with our lives.

Until then, we still have to keep using it!

See you all soon 😊

The Man in the Hat: Anxiety, Public Speaking and Dave Rage

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I’ve not been shy about talking about my issues with anxiety and depression over the years. They are a part of my life and something that I am not ashamed of these days.

However, not being ashamed of them does not make them go away!

Anxiety is the biggest problem on a daily basis. A large portion of my time is spent wanting to curl up into a ball and hide from the world. cutting any and all contact with other humans. That is part of the reason that I used to love online gaming. I didn’t have to interact with “real” people, there was no expectation that I would have to make eye contact. I could be Dave Rage, cannon fodder grunt in Call of Duty.

So, what do you think one of the most unnatural things I could possibly do would be? Public speaking. Standing on a stage, with hundreds of eyes looking at me, expecting me to impart knowledge and wisdom in an interesting way. What do I spend a fair amount of time doing? Public speaking!

I have never been good at standing in front of people. I remember one school play where I was asked to step in for another child who was sick. I had one line, that was it. As soon as I got on stage, I froze and had to be dragged off. It is not my natural environment.

Over the years I got better, especially if I was doing something I felt I was ok at, such as singing or playing the guitar. But it never came naturally.

So now I find myself in the position of being seen as something of an expert in gamification. This comes with the expectation that I will speak to people at events. First off, I feel privileged and very grateful for this. And, perversely, I actually really enjoy it. But, I don’t find it easy.

Introducing Dave Rage, the Man in the Hat

That’s where a hat and Dave Rage come to the rescue.

If I am struggling with anxiety at an event, the hat goes on and I become Dave Rage. Dave Rage can walk on stage with rock music playing, arms raised and soaking up the applause. Dave Rage can confidently tell an audience of several hundred adults that they need to play more. On those days, Andrzej just wants to curl up into a ball and cry!

I recently had the honour of speaking at Gamification Europe. However, I was really struggling with anxiety at the time. Some noticed that on the first day when I wasn’t speaking, I didn’t wear “The Hat”. I kept to myself or with people that I consider friends in the industry. On the second day, where I was due to speak, “The Hat” was on my head all day and Dave Rage was mingling and networking like a pro.

The hat acts as a costume that allows me to become a character. What you see on stage is not usually just Andrzej, it is Andrzej and Dave Rage.

I don’t have to do this every time and I am not suffering from multiple personality disorder, but sometimes it is what gets me through.

If you have any kind of mental health issue, you have to find mechanisms that allow you to function from day to day. In my case, this includes needing to function in front of large groups of people.

My advice to those who have to speak in public and don’t want to create a character? Remember they are there to see you speak because you know something they don’t and they want to hear it!

What are your coping mechanisms? Do you create a character, or do you just try and face it head on?

 

The Importance of Definitions (and Why They Don’t Matter)

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Yep, paradoxical title alert!

Recently I got into a very interesting debate on LinkedIn about the definition of Gamification. Now, I have long had my definition of gamification, one that doesn’t stray too far from the closest thing we have to a “proper” definition.

  • Mine: The use of game design metaphors to create more game-like and engaging experiences.
  • Proper (From Deterding et al): The application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts

Whichever definition you follow or whomsoever you may ask in the industry, 9 times out of 10 you will get something along those lines. The core of most peoples definition revolves around the use of game “bits” to improve things that are not games. What they don’t often say is that it is creating a game.

There is a very important reason for this.

Expectations

One consistent complaint from people who don’t like gamified solutions, that they are not games, they were expecting a game. I had a professional reviewer review my book Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play who gave it 2 stars out of 5. Their complaint was “I thought it was going to teach me how to make a game”. This was despite spending an entire chapter at the start of the book explaining why gamification was not the same as making games!

If we could all agree that gamification is not about creating actual games, then we could avoid this sort of issue with people’s expectations. If they expect a gamified solution and not a game, they won’t be disappointed when they get a gamified solution!

When is A Digger Not A Digger?

The discussion on linked in was triggered by a silly meme I made that equated comparing games to gamification to comparing sports cars to diggers. They share similar DNA but have totally different purposes. The argument was that the purposes were contextual. If you race two diggers, did that not make them race cars? The answer is no, they are still diggers, they are just racing. Their intended purpose has not changed, just how they are being used. They were still built to be diggers, to move earth. The fact that someone raced them did not change their nature.

Taking that a little further, imagine a wall that you wish to put a screw into. All you have is a hammer. You can use the hammer to smash the screw into the wall and that may well work. Does that make the hammer a screwdriver? No! Imagine now that you have a knife, not a hammer. You could use the knife to actually screw the screw into the wall, as the tip of the blade might fit the screw head. Is the knife now a screwdriver? No, it is still a knife. If you took the knife into a workshop and cut chunks out of it, and refashioned it into a screwdriver – then you have redesigned and repurposed it into a proper screwdriver. It has been physically transformed into something new.

The thing we suffer from with gamification is that many people don’t feel it has been properly defined. But really, it has. We all know it has, we just like to add our own spin to it. At the end of the day, it is almost defined by what it isn’t. Gamification is not the process of creating a game. The process of creating a game in a non-game context is the process of creating a serious game. But of course, that has some sticky points as well.

What Is Entertainment

Take a very well known game, Sid Meier’s masterpiece, Civilization. When this was created it was created to entertain people. That was it’s “designed intent”. Now, many people have played this game and have discovered that it is also a great teaching tool. You can learn about geography, history, politics, military strategy and more. So, it is a game that teaches you. Does that mean that it is actually a serious game? No! It is still an entertainment game, that can be used for non-entertainment purposes.

The flip-side would be the serious educational game, the Oregan Trail. This was created in 1985 to teach students the realities of life in 19th century America as a pioneer. It was designed to teach, but it is a very fun game to play. Does that make it an entertainment game? No! It’s designed intent was to teach, so it is a serious game focused on education. I have more on those differences in my Game Thinking pages

Why Does This Not Matter?

Ok, so as I have said, this does matter, of course it matters. If we can’t define things, how can we set expectations of what they will deliver? If we have no definition of what a table is, we could not complain when we buy a table and are handed a sofa!

In the world of gamification solution design, the definition should not define how we think about solving problems! The definition is there to give us the language we need to describe concepts. However, if we find a problem that needs a serious game, we build a serious game. If it requires a gameful interface, that’s what we do. We don’t turn to the client and say “Sorry sir, I think you are talking about serious games, I just do gamification, you know the process of not making games!” At least I hope none of you does!?

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