Daniel's notes on Actionable Gamification

Ch.1: Coonradt addressed the question, "Why would people pay for the privilege of working harder at their chosen sport or recreational pursuit than they would work at a job where they were being paid?" He then boiled it down to five conclusions that led to hobbies being more preferable to work. •Clearly defined goals •Better scorekeeping and scorecards • More frequent feedback • A higher degree of personal choice of methods •Consistent coaching

Ch.3: Development & Accomplishment is our internal drive for making progress, developing skills, achieving mastery, and eventually over. coming challenges. The word "challenge" here is very important, as a badge or trophy without a challenge is not meaningful at all.

Ch.3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback is expressed when users are engaged in a creative process where they repeatedly figure new things out and try different combinations. People not only need ways to express their creativity, but they need to see the results of their creativity, receive feedback, and adjust in turn.

Ch.3: Social Influence & Relatedness incorporates all the social elements that motivate people, including: mentorship, social acceptance, social feedback, companionship, and even competition and envy. If you see a product that reminds you of your childhood, the sense of nostalgia would likely increase the odds of you buying the product.

Ch.3: Scarcity & Impatience is the Core Drive of wanting something simply because it is extremely rare, exclusive, or immediately unattainable. Many games have Appointment Dynamics or Torture Breaks within them (come back 2 hours later to get your reward) Facebook Harvard launch made everyone waiting for access to it.

Ch.3: Unpredictability is the Core Drive of constantly being engaged because you don't know what is going to happen next. When something does not fall into your regular pattern recognition cycles, your brain kicks into high gear and pays attention to the unexpected.

This Core Drive “loss and avoidance” is the motivation to avold something negative from happening. On a small scale, it could be to avoid losing previous work or changing one's behavior. On a larger scale, it could be to avoid admitting that everything you did up to this point was useless because you are now quitting. Example: Special offer for a limited time only!

Ch.3: Left Brain Core Drives (Accomplishment, Ownership, and Scarcity) tend to rely on Extrinsic Motivation - you are motivated because you want to obtain something, whether it be a goal, a good, or anything you cannot obtain. On the other hand, Right Brain Core Drives (Empowerment, Social, and Unpredictability) are mostly associated with Intrinsic Motivations - you don't need a goal or reward to use your creativity, hangout with friends, or feel the suspense of unpredictability - the activity itself is rewarding on its own.

Ch.3: White hat gamification (