CaptainUp is back on the blog

January 15, 2015January 15, 2015 by Andrzej Marczewski

I was recently contacted by the guys from CaptainUp (www.captainup.com). For those that don’t know, this is a free / affordable platform for gamifying websites and until recently I had been using it for about 2 years. Then I stopped and they were interested to know why. The main reason was how intrusive it was to my readers, with popups and flashes and the like distracting from the content.

So they asked if I was willing to try something – a package they wanted to test that was less invasive and focused more on just gently thanking my readers for their loyalty. So it is, CaptainUp is back on the blog – just slightly more low key. You get one popup asking you to join my little club. After that there is always a small bar at the bottom of the page that will let you join should you wish. There is a leaderboard as well. Badges can be earned for simple things such as liking and tweeting. There are a couple of missions as well (more to come). The first you should try is the Onboarding one. See the progress bar on the left of the page? Click it and it will show links I feel all my readers should have looked at to understand my content better Read More ...

Disruptor Superhero Archetypes!

January 26, 2015January 13, 2015 by Andrzej Marczewski

I love superheroes, I make no apology for that! A while back I did a post that compared my User Types to various superheroes and super-villains.

I thought it would be fun to do the same thing for the Disruptor sub-types. It has caused me some issues and I am not totally convinced by one of them, so I would love to see your comments or indeed conversation in the forums about how this could be improved. However, until then – here are the Disruptor Superhero Archetypes!

Magneto: He represents a bit of everything so is my choice for the overall Disruptor. He wants change, his way and will use any method possible to assure it! Read More ...

Exploring the Disruptor User Type

January 22, 2015January 9, 2015 by Andrzej Marczewski

As time passes and I learn more, I often re-evaluate my past blogs and ideas – none more-so than my User Types! Now, don’t panic, I am not about to release version 3 – the User Types Dodecagon. The purpose of this post is to just clarify my current thinking around the disruptor type, based on what I know now.

The basic idea is still the same. Disruptors disrupt a system in some way. This may be by acting on users or on the system itself. As with the Player type, the Disruptor type is a group rather than a single type. However, I don’t tend to go into the detail as the effect on your design is generally similar for all the variations of the type. Read More ...

4 essential Neurotransmitters in gamification

October 21, 2024January 5, 2015 by Andrzej Marczewski

In gamification, there is often a lot of mention of things like “Neuroscience”, “Neurochemistry”, “Neurotransmitters” or “Brain Chemistry”. In particular, you will hear people speak about neurotransmitters such as Dopamine.

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit signals around the brain. They all have different functions and have different effects on us. In this blog I am going to discuss 4; Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin and Endorphins (DOSE). Read More ...

Page Views for 2014 posts

1) Defining gamification – what do people really think?

Posted on April 16, 2014As many of you know, I recently took exception to a particular definition of gamification that was doing the rounds. However, the positive effect was to make me think about what it really means and also started to make me wonder what other people think of it. So, I asked them – I did a… More… Read More ...