Game Dynamics Archives - Page 2 Of 3 - Gamified UK

Rewarding Failure – Can It Work In Gamification?

June 18, 2012 by Andrzej Marczewski

914483 54526013 Rewarding Failure 8211 Can It Work In Gamification

In a lot of posts, I talk about rewards. My last post discussed the potential dangers of extrinsic rewards when used to try to motivate intrinsic behaviour. So I imagine that most of you think that rewarding failure is a bit of a no brainer. No way. Why would anyone reward anyone for failure?

Banks Do It

A good example this kind of reward can be seen in bonus culture. Think of all of the bankers who were blamed for the recent collapses. Many were quoted as being shocked at the idea that they may not get their bonuses. Bonuses in the banking business are expected. They are used to ensure that people stay in their role. The fact that they failed horribly is irrelevant. They were still rewarded for failure. If that is the case, how do you motivate success?

Kids Do It

I was at the birthday party of one of my daughters friends (five years old). We were doing musical statues with them. Now. At some point in the eighties, the UK ruling party decided that competition in children is bad. It promoted elitism and made children feel left out and demotivated of they lost. To this day we are still feeling this effect. In our game of musical statues, every player got a bag of sweets if they lost. They were rewarded for losing at the game. The idea is that by giving them this small consolation prize, they would not feel down and would be willing to play later. The interesting thing was, quite a few didn’t want the main prize, they just wanted the sweets. So, they joined the game and immediately tried to lose just so try could have the sweets! Rewarding failure actually motivated them to fail! Why go through the effort of trying to win if they only wanted sweets and not the winner’s prize?

Games Do It

The question is, can rewarding failure ever help to motivate success?

When you look at games this is often used to encourage the player to keep going. For instance, you may go bankrupt in a management sim for the first time. The game offers to give you a loan to get you back on your feet. This then give you a little boost that keeps you playing. You are motivated and able to continue.

Can You Do It?

This only works if the end prize is substantially better than the reward given after failure. The reason the examples I have use above fail, especially with the children’s game, is because the prize for succeeding is not all that much more interesting than the prize for winning. Mixed with the amount of effort it takes to play and win, losing is actually the easiest way to get something you want. The other thing to consider is that when using gifts and rewards for failure, you can’t just keep giving them. In our imaginary management sim, if the player is constantly saved by the game, they will quickly tire as there is no longer any challenge. You have to use it sparingly to make the user feel that winning is still important.

As with all things Gamification related, it comes down to execution.

Thanks, a little housekeeping and other stuff.

January 21, 2016June 16, 2012 by Andrzej Marczewski

Hello all. First of all, thank you so much for making this blog (and its syndication’s) way more successful than I had ever imagined! I would never have thought that people would be interested in what I have to say, so thank you.

This is all a big learning adventure for me, one that I am enjoying greatly. It has also opened up some amazing opportunities!

Facebook

A little house keeping. I have started a Facebook Page about gamification – Gamification World

The idea is to post my blogs up there, but also for it to collect articles I like and tweets I have seen that I think may be interesting to all those of you who love a bit of Gamification. Head over and Like the page if you could 🙂

Gamified Blog

Something else I have been thinking about is gamifying the blog. Thinking of quests rather than badges of course. Just something for a bit of fun, maybe help you explore the site. Any ideas?

My Book(let)

Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of my Book – Gamification: A Simple Introduction , if you have bought it and enjoyed it, I would love for a few reviews – no pressure though 😛 There are plans to do s a slightly more detailed follow up, but that may be some time away!

Those that made it possible

Lastly a couple of links to posts that I have done as a guest on other blogs – sort of a thank you for those opportunities.

Most recent is on Gamified Enterprise – Is Gamification in the Workplace just a Fad

Next is a post I did for the company I work for, Capgemini – Gamification for your company

Finally, my first ever guest post at OsakaBentures Motivation and Engagement

All of these articles are very similar, they were all written for different audiences though and at different stages of my understanding!

