Points don’t
make it a game!
Points don’t make it a game.

James
(I was
standing
here)
Hi, I’m James Everett

Game Designer
I’m a game designer

Gamification
and I’m here to discuss the current hype machine that is “Gamification”

Using “game mechanics”
in non-game contexts to
drive user engagement.
Gamification is using tools from game design in non-game websites, services, or products
more fun and engaging.

Extrinsic Rewards
Games can be powerful, but the applications we’re seeing are almost always extrinsic
motivators. They are simple feedback mechanisms on top of simple tasks. This has led many
observers to argue that gamification should more accurately be called Pointsification,
Badgification, or Exploitationware, and a few other less kind names.
http://www.bogost.com/writing/exploitationware.shtml

Extrinsic Rewards
• Pointsification
Games can be powerful, but the applications we’re seeing are almost always extrinsic
motivators. They are simple feedback mechanisms on top of simple tasks. This has led many
observers to argue that gamification should more accurately be called Pointsification,
Badgification, or Exploitationware, and a few other less kind names.
http://www.bogost.com/writing/exploitationware.shtml

Extrinsic Rewards
• Pointsification
• Badgification
Games can be powerful, but the applications we’re seeing are almost always extrinsic
motivators. They are simple feedback mechanisms on top of simple tasks. This has led many
observers to argue that gamification should more accurately be called Pointsification,
Badgification, or Exploitationware, and a few other less kind names.
http://www.bogost.com/writing/exploitationware.shtml

Extrinsic Rewards
• Pointsification
• Badgification
• Exploitationware
Games can be powerful, but the applications we’re seeing are almost always extrinsic
motivators. They are simple feedback mechanisms on top of simple tasks. This has led many
observers to argue that gamification should more accurately be called Pointsification,
Badgification, or Exploitationware, and a few other less kind names.
http://www.bogost.com/writing/exploitationware.shtml

Get critical and
constructive
I’d like to discuss why gamification is seen this way by many in the game development
community, and provide you with some tools to critically evaluate what is on offer around the
web.

Who are you?
So before I tackle this head on, who are you folks? How many of you are web designers?
Developers? Game developers? Service designers? UX? And how many of you have heard the
term gamification?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcobellucci/3534516458/

Awesome
It was a great spread of people.

Game Designer?
To give you some context for where I’m coming from, I think it’s important that I clarify what
a game designer actually does.

Not art/animation
We don't create the beautiful visuals you see on screen.

Not code
And I don't write the code that makes it all work.

Game designers focus on the player experience, defining what the game is. Everything from
the core rules of the game, like rock beats scissors, to high level direction like what is the
player’s ultimate goal?
http://jbc07050.blogspot.com/2010/07/rps-rules.html

Gamification?
So if that’s what game designers do, and we love games, and feel confident that games can
make the world a better place, why does this term worry us? Supposedly gamification is the
application of our game design principles to non-game products, services, or apps.

Great!
Game designers have been hoping the outside world would notice that we have a bunch of
interesting tools which might make their services more useful. In particular there are fields
like education where we think game design could offer compelling tools for students and
teachers.

“...gamification is the
high fructose corn
syrup of engagement.”
-Kathy Sierra
But instead we are seeing a glut of gamification approaches which take the most shallow
aspects of games and layer them over top
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/04/gamification-purpose-marketing.html#comments

HFCS sugarbomb
Gamification that takes the sugary bit of games, the points and reward systems, and
completely ignores the nutritional value of the underlying systems of play can’t provide long
term nourishment.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boeke/267530310/

+1
This plus-one mentality has been applied to all kinds of activities.
Many gamification approaches are much the same. They focus on giving users a quick hit of
something sweet, like points or badges, to get them to consume more of the service.

Location checkin
check in at a location! Points!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marte68/118256781/

Location checkin
+1
check in at a location! Points!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marte68/118256781/

forum post
Make a forum post? Points!

+1
forum post
Make a forum post? Points!

Mundane task
Do mundane task X? POINTS!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spike55151/2883114571/

+1!
Mundane task
Do mundane task X? POINTS!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spike55151/2883114571/

Raw extrinsic
motivator
What do all of these things have in common? They are raw extrinsic motivators. Points by
themselves have absolutely no value. Points only mean something if they reflect meaningful
actions taken by the player.

