Digital revolution: how to design a game experience? — Part 2
After a more conceptual Part 1 (Digital revolution: you’re in the game), this article — Part 2 focuses more on concrete actionable mechanisms to design a game experience. As a reminder, gamification is defined as “the addition of playful elements at different stages of the design of an activity in a non-playful context” (Deterding et al., 2011). Gamification encourages commitment and motivation of individuals to achieve their goals (Burke, 2016). This purpose differentiates it from games, which are merely a tool to entertain an individual. Furthermore, to the extent that gamification can promote behavioral change in an individual or group of people, gamification also enables problem solving (Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011). In their book “Rethinking Gamification”, Fuchs et al. (2015) quote Jane McGonigal, an American video game designer, “What if we decided to use everything we know about game design to fix what’s wrong with reality?”
Thus, this article is meant to be inspiring for anyone who wants to design a game experience at the scale of a classroom, a company, a city, an e-commerce site, a social media…
On the agenda, 5 steps:
- Adopt a process to design your game experience,
- Know your players
- Choose your game experience
- Select gamification elements
- Follow metrics and KPI
Step 1: Adopt a process to design your game experience
To design a game experience, several processes to follow have been proposed by researchers and professionals who have set up this kind of experiment:
A quick read through these different processes reveals common guidelines: knowing your players, choosing your experience and game mechanics, and post-experience measurement to evaluate the effectiveness and relevance of the game experience.
Step 2: Know your players
Without their participation, there would be no games: players must be the starting point in designing a user-centric game experience. Some designers may rely on personas (design or marketing) established from user research in design or extensive market research in marketing. There should not be 2 schools of thought on personas (design VS marketing). However, they seem to exist according to the education followed (example with my personal experience: graduated in marketing, and now oriented towards UX research with my PhD, personas have not been taught to me in the same way). The risk with marketing personas is to create a profile with only socio-demographic data (age, gender, consumption habits…). The design approach allows for a more detailed understanding of behaviors, user journey maps, user stories…
In the literature, you can find different kinds of players’ typology: according to their profile or to the game context.
According to the player profile
To better understand players, the literature has proposed different typologies. In 1996, Bartle defined the position of players of adventure games (Multi User Dungeons) according to two dimensions: interaction/action and players/world:
- “Killers” are focused on their own actions and prefer to act on other players
- “Achievers” are focused on their own actions and prefer to act on the world
- “Socializers” are interested in interaction and prefer to interact with other players
- “Explorers” are interested in interactions and prefer to interact with the world
In a learning context, for example: “Killers” seek recognition from other players through badges collected and points posted on a leaderboard. “Achievers” track their progress through badges and points. “Socializers” interact with others through collaboration and mutual support. And “Explorers” are considered independent, primarily interested in their quest.
Marczewski (2013), proposes a fifth profile to Bartle’s typology based on a third dimension: intrinsic/extrinsic motivations. “Philanthropists” are motivated by meaning, the end goal.
According to the game context
Other researchers question Bartle’s (1996) typology. For them, player profile depends to game context or objectives.In the table, two typologies of players are presented: in a simple game context, and in a learning context.
Step 3: Choose your gameful experience
Building on Bartle’s (1996) typology, Muletier, Bertholet, and Lang (2014, in French) proposed a typology of appropriate game experiences for each type of player. Thus, the “Killers” who aim at performance with other players, are interested in competitive experiences. Achievers” are more involved in role-playing games. “Socializers” are more interested in cooperative experiences and “Explorers” are more interested in storytelling.
Step 4: Select gamification elements
Koivisto and Hamari (2019) conducted a review of 819 studies including 235 empirical studies that identified and classified 47 elements of gamification.
This review reveals the common use of gamification elements to express the success, the progression of the user in the game (points, challenges, badges, levels, timer…). The second most common elements, are social elements with the use of social networks for example, cooperation more frequently used than competition, which promotes competition between users (Koivisto & Hamari, 2019). Then, immersion elements are often used for “Explorers” players (avatar, narrative, virtual world…). To study the complete list of affordances, find the article available here !
To better understand how each elements affect players’ behaviour, go back to the Part 1 with “Theories behind gamification”:
- For progression elements: Self-Determination Theory (1) and Reinforcement Theory (4),
- For social elements: Social interdependence Theory (5) and Commitment Theory (2),
- For immersion elements: Flow theory (3).
Step 5: Follow metrics and KPI
Before even launching the game experience from an operational standpoint, consider choosing the appropriate KPIs for your objectives: satisfaction? retention? behavioral change?
And also give yourself dates as deadlines to measure the speed at which objectives are met: are we looking at behavioural data related to the game every day, every week, once a month…
That’s the quantitative part. But the numbers don’t always reflect reality or explain certain behaviors. Depending on your internal resources (human and financial), don’t forget to conduct qualitative studies (1:1 interviews, focus groups…) to collect meaningful verbal data about your gaming experience.
Now, let’s play !
Sources:
Bartle, R. (1996). Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit MUDs. Journal of MUD research, 1(1), 19.
Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011, September). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining” gamification”. In Proceedings of the 15th international academic MindTrek conference: Envisioning future media environments (pp. 9–15).
Fitz-Walter, Z. J. (2015). Achievement unlocked: Investigating the design of effective gamification experiences for mobile applications and devices (Doctoral dissertation, Queensland University of Technology).
Fuchs, M., Fizek, S., Ruffino, P., & Schrape, N. (2015). Rethinking gamification (p. 344). meson press.
Heeter, C., Lee, Y. H., Magerko, B., & Medler, B. (2011). Impacts of forced serious game play on vulnerable subgroups. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS), 3(3), 34–53.
Kallio, K. P., Mäyrä, F., & Kaipainen, K. (2011). At least nine ways to play: Approaching gamer mentalities. Games and Culture, 6(4), 327–353.
Koivisto, J., & Hamari, J. (2019). The rise of motivational information systems: A review of gamification research. International Journal of Information Management, 45, 191–210.
Kumar, J. (2013, July). Gamification at work: Designing engaging business software. In International conference of design, user experience, and usability (pp. 528–537). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Marczewski, A. (2013). Gamification: a simple introduction. Andrzej Marczewski.
Muletier, C., Bertholet, G., & Lang, T. (2014). La gamification: ou l’art d’utiliser les mécaniques du jeu dans votre business. Editions Eyrolles.
Werbach, K., & Hunter, D. (2012). For the win: How game thinking can revolutionize your business. Wharton digital press.
Zichermann, G., & Cunningham, C. (2011). Gamification by design: Implementing game mechanics in web and mobile apps. “ O’Reilly Media, Inc.”.
