Digital revolution : you’re in the game ! — Part 1
In their book “The game: a digital turning point”, Baricco and Botsford (2020) come back on the origins of our digital era. From ARPANET to the iPhone, and the emergence of social media, authors tell the story of the digital revolution as a technological revolution but also a mental revolution. They define a technological revolution as a revolution that starts from an invention to offer new tools to society (the printing press that allowed the popularization of books, the steam engine that promoted train travel…). A mental revolution completely changes people.
“It is a new type of intelligence which generated the computers”.
People no longer think and act as before the digital revolution. To illustrate this idea, authors relate the shift from a material to an immaterial paradigm, particularly in the gaming industry, and its impact on the emergence of a new physical and mental shape for the player.
The player physical body changes, but also its mental shape with more customization as the game field became editable. With the table football, players are physically active, they move and sweat collectively. Later, with the pinball machine, player is alone, motionless in front of this game which puts in movement a ball by activating only 2 buttons. With Space invaders, the physical components disappear : the game is on a screen. And with video games, the game field is easier to carry to play wherever you want, whenever you want, sitting at home (with a computer, a laptop, a smartphone). The authors speak of a migration of the center of gravity. But how gaming has shaped our world nowadays?
In this article — Part 1, a synthesis of the theories behind gamification mechanisms is proposed, to better question the psychological and social implications, following Barrico and Botsford (2020).
In another article to co 2, gamification will be presented under a more practical angle: how to design a gamified experience, what are the player profiles, the gamification elements… To be continued!
Theories behind gamification mechanisms
Definition
Following the definition of Deterding et al. (2011), gamification allows for the addition of more or less playful elements at different stages of the design of an activity in a given context.
There are several concepts to distinguish gamification or gameful design according to Deterding et al. (2011). The authors position four concepts based on two opposing axes:
- Gaming / Playing (vertical axis): Caillois (1958) also distinguishes the concepts of ludus and paidia. Ludus refers to an activity structured by rules to reach a precise goal and is close to “Gaming”. Paidia refers to a free and improvised activity that designates the object itself, the toy, which is close to “Playing”.
- Whole / Parts (horizontal axis): the game can be considered as a game in its entirety, which is the case of serious games. Whereas gamification integrates only game elements. Thus, a mobile application can integrate game elements (gamification), without being a game in itself (serious game).
Furthermore, for Deterding et al. (2011), it is important not to confuse game design elements, related to design, and technological elements, related to tools. Thus, virtual reality can be a fun tool but is not gamification per se.
Among the main theories behind gamification mechanisms: (1) self-determination theory and motivation, (2) commitment theory, (3) flow theory, (4) reinforcement theory and (5) social interdependence theory.
(1) Motivation & Self-Determination Theory
Depending on the activity, the objective at stake, an individual can be motivated in different ways. Ryan and Deci (2000) distinguish different types of motivation: intrinsic motivation to perform an activity for the satisfaction it brings (e.g. reading for the pleasure it gives), extrinsic motivation to perform an activity for a purpose distinct from it (e.g. reading to pass an exam). While intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are self-determined motivations, amotivation is the total absence of self-determined motivation.
In the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of Ryan and Deci (2000), individuals are motivated to perform an activity according to three psychological needs that they seek to satisfy:
- the need for competence, to be able to solve problems
- the need for autonomy, to be able to exercise control over one’s life
- the need for social relations, to be able to interact and establish relationships
According to Maslow, behaviors are “multi-motivated”, they are determined by several needs that the individual seeks to satisfy simultaneously. Thus, the action of eating allows the individual to fill his or her stomach, but also to find comfort...
(2) Commitment theory
The motivated individual is therefore more likely to engage in an activity. For Kiesler (1971), for an act to be engaging, five conditions are necessary:
- the act must be made explicit in public,
- the act must be important for the individual who performs it,
- the act must be as irrevocable as possible,
- the act must be performed several times,
- the act must be carried out because it is desired, and the individual’s freedom of choice must be preserved.
(3) Immersion & Flow Theory
Depending on the extent of both physical and social immersion in an experience, the individual may be in a state of flow or optimal psychological emotion in an action, theorized by Csikszentmihalyi (1997). Absorbed by the activity, the individual is actively concentrated on it because his field of consciousness is reduced, he loses awareness of time and his perceptions are filtered, only the activity counts. This concentration on a single activity favors the feeling of control felt by the individual in a state of flow.