Space invaders high
score
Your high score in PacMan is interesting because it expresses a mastery over the system that
you accomplished and other players can recognize. This yard stick measures your
competitiveness with the game and other players.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkeymanforever/5688396398

Intrinsic motivations
Intrinsic motivations are those things which we do because we enjoy the activity itself.
Snowboarding, or painting, or a good game of chess if you're so inclined, are activities which
we enjoy because we know what greatness looks like, and we can work towards it. We are
constantly challenged by attempting something new, and so long as we can make measurable
progress toward greatness we are learning. And while we are learning, we're having fun.

This is the genius of games, and a major reason why people love them. Games provide clear
direction, goals, and consistent feedback to tell you how far you have progressed toward
those goals.

“Fun is just another
word for learning.”
-Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun
Raph Koster is a game designer who wrote the brilliant A Theory of Fun, which I would highly
recommend to everyone here. Raph says "fun is just another word for learning"
and he goes into great detail about how games scratch that learning itch. At the end of the
day, games make us better at something.

CoD
Now that something might be very fine hand eye motor coordination, like shooting in Call of
Duty,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/metamidia/4115550082

WoW
or it might be the battlefield management of twenty other individuals with diverse skill sets
under unrelenting time pressure in World of Warcraft. But because we're constantly
challenged we keep learning and we keep coming back. http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/
226464870/

10,000!
We're not coming back because my score went ding over 10,000 points.

Interesting Challenges
Interesting challenges.

Edward L Deci
Alfie Kohn
Extrinsic motivation relies solely on the ding. It's an If-Then reward system. If you do X, I will
give you Y. There is a bunch of research out there to highlight why that is an unsustainable
practice, and you've probably heard of Pink, Deci, and others' research. People begin to
associate the task only with the reward.

Bored by Reward
bored by reward - They're no longer doing the activity because they want to do it, they're
doing it for the reward. And if the reward ceases to be sufficiently compelling they will
abandon the task. There is a compelling body of evidence that many tasks are actually
negatively impacted by extrinsic rewards.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scragz/91147636/

Foursquare
How many of you have tried foursquare? OK keep your hands up please. How many of you are
still regularly checking in to locations?

Foursquare is a good example of an extrinsic reward system. When you visit a place, you
check in. There is no gameplay in checking in, you simply click a button and decide whether
to share that checkin with various social networking services. No real harm there, but no
challenge either. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gumption/4395362941

Foursquare rewards
After you have checked in at some specified number or type of locations, you will be awarded
with a badge for your accomplishment. So you did nothing, and you received nothing but a
virtual token indicating your travels. And then you got put on a leaderboard, with a bunch of
other people who happened to go to the same location as you. As you can see from my
entirely non-scientific poll of the audience, that doesn't really stick long term.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/superamit/3724330161/

What do you use
Foursquare for?
Of the people who said they're still checking in, who has been using Foursquare for more
than six months and you're still checking in? What are you using it for?
* keeping track of where I've been
* rewards which outweigh the mundane repetition of checking in
* sharing my current position with others for some reason
* curation
* competition

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic
So, to recap, intrinsic motivation is performing an activity because we derive some value or
pleasure from the activity itself. Extrinsic motivations encourage us to perform an activity
with the promise of a reward. Both of these types of motivation have their place.

Extrinsic motivation is often useful for routine tasks which must be performed on a
consistent schedule. Given no other flexibility in the system, no way to see an improvement
past a fixed maximum, knowing that there is some reward attached to that activity may keep
you doing it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whsimages/998243013

World of Warcraft
progression
In games we often use extrinsic rewards as feedback to keep our players informed as to their
progress. We use experience points and skill progression to unlock new abilities after they
have mastered one set. For example in World of Warcraft you receive experience points for
every monster you slay and quest you complete. When you've accumulated enough
experience points, you go up a level. When you go up a level you get to enhance one of your
character's abilities, or unlock a new one.

Reward based on Skill
The extrinsic reward, the point system and even the unlocking of new abilities, is completely
dependent upon the core mechanics of the game. In this case it's carefully juggling the
resources of health, abilities, and magic, and prioritizing which abilities to use on which
enemies or allies in the heat of battle.

And knowing when to run screaming for the hills.
http://www.mmorpg.com/photo/f516cb62-46e4-48fe-97d5-d245c77b467b

Intrinsic + Extrinsic
combo
In video games we often take these combinations of great intrinsic motivators, our core
gameplay, and the right dash of extrinsic motivators, experience points and loot, and use
them hand in hand to keep our players challenged and interested.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Who is familiar with this name, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi?