Shoutouts

Shoutouts have to go to a few twitter supporters as well. Saul Fleischman Scott Sincalair Guy Stephens Nyk Loates and so many more. Follow my twitter list on Gamification to see even more great people in this area.

Final thanks to Dr Jo Twist, Mark Sorrell and Paul Bennun who recently helped me find the words and research to articulate some of my ideas!

Stay Connected

Stay tuned for more, make friends with me on Facebook, say hi on Google+ or connect with LinkedIn and Twitter. I am always looking to bounce thoughts off as many people as possible!!!

Gamification: Why Badges can be Bad – Really Bad

December 16, 2012June 7, 2012 by Andrzej Marczewski

487145 79884958 Gamification Why Badges can be Bad 8211 Really Bad

Last week I got to go to the Digital Shoreditch Play event. It was a wonderful day, listening to games developers, designers, experts and Gamification gurus all with amazing tales to tell from the coal face of the industry.

The audience there were of similar calibre , most being experts in their respective fields. It was talking to a few of these people that really got me thinking. You see, within certain circles, Gamification is almost a swear word. After a little digging I discovered what the real issue was. You see I thought it was some kind of clique that was in place. “Games are ours, business can’t have them”. But actually it was more than that. It was born of a deeper understanding of the psychology of what is know as “extrinsic rewards for intrinsic motivation”. Their objection was not to the use of gamification, but to the generalized poorly conceived usage that is being used and promoted by many.

But What Does it Mean?

Still, it took me a bit of time and research to figure out what exactly was wrong. It turns out it is a similar objection to something I have been banging on about for ages. Badges are not the only or even a good way to motivate people. Taking an external, almost unrelated reward and then using it as a way to motivate people to complete tasks is actually counter productive, especially when the task is not by it’s nature fun. People begin to do the task to get the reward. If I gave you a pound for every line of data you entered, you would only enter data if you got a pound. As soon as the pound was gone, you would stop. The love of the reward takes over from the need to do the task.

When you look at badges, this is even more pronounced. By their nature, badges are useless. They are pixels on a screen that mean nothing without proper context.

The second part of this to consider is that people do not like to think they are being controlled or manipulated. If they feel you are trying to “trick” them into working by offering extrinsic rewards, they will stop – they won’t play your game. The argument I have heard is that badges have worked for the Scouts for decades. The army invented badges and seem to have done all right. However (and I have used this argument in the past), this totally misses the point.

Scouting for the Answer

The Scouts get badges to show they have acheived something that took skill to accomplish. It is informative to them, a sort of fabric pat on the back. It also shows others that they have done something, helping to bolster the pride they felt at completing the task. The other factor is that most of the badges are fun to get. If they were not, then Scouts would not do the activities. They are not driven by the collection of the badges, the are driven by the related activities. With the army, the badges are symbols of great achievement and status. They show others that this person has done something to be proud of or that they are a higher rank. It is a symbol of pride. In this case, the activity may not have been fun – but again, the badge is there to be informative. They did not do the task to get the badge. They had to do the task, the badge just shows others that they did it and did it well.

You can’t polish a turd

So, how can we make use of badges when looking at gamification. Should we use them? I still think they have a place. They can add some benefit and motivation if used well. They should not be used as the sole motivator for achieving a task – that is a given. They should be used to re-enforce other motivators – as a digital pat on the back after the event. If people think that the only reason they are doing a task is to earn the badge, they will quickly tire of it and stop. If they get a badge that just says – “hey well done, you are great” at a seemingly random point in progress, then they will at least think “oh that’s nice”. It won’t alter their motivation, but at least it made them smile and they can show it to others if they wish. On my review site, I use badges to congratulate people for certain activities that are done on the site. Eleven reviews gets them the Spinal Tap reward. Forty Two reviews gets them the Don’t Panic award. It is not a motivator, but it makes them smile and think – cool.

Gamification should not be about control. It is about motivation and engagement. If a task is boring, adding badges will not make it more interesting and may demotivate in the long term.

My Mum would say “You can’t polish a turd”.