For Csikszentmihalyi (1997), the individual is in a state of flow if the level of challenge is adapted to his level of competence. As the individual’s skills evolve, the difficulty must gradually increase. When the difficulty is too low, the individual gets bored. When the difficulty is too high, the individual feels anxiety related to his perceived incompetence.
The player is more or less immersed according to his involvement in the tests to be carried out, in the form of quests, challenges, missions…
(4) Reinforcement theory
In the 1930s, the media were considered to have a direct influence on the individual. The theories of influence were then directly inspired by the work on conditioning developed by Pavlov. Pavlov was the first in the 1890s to demonstrate classical conditioning with the behavior of dogs, which he described as “psychic salivation” to a sound signal. In this case, a reward is given to the subject regardless of the observed behavior to condition the animal’s behavior. Later, Skinner proposed the concept of operant conditioning, following Thorndike’s (1898) doctoral work on the law of effect, trial-and-error learning, In operant conditioning, a reinforcement or punishment is assigned based on the observed good or bad behavior. This reinforcement or punishment can both be positive (adding a stimulus) or negative (removing a stimulus). A positive reinforcement aims at adding a stimulus that affects the behavior (a reward, congratulations…), while a negative reinforcement will be done by removing the same stimulus (removal of an obligation, a punishment…). Conversely, positive punishment adds an obligation, a punishment that can negatively affect the behavior. Negative punishment is based on the withdrawal of a right, a privilege, etc. Reinforcement increases the probability of repeating the behavior.
(5) Social interdependence theory
Social interdependence theory (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989) is widely used to explain how individuals act individually and/or whether they cooperate or compete. In the context of video games, this theory has distinguished between individualistic, cooperative, competitive, and team competitive games.
According to Liu et al. (2013), games can be designed in 4 different ways:
- “individualistic” game: players’ goals are independent and their pursuit has no effect on other players.
- “competitive” game: each individual player is in competition with the others, so the actions of some players hinder the goals of others
- “cooperative” game: several players have a common goal and individual actions support the goals and actions of others
- and a “cross-team competition” game: players share a common goal and collaborate as a team to compete against other teams of players who have the same goal.
Implications in a gamified world
Implications at the individual level
For every player, this shift to a more gamified world leads to many new expectations in terms of services: more customization, being able to be active and have a decisive role in the creation of the offer, having one’s voice expected (on social media for example). For Steward Brandt, known as one of the most inspiring figures in the development of the Silicon Valley spirit, the digital revolution was to allow for giving power to each individual through the personal computer. It is done!
In the game world, players can choose an avatar that gives them confidence, with fictional attributes that they could not have in real life (think of the paralyzed character Jake Sully in the James Cameron movie Avatar). Players meet in a virtual universe that they can co-create and in which they can cooperate, exchange, share. Fortnite has become the new “skate park” for young people.
Finally, it is also a universe that allows you to test and learn. We finally have the right to make mistakes. The game over is not the end of everything, but a learning opportunity to improve on the following games.
Implications at the society scale
On a societal scale, a gamified digital age poses more threats to the erasure of mediation. The Internet offers a borderless world, in which anyone can be rewarded for giving a review of an Airbnb host, for participating in a Blablacar carpooling trip… This erasing of borders, where the consumer creates the service and evaluates it himself, leads to the disappearance of mediators and, by snowball effect, to the destruction of the “elites” who lose legitimacy in front of the consumer-knowledgeable.
“When we discovered that we could do without our travel agent, why not consider doing without our general practitioner?”
Curious to question these implications? “The game: a digital turning point” is an informative and fun book to discover.
Coming soon the article — Part 2 to see how to implement gamification in everyday life.
Sources:
Caillois, R. (1958). Les, jeux et les hommes (Man, play, and games). Librairie Gallimard.
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).
Johnson, D. W. (2003). Social interdependence: interrelationships among theory, research, and practice. American psychologist, 58(11), 934.
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Interaction Book Company.
Kiesler, C. A., & Mathog. (1971). Resistance to Influence as a Function of Number of Prior Consonant Acts: A tes. In C. A. Kiesler (Ed.), The psychology of commitment : experiments linking behavior to belief . New York London: Academic Press.
Liu, D., Li, X., & Santhanam, R. (2013). Digital games and beyond: What happens when players compete?. Mis Quarterly, 111–124.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68.