High
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Excellent, so most of you are familiar with his theory of how a flow state is created: if
someone is challenged enough that they are not bored, but not challenged to the point of
frustration they can make consistent progress and they remain engaged.

High
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Excellent, so most of you are familiar with his theory of how a flow state is created: if
someone is challenged enough that they are not bored, but not challenged to the point of
frustration they can make consistent progress and they remain engaged.

High
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Excellent, so most of you are familiar with his theory of how a flow state is created: if
someone is challenged enough that they are not bored, but not challenged to the point of
frustration they can make consistent progress and they remain engaged.

High
w
Flo
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Well balanced games, like WoW, do this to create a sublime flow. In WoW you start off able to
kill simple monsters in small groups, the novelty engages you and you're taught the basic
principles of the game.
Just as you're starting to get used to that and you might be drifting toward boredom, the
enemy groups get larger and you have to work harder to stay alive. As you kill more monsters
you are rewarded with experience points to indicate your character's growth, money which
can be used to buy new gear, and sometimes they even drop useful weapons. These rewards
provide feedback to the player that they are making progress and also smooth out that ramp
toward challenge and anxiety.

High
w
Flo
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Well balanced games, like WoW, do this to create a sublime flow. In WoW you start off able to
kill simple monsters in small groups, the novelty engages you and you're taught the basic
principles of the game.
Just as you're starting to get used to that and you might be drifting toward boredom, the
enemy groups get larger and you have to work harder to stay alive. As you kill more monsters
you are rewarded with experience points to indicate your character's growth, money which
can be used to buy new gear, and sometimes they even drop useful weapons. These rewards
provide feedback to the player that they are making progress and also smooth out that ramp
toward challenge and anxiety.

High
w
Flo
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Well balanced games, like WoW, do this to create a sublime flow. In WoW you start off able to
kill simple monsters in small groups, the novelty engages you and you're taught the basic
principles of the game.
Just as you're starting to get used to that and you might be drifting toward boredom, the
enemy groups get larger and you have to work harder to stay alive. As you kill more monsters
you are rewarded with experience points to indicate your character's growth, money which
can be used to buy new gear, and sometimes they even drop useful weapons. These rewards
provide feedback to the player that they are making progress and also smooth out that ramp
toward challenge and anxiety.

High
w
Flo
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Well balanced games, like WoW, do this to create a sublime flow. In WoW you start off able to
kill simple monsters in small groups, the novelty engages you and you're taught the basic
principles of the game.
Just as you're starting to get used to that and you might be drifting toward boredom, the
enemy groups get larger and you have to work harder to stay alive. As you kill more monsters
you are rewarded with experience points to indicate your character's growth, money which
can be used to buy new gear, and sometimes they even drop useful weapons. These rewards
provide feedback to the player that they are making progress and also smooth out that ramp
toward challenge and anxiety.

High
w
Flo
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Well balanced games, like WoW, do this to create a sublime flow. In WoW you start off able to
kill simple monsters in small groups, the novelty engages you and you're taught the basic
principles of the game.
Just as you're starting to get used to that and you might be drifting toward boredom, the
enemy groups get larger and you have to work harder to stay alive. As you kill more monsters
you are rewarded with experience points to indicate your character's growth, money which
can be used to buy new gear, and sometimes they even drop useful weapons. These rewards
provide feedback to the player that they are making progress and also smooth out that ramp
toward challenge and anxiety.

High
w
Flo
Anxiety
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
Just as the monster groups start to feel really tough and you're edging up towards the game
being too hard, those experience points you've been collecting accumulate enough to award
you a new level. With this new level you are awarded an increased amount of health and
mana, making it easier for you to survive, and you can also improve or unlock an ability.
These new tools make the monsters you were just cursing that much easier to defeat, and the
cycle begins again.

High
w
Anxiety
Flo
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
If a new player was dumped in around the level 20 mark of WoW they would be torn to bits.
Even given a character that has accumulated the same number of experience points, the
same gear, and the same spells they would not have the skills to have fun playing the game.
They would quit.

High
w
Anxiety
Flo
Challenge
Boredom
Low
Low High
Skill/Time
If a new player was dumped in around the level 20 mark of WoW they would be torn to bits.
Even given a character that has accumulated the same number of experience points, the
same gear, and the same spells they would not have the skills to have fun playing the game.
They would quit.

Shiny armour
An experienced WoW player has developed a set of tactical and time management skills by
expending great effort in the pursuit of this game. The awesome was not the shinier armour,
or the better spells, or the gold dropped that kept them playing. Those were simply tools
which enabled them to push up against increasingly brutal odds. It was the process of
learning how to overcome those challenges which made the game fun.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicolelee/154701422/

Points != Game
This is why game designers are so concerned about gamification: We only put points on
something when it's already interesting. Points are a granular feedback mechanism, they are
*not* the game.

It’s here.
If you're building apps, or websites, or services chances are you've encountered the term
gamification already. Perhaps you're already working on gamifying your project in some way.
If you haven't you're either going to consider, or be asked by a client, to try gamifying your
project.

Playful design is
awesome
I have to stress, I don't think applying gameplay, or playful design, to non-game projects is a
bad idea. I believe there are a myriad of useful ways to apply game design outside of the
sphere of games, and hopefully a couple of examples that I share today will spark your
imagination.

RED
FLAGS
However, there are a couple of buzzwords associated with gamification which I consider Red
Flags and would urge you to examine carefully when they come your way.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rvw/116017204

Game Mechanics
Many gamification proponents claim they're applying game mechanics to non-game designs.

Game Mechanics?
• Points
• Achievements
They're doing it wrong. Points and achievements are feedback mechanisms. Important in
games, but not the mechanics of the game.

Game Mechanics?
• Points
• Achievements
They're doing it wrong. Points and achievements are feedback mechanisms. Important in
games, but not the mechanics of the game.

Game Mechanics?
• Loss Aversion
• Ownership
• Reward Schedules
These three are psychological responses to the outcomes of game mechanics, not mechanics
themselves!

Game Mechanics?
• Loss Aversion
• Ownership
• Reward Schedules
These three are psychological responses to the outcomes of game mechanics, not mechanics
themselves!

Game Mechanics!
Game mechanics are the interactions and relationships from which the game is derived.
Regardless of the visual style, the story, or the technology in use, game mechanics are the
heart of games which generate play.

Misused Terminology
This is anther example of why gamification is getting game designer's hackles right up. We've
struggled a long time to develop a shared language around game design, and we're still
working at it, so when somebody gleefully takes our terminology and misapplies it, it rankles
a bit. Game Mechanics are things like

Space
Space

Chess board
The space the game takes place in - a chess board or a
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grantmac/3444059922/

Halo Map
Halo map

Actions
Actions

Mario jump
Actions the player can take, like jumping

or moving stealthily to avoid detection

Rules
The rules of the game - Rules are the most fundamental type of game mechanic, and they are
the one least employed in gamification endeavours.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevandotorg/4690356703/

We’re always building on the shoulders of giants
http://wordpress.morningside.edu/cdl001/rpsls/

Turnkey Gamification
Gamification service providers with turnkey APIs are suspect in the mechanics department. In
the example of WoW the rewards of experience points and loot were directly tied to the core
activity of the game, combat. How XP is doled out for each monster killed is finely tuned to
the actions of the player

World of Wikipedia
You could not take the reward mechanics of WoW and drop them onto Wikipedia and
suddenly get World of Wikipedia. You would have to rework the entire structure of content
creation and curation on Wikipedia to have a hope of it being anything other than an
unmitigated disaster.

World of Wikipedia
You could not take the reward mechanics of WoW and drop them onto Wikipedia and
suddenly get World of Wikipedia. You would have to rework the entire structure of content
creation and curation on Wikipedia to have a hope of it being anything other than an
unmitigated disaster.

If you’re not already
interesting, badges
won’t help
Services which offer ways to add badges easily to your website are taking the most superficial
element of games and slapping them over the top. If you have not built for play from the very
start, these rewards will be next to useless.

Exclusively extrinsic =
ticking time bomb
Without a solid base of game mechanics or intrinsically fulfilling activities the rewards will be
exposed for what they are and users will abandon them. What's worse they could backfire on
you completely!

Bartle’s Player Types
Prof. Bartle defined four key aspects of players in Virtual Worlds back in 1996. His research
has since been extended by himself and others to include many more types, but we’ll review
the basics here as they get quoted regularly in gamification material.

Achievers
Achievers focus on collecting as many “points” as the in-game goals will give them.

Explorers
Explorers want to discover the entirety of the virtual world.

Socializers
Socializers want to converse with others and role-play.

Killers
Killers are there to defeat other players.

Acting
KILLERS ACHIEVERS
Players World
SOCIALIZERS EXPLORERS
Interacting
Typical gamification applies only to Achievers

Use these as a lens at
the beginning of a
project, not the end
If you’re interested in Bartle’s work, and I recommend it, it’s well written interesting stuff, I
would suggest that you look to it at the beginning of a project. I also recommend you take
the time to explore it as it is commonly and incorrectly cited in gamification circles. When
somebody says “player types” look carefully at how they’re using them.
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

Tools from
Game Design
I think we have some very valuable tools in game design that you may find useful if they align
with what you are building. I'd like to share a few of those with you today. I can't give them
all the time they deserve, but I hope they can serve as starting points for your own research
and I'm happy to talk about them afterwards. (This bit of NXNEi was crazy busy and many off
the cuff discussions happen afterward which I unfortunately have no notes on.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stasiland/467444438

1. Goals and Feedback
Games are very good at setting goals for our players and providing them constant feedback
on their progress toward that goal.

Short & Long term
finish the level, upgrade your skills, Save the galaxy

Sometimes we splash it across the objective.

Sometimes we start you with one clear image to get the goal across.

Feedback on
progress
progress bars, visual cues, keeping it all front and centre

Quests!
Quests for structured progression.

Juicy interactions are ones which are highly responsive to player input and provide immediate
feedback on the effect of that input.

2. Juicy Interactions
Juicy interactions are ones which are highly responsive to player input and provide immediate
feedback on the effect of that input.

http://benheck.com
Good games go to great lengths to ensure that they are responsive at the fundamental level
of input. This is a controller built by Ben Heck which lights up an LED the instant a button is
pressed. Game designers will hook one of these up to their game and then record video of
the LED board and the game on a TV screen and count how many frames it takes for inputs to
take effect.

I believe the term “juice” was first used by Kyle Gabler and his cohorts from 2D Boy. This is
2D Boy’s World of Goo, one of the juiciest games ever created.

3. Tutorials
Teaching players the rules and tools of our games is an ongoing challenge. If you look at
most games they will contain some kind of tutorial mechanism to guide players through the
early stages.

Bad tutorials
Bad tutorials happen all the time and you won’t have to go far to find examples. They are
dictated to the player through walls of text or a dozen images filled with instructions and
rules. Players are expected to absorb all of this information and then try to remember it while
encountering the game for the first time.

Good tutorials present their material as part of the game, teaching through the actual loop of
play. This example from Plants vs. Zombies is simple, yet highly effective. Each step is taken
in turn and by the time the tutorial is complete the player is already well into the first level.

Recap
• If Gamification = Pointsification, it’s doomed
• If asked to gamify, consider your audience
and goals
• Look to games for tools and see if they can
improve your project, might not be
appropriate!
• Make interactions welcoming and juicy :)
• Provide feedback
Recap

Go forth and play
I urge you to embrace gameful and playful design. Examine what the world of game design
might be able to offer you.

Hype curve
But please be skeptical of the current wave of gamification hype. This is a massively complex
issue, and it can't be resolved in just 45 minutes by one game designer.

Hype curve
But please be skeptical of the current wave of gamification hype. This is a massively complex
issue, and it can't be resolved in just 45 minutes by one game designer.

While I see lots to be concerned about in the way marketing is approaching gamification, like
this thing for Coke, I also see great examples which use some of the tools of game design for
progress.

This is the lesson progression tree for the Khan Academy, where you can learn all kinds of
useful stuff. They’re using some of the simple techniques we’ve already discussed, building
in progression and showing you where you can end up by building on each lesson.

Interesting similarities.

Thank you
www.brainofjames.com
@jamese

Further reading
• Jesse Schell - The Art of Game Design
http://artofgamedesign.com/
• Sebastian Deterding http://codingconduct.cc/
• Amy Jo Kim http://www.slideshare.net/amyjokim/
• Nicole Lazzaro
http://www.slideshare.net/NicoleLazzaro
• Raph Koster - Theory of Fun
http://www.raphkoster.com/
www.brainofjames.com
http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/02/28/gdc11-slides-for-social-mechanics-talk/