strategy

Strategy: A missing component in Gamification

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Chess 1488370945 Strategy A missing component in Gamification

One of the more common questions I get about gamification is “what is the difference between games and gamification”. I have spent lots of time writing about that exact issue, the Game Thinking pieces are my most concrete thoughts about the topic. However, just recently I was playing North vs South on the iPhone and was struck by a blindingly obvious part of games that seems to be missing from most if not all gamification.

Strategy.

Gamification is, in general, becoming much better implemented. The use of narrative, onboarding, intrinsic motivation, well thought out rewards and more. That said strategy does seem to be missing. What do I mean by strategy? Well, the need to plan and consider your actions to create the most desired or best possible outcome. On the surface, it doesn’t seem that gamification offers much opportunity to plan or consider what the consequences of certain actions might be. You just do what the system asks of you and get rewarded!

What if we change that a little though? What if the system gives you some choices, each one slightly different and each one offering different potential outcomes?  How about, instead of “do this action and get this reward”, we say “these are the actions you can do and these are the rewards”. Then we say “each reward has a benefit and can potentially unlock new options and benefits”. Now the user has to make decisions, work out what the best series of choices might be. If we also give them an outline of where certain choices may lead, they can start to plan what they want to achieve and how they might best be able to go about it.

When I was young, my father used to collect Texaco petrol stickers, similar in concept to the better known B.P. Sheild stamps. When you bought petrol at a Texaco garage, you got some stickers to place on a card. There was a catalogue that had gifts you could save up for, mugs, pen knives, that sort of thing. We would plan what we wanted next and how many visits to the petrol station that would take We would deliberately make sure that Texaco stations were one any route we might take so that we could fill up there rather than at any other petrol station. There was a simple strategy in place because we could see what we wanted and how best to get it. This is nothing unique, it is simply a loyalty scheme and in itself had no built in strategy, it was us who added it. It was emergent gameplay if you will.

We should aim to build this into the game, but importantly it should also be related to challenges and consequences. There is no point creating a strategy when every option leads to the exact same outcome – remember my article on creating choice architecture and fake freedom?

Strategy is an essential element of games, so we should be trying to make it an essential element of gamification – this is why it has just been added to my list of gamification mechanics and elements and will be in the updated Gamification Inspiration Cards.

How are you making use of strategy in your gamification programs? Let me know below 🙂

Gamification as a Strategy

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The world loves a good aaS. Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, Cloud as a Service. Everything these days seems to be “as a Service”. That means, of course, that Gamification platform providers have started to speak about Gamification as a Service. Now, there is nothing wrong with this, though I do find … Read more

Gamification is sh1t. Let’s make it better.

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I thought that might get your attention. Excuse the contrived use of the 1 in shit there as well, firewalls can be so jumpy about certain words.

Now back to my point.

Gamification, in far too many cases right now,  is indeed shit. I am not saying gamification itself is bad, just a lot of the uses and applications of gamification that we are seeing out there falls into that particularly odorous category.

It’s as if gamification has become the duct tape of user design. “The user experience is a bit off, what should we do? Add gamification”. “The system is not great, people get stuck and don’t like using it, what should we do? Add gamification – points and badges will fix it!”. “We need to improve efficiency in the department. How can we do that? A leaderboard you say? Let’s do it!”

Rather than using gamification as part of the overall design, to help enrich the user journey and experience, it is used to patch bad design – making it ultimately worse. Gamification is not a solution looking for a problem, it is a way of thinking and designing that puts the user at the centre of the experience. If it is not done this way it will fail and fail in terrible ways!

We can make this better and here are a few ways you can start.

Think RAMP.

  1. Give people the chance to work together – relatedness. Make them feel part of something. Collaboration should be your first thought, not competition. Use the technologies available to connect people beyond their usual working set – there is no such thing as a global boundary these days.
  2. Give them autonomy, freedom to make mistakes and to find the best way for them to work. Your way is not their way and your game is not their game! Celebrate differences as given some time and some freedom, you may find others have much better ideas than you. Don’t be afraid to loosen the reigns a little.
  3. What ever gamification you decide to use, make sure that it gives people a real sense that their achievements mean something. I don’t mean achievements like trophies, I mean real achievements. Celebrate new products, innovative ideas, academic achievement, losing weight, running an extra mile. Make them feel that these achievements meant something to you as much as it meant something to them.
  4. What ever you are trying to achieve with your system, think about why the user would be interested – what is their purpose within it. Every machine runs because every part does its job efficiently and effectively – no matter how small.  Give everyone a sense of where they fit and how important they are to the overall success. Give them an idea of what they are working towards and milestones to help the gauge how close they are.
  5. If you have to use rewards or incentives (and really you should not have to), make them relevant and in line with the task and the people. An iPad may be a nice prize for a member of your team, not too expensive, but something they may want. However, if you are looking at a more global group – an iPad could be much more valuable to people in some countries than others. If the prize is too big in comparison to the task, people will game the system to get it. Remember over justification – you want people doing something because they want to do well at it – not just because they want the prize.
  6. Make it clear how success is measured and fed back to the users. There is nothing worse than suddenly finding you had achieved something, but have no idea how you did it. Actually, there is one thing worse – finding someone has achieved something you think you should have achieved and having no idea how they did it or how the scoring worked!
  7. It’s not about fun and games. Don’t just think you can add what you think is fun or build what you think is a game and it will suddenly solve all of your engagement issues. Test things with your potential users and hire people or companies that know what they are doing. Unless you are an expert in gamification or you have the flexibility to fail – let the experts do it.
  8. Finally and most importantly – honesty and transparency. You are trying to make things better. Clouding your purpose and trying to trick people into doing things is not the right way and is destined to fail.

Don’t prove the haters right. gamification is not a bullshit concept – it is great but needs to mature and be treated with care.

 

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