Why not look into how you make the task more “fun” and use a little imagination!.

On a side note, I will be doing more research into this. I am fascinated by the psychology behind it all, so expect more on this topic.

Gamification: Rules Rule, but Shouldn’t Rule Everything.

October 5, 2012May 27, 2012 by Andrzej Marczewski

Rules rule Gamification Rules Rule but Shouldn 8217 t Rule Everything

Everything has rules. Life works because of rules. Rules have many names and forms. Laws of physics, algebra, logic, frameworks, instructions and more. Without rules you have chaos. That said, some scientists think even chaos has rules.

In games, rules are vital. However free and open a game may seem, there will be a deep set rules that cannot be broken. Be it the size of the map or the way physics work in the game. Minecraft is a good example. Seemingly you can do anything. However, you have to follow rules and instructions to gain that freedom. You have to mine and craft and create – all within the rules of the world around you.

Without some kind of rules in a game, how do you know who has won and who has lost. Chess without rules is just two people moving prices randomly on a board with no purpose. Even then, it is natural for humans to start to invent rules and play “properly” so they can gauge each other’s skills and pick a winner.

Children playing often look chaotic and lawless, but watch them closely and you will see that their play quickly produces rule sets. They may evolve rapidly during the game, but (and this is where I start scrambling for a point) they keep each other informed of the new rules as they make them up. It is when one of them makes up a secret rule that no one else knew that you start to get tears.

In Gamification the same is true. When you start to define the “game”, you need to build a framework and a rule set. This action is worth 1 point, but this more complex action is worth 5. Getting 100 points earns you this badge, 300 gets you another. If you don’t have at least the basics in place, how are people meant to know how to win? I would rather know that entering 500 lines of code into my gamified editor earns me a badge and 500 more earns another. If I am just randomly awarded points and badges, how do I benchmark my success and how am I motivated to do more. I may as well just wait for the next random award to just happen. (hindsight edit – Think of this as measure rather than achievement I am talking here about understanding my progress rather than striving to get more extrinsic rewards!)

That is not to say that surprises are bad. Sure, chuck in random awards – humans love surprise. They make things more exciting, let me choose what I earn next if you are using tangible rewards, but make sure that the basics are recorded and visible to all. That said, don’t be afraid to change the rules. Evolution is natural. Things often don’t work and need to change. Just make sure that users know what the changes are and how that may affect them.

The trouble is, the word rule conjures up images of overbearing teachers and creativity stifling jobs worth’s. Rules don’t have to stifle creative thinking. In some cases they can help, they let you forget about the simple things and concentrate on the important bits that require your attention. Make your rules flexible and this becomes even truer.

To break the rules you gotta know the rules, but maybe it is time we redefined the language we use to fit the true meaning as we see it?

Gamification: Seamless Integration

October 5, 2012May 12, 2012 by Andrzej Marczewski

Continuing on from last week’s headline grabbing “The Death of Gamification” post, I want to talk about another aspect of gamification that should be kept simple.

Integration.

In many cases, gamification is meant to add some kind of layer of engagement to a process and possibly even fun. What it is not meant to do is add extra effort for the end user. With that in mind, how you integrate it into your tasks or processes is critical.

If a user thinks that it is too much effort to play the game, they just won’t play. It should all be as seamless as possible.

Automate everything that can be automated. If it can’t be automated, do it in the back office without the user seeing it. In cases where the gamification layer actually needs input from the users, such as Quora or Yahoo Answers, it has to be as easy as possible and the rewards should definitely be automated!! At no point should the users feel like they have to go out of their way to be involved in the “game”. In the cases where user interaction is needed, be sure that the reward is worth it. Nothing is more likely to stop users interacting, than if they can get the same value reward by doing nothing! (Hindsight Edit – This applies to simple grinding tasks. If the user is intrinsically motivated, they will keep doing the task whatever extrinsic rewards there are.)

After all, for the most part, we are trying to make things more interesting, more engaging and more productive for everyone. If your integration makes it harder to achieve their task, it is hardly worth it.

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid!