1. Gamification
Features
4
FitCity
Paolo Massa
I3 - FBK
http://www.gnuband.org

2. Menu
1. I show gamification features
2. We decide which ones we will
use in FitCity project

3. “By 2020, anyone who ever used the
term ‘gamification’ will be embarrassed
to admit it.”
Alex Halavais, associate professor,
Quinnipiac University
The Future of Gamification. May 18, 2012. Pew Internet Report

4. “(Gamification)’s a modern-day form of
manipulation. And like all cognitive
manipulation, it can help people and it
can hurt people. And we will see both.”
danah boyd, researcher, Microsoft and
Harvard’s Berkman Center
The Future of Gamification. May 18, 2012. Pew Internet Report

5. Gamification is the use
of game mechanics in
non-game contexts in
order to engage users

7. THERE IS ALREADY ABUNDANCE OF CHOICES!!!!
http://www.slideshare.net/amyjokim/gamification-101-design-the-player-journey

8. Gamification Features (and related
research )
● Badges
● Virtual goods
● Quests/missions/challenges
● Points
● Levels
● Progress bar
● Onboarding tutorial (for new user)
● Leaderboard (global, local, social)

9. Warning: all gamification features
are extrinsic rewards
Hamari, Juho; Eranti, Veikko (2011).
"Framework for Designing and Evaluating Game
Achievements". Proceedings of Digra 2011
Conference: Think Design Play
Literature on intrinsic motivation would indeed
seem to doom expected extrinsic rewards as
detrimental to intrinsic motivation, via diminishing
the perceived autonomy of the individual to carry
out given activities (see e.g. Deci, Koester &
Ryan 1999 for a comprehensive meta-review of
intrinsic and extrinsic rewards)

10. Disclaimer
● Not a lot of research yet
(gamification is a new word ;)
● Workshop at CHI (Conference on
Human-computer Interaction) 2012
● Workshop at CHI 2013
● Some books (reality is broken,
gamification by design)

11. Badges … nothing new actually ...
Roman warriors
Romans warriors Boy scouts

12. Badges
● examples

13. Badges (Monti?!?)

14. 5 functions of badges
Antin, J., & Churchill, E. (2011). Badges in social media: A social
psychological perspective. Gamification workshop at CHI
1. Goal setting: goal given by the system (getting the badge becomes
the goal, I.e. intrinsic again, but not towards the original goal, an
healthy lifestyle)
● Simply engaging students is not enough. They need to be engaged for the right
reasons. - Mitchel Resnick (Many students corrupt their learning in attempt to gain
a badge) http://www.andrea-zellner.com/archives/917
2. Instruction: understand what is valued by the community
3. Evaluate reputation: users judged based on badges
4. Status symbol: Badges advertise one’s achievements without explicit
bragging.
5. Group identification: shared activities bind users together, increase
group identification, promotes increased cooperation

15. Badges
● Trophy case always growing, i.e. when you
get a badge, you never lose it!

16. Badges
Warning: they require some editorial work, clever
content/storytelling creators that can create
"clever" badges for different activities (checked
50 profiles, explored X, ...)

17. Badges can be created by users!
Wikipedia barnstars!

18. (research on) Badges
● Badges in Social Media: A Social Psychological Perspective. Antin, J.; Churchill,
E.F. CHI 2011
● Halavais, Alexander M. C. “A Genealogy of Badges: Inherited Meaning and
Monstrous Moral Hybrids.” Information, Communication, and Society, 2012
● Hamari, J., & Koivisto, J. (2013). Social Motivations to Use Gamification: An
Empirical Study of Gamifying Exercise. (Subm.)The 21st European Conf.
Information Systems.
● We don't need no stinkin' badges: examining the social role of badges in the
huffington post. Nathan Altadonna, Julie Jones CSCW, 2012 Vol. (), p.249-252
● Stefano De Paoli, Nicolò De Uffici, and Vincenzo D'Andrea. 2012. Designing
badges for a civic media platform: reputation and named levels. In Proceedings of
the 26th Annual BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference on People and
Computers
● Carlo Maiolini, Stefano De Paoli, Maurizio Teli. Digital games and the
communication of health problems. A review of games against the concept of
procedural rhetoric. G|A|M|E, Italian Journal of Game Studies.

19. Virtual goods
● They can be traded, gifted … sold (create a
parallel economy, if someone cares...)
● NO: implementing exchange of virtual goods
can create social and legal issues, better to
avoid them.
● “Chinese online gamer killed for selling virtual
sword” (2005)

20. Quests / Missions / Challenges
● Quest/Missions
similar to badges
● Badge is the final
certification of a
quest/mission
● But points can be
awarded as well
(and real world gift?)

21. Set your challenge
Badges are challenges given by system
Alternative: you can set your own challenges
Pro: You have a commitment (forge motivation) and the interface
can use them as a reminder (keep motivation).
Cons: if this is totally free, the system cannot “measure” if the
challenge is surpassed or not and how much.
If this is not free, it can be basically a badge
Ex: “I'll run the half marathon in 3 months time”
“Flow in sport” Psychologists who study happiness find that people
who only set themselves long- term goals (such as making a million
dollars 20 years hence or retiring to Florida when they turn 65) are
in general less happy than people who set goals that can be
reached next mont, next year — or later the same day

22. Set your challenge – set a goal

24. Points
XP=experience points
Your XP always increases! Most actions in app
increase XP.
Map a fit tool = +250 XP
Log a run = +50 XP
Invite a friend = +1000 XP
...

25. Levels
Going over X points = reaching Y level

26. Progress bar
Visually show how
much is missing before
next level.
Shall be always visible
in the interface.
Increase stickiness

27. (research on) Points and Levels
Optimizing Adaptivity in Educational Games. Erik
Andersen, Center for Game Science
Automatic generation of levels in an educational
game for teaching fractions
However I would suggest hardcoded
levels/points, e.g.
15000 points = level 10
18000 points = level 11 ...

28. Points and levels
Shall they “encode”
– your activity on application or
– your real fitness level?
Let's choose! (I vote for “activity” on app)
Focuses on the positive things (whatever you do,
it grows). Always grow, never decrease.

29. Your fitness status (not a
gamification feature but important)
Not the level and
XP!
Public or private?

30. Levels unlock abilities?
Often features or abilities are unlocked as
players progress to higher levels.
Shall we do this so that users remain sticky
because they want to reach level X in which they
can use feature/ability Y?
No: requires too much editorial work in inventing
(non-essential) abilities

31. Are points redeemable?
Gifts (t-shirt, pedometer, …)
Points are a virtual currency and you create a
virtual economy: opportunity for business but
very difficult to manage (require dedicated,
clever person)
I suggest NO

32. Points/Levels vs Badges/Quests
● Points/Levels focus the player
– In a linear, predictable way
– Towards the main goal
(exercise/stay fit)
● Badges/Quests allow the player
– To get alternative/parallel
experiences
– Can also be “certifying” moments
for the main goal

33. Badges and points for which
activities?
Points: We'll decide which
Login once a day
activities give
●
Share on facebook
points/badges later on
●
● Invite X friends to play
● Create route / tag route
● Upload/track an activity
● Create a new exercise (with burned calories...)
● Place fit tool on map
● Run on route X Badges
● View video of fitness exercise ● Performed an action X times
● Read text “doing X makes you more fit because ...”
(motivational)
● visited 50 other users profile
● Badges ● Check-in in a certain location, …
Performed an action X times
Performed activity 5 times overall, 3 times
●
●
● visited 50 other users profile in 1 day
● Check-in in a certain location, …
● Performed activity 5 times overall, 3 times in 1 day

34. Tutorial (step by step)
First steps = forced actions (that also gives you
your first points, level 1 and first badge!!!)
Goal: onboarding/avoid user gets lost and leave

36. (research on) tutorial
The impact of tutorials on games of varying complexity. Erik Andersen,
Eleanor O'Rourke, Yun-En Liu, Richard Snider, Jeff Lowdermilk, David
Truong, Seth Cooper and Zoran Popović Proceedings of ACM CHI, 2012
● # unique levels each player completes
● # time they played
● return rate=# times players loaded the game web page
45,000 (new) players (!!!!)
● Context-sensitivity of help
● Tutorial freedom (can skip?)
● On-demand help
Usefulness depends on game complexity: play time increase by 29% in
complex game but no increase in two simpler games
NO for games with mechanics that can be discovered through
experimentation.

37. Appointment
Appointment Dynamics are game dynamics in
which at a predetermined times/place a user
must log-in or participate in game, for positive
effect.
Ex: Farmville cropping, bar happy hours
NO: it requires tons of users and lot of real-time
preparation and management

38. Countdown
The dynamic in which players are only given a
certain amount of time to do something. This will
create an activity graph that causes increased
initial activity increasing frenetically until time
runs out, which is a forced extinction.
Ex: you shall run 10 km before midnight today
NO: it requires real-time management and can
be risky

39. Multiple players
You can play this part only together with X
other players: they could be online at same
time or even physically close (close GPS
coordinates)
● NO: requires presence in time (and space),
i.e. requires lots of users

40. User profile
Endomondo
Runkeeper
We'll decide later on, for now we
focus on individual motivation and how
to exploit gamification to be persuasive
and addictive for the single user.

41. Avatar (customizable?)
No: it requires good graphic designer
So what? Just the photo uploaded by the user as
in Facebook
Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL), researchers demonstrated that watching
customized, look-alike avatars lose or gain weight as we do exercise makes us work out longer and
harder. Participants who received “vicarious reinforcement” from their avatars volunteered to do on average
eight times more exercise repetitions than participants without avatar feedback. That bodes well for the
potential use of Mini-like avatars at home or at gyms, where people are more likely to work out in front of
screens. (And, in fact, many home fitness games, including Wii Fit and EA Sports Active, use avatar feedback
to engage players in harder workouts.)
Another experiment at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL): simply showing
subjects a short animation of their look-alike avatar running in the laboratory inspired subjects to spend
on average an hour more running in the first twenty-four hours after they left the laboratory. (There was no
motivation effect watching a random avatar; it worked only when the avatar was highly customized to look
like the subject.)
Fox, Jesse, and Jeremy N. Bailenson. “Virtual Self-Modeling: The Effects of Vicarious Reinforcement
and Identification on Exercise Behaviors.” Media Psychology, 2009, 12: 1–25.

42. Comparison with others?
What is seen on other
users' profile? Can they
set visibility for different
features?
Can you directly
compare with other
users?
We'll decide later on, for now we focus on
individual motivation and how to exploit
gamification to be persuasive and addictive for
the single user.

43. Global leaderboard
UHM, often counterproductive
The main goal becomes being in the
leaderboard and the main emphasis is on fierce
competition for being there (fight for
staying/entering for a small portion of users,
incentive to try to game the system, see Digg)
(and envy/disinterest for most users)
If we put it, better to have a weekly leaderboard,
I.e. always refreshing (even if app-holic will
try/succeed in staying on leaderboard every
week...)

44. Digg Top users list – REMOVED!
2007 - Kevin Rose: “Some of our top users – the
people that have spent hundreds if not
thousands of hours finding and digging the best
stuff – are being blamed by some outlets as
leading efforts to manipulate Digg.”
So, in response to the increased criticism and an
ever increasing amount of “noise around this
topic,” Digg “decided to remove the list beginning
tomorrow” and true to their word, replaced the
list with a link to their blog.

45. Social leaderboard
shows you versus your friends. I may be the
475,296th best player in the world at X – but I’m
number 5 among my friends…

46. Social leaderboard: Bragging/trash-
taking friends

47. Local leaderboard/players
● Better just to suggest nearby players as in
runkeeper

48. Social appreciation != gamification
Noom
Post on facebook,
twitter, runkeeper, …
So that your friends
can support/trash talk
you
● What to post?
● When?
We'll decide later on

49. Gamification: how long?
● Can gamification features “resist” for 1 year?
10 years?
● Shall they be designed just for the beginning?

50. Gamification Features
● Badges: YES
● Virtual goods: NO
● Quests/missions/challenges: YES
● Points + Levels + Progress bar: YES
● Onboarding tutorial (for new user): YES
● Leaderboard (global, local, social): MAYBE