Gamification

User Types in Gamification – Part 2: Players and Balance

by
User Types Intrinsic User Types in Gamification 8211 Part 2 Players and Balance

This is here for interest only now – User Types 2.0 is where it is a now!!

Last week I started to explore my ideas about the different types of users there are likely to be in a gamified system. I have had loads of feedback, mostly very positive. Thanks for that. One question that keeps coming up is “what about the Player user type”? “There must be more too it!”. The answer is, of course, yes. There is a lot more.

What I explored last week was really just the intrinsically motivated types of users. Those doing things for purely self related reasons. Helping others, because it makes them feel good. Learning because they want to and enjoy the experience. Creating content that they feel will add to the greater meaning of a system. Read More ...

Different Types of Users in Gamification

by

There is rather an important update at the end after Richard Bartle offered me some advice!

It had to happen eventually. I had to look at some kind of “player type” theory.  Many people have one, Richard Bartle probably having the most famous and most abused of the player type theories out there.

What’s it all about Richard?

For those that don’t know, Richard Bartle labelled players as one of four types to help him understand how they interacted with each other and their environments in MMO games (Massively Multiplayer Online). The labels he used initially were; Read More ...

Gamification a Little on Leaderboards

by

Leaderboards are an effective way to show a user quickly where they currently stand within a gamified system. A fun example is the Gamification Gurus leaderboard from the company Leaderboarded. Each month they release an update that shows  who has been active in the gamification world that month.  It is a great example of a leaderboard being used in isolation – without all of the points and badges that are often associated with simple gamification.

Many blogs and websites these days make use of a comment system called Disqus to manage their comments.  It has a few plug-ins that you can easily add to your site if you are using it for comments. One is a Top Commenter’s box. If you look at my blog, you should see it in the side bar. It shows people, at a glance, who is posting the most comments on your pages. Read More ...

Game Mechanics in Gamification

by

This is a long post for me, so get a cup of tea now!

One of the main things that I have found whilst research and writing about Gamification, is that the terms and the language we use don’t always seem to fit what were actually doing. As gamification matures, so to should the language that we use to discuss it. One term that seems to get particularly abused, which we have borrowed from game design, is Game Mechanics. This all came from various discussions I had been having with people in the games industry.  All of them told me that they felt that most people in gamification are getting this (and more) wrong. Read More ...

Feedback and Drivers in Gamification

by

I spoke about rewards and reward schedules a couple of weeks ago, now I want to look at feedback.  If I am honest, this will repeat ideas I have mentioned before, but is should give a little more meat and context.

Feedback comes in many forms, not all of them as obvious as we may think. It is also vital to any gamified system that feedback exists. It helps user keep track of how they are progressing, how they are “doing” within the system.  One of the complaints about the “real” world is that feedback is often very slow. End of year reviews, report cards, midterm exams.  In the game world, we are used to constant and instant feedback.  Collect something and you are notified immediate.  Complete a level and you are told, gain experience and you are notified.  All of this happens straight away, no waiting around months and months to understand how you have done.  In call of duty, you don’t have to wait until the end of the month to find out how you have performed in the last 20 matches.  You are told constantly during the match and they you are given a summary of achievements at the end. Read More ...

Exit mobile version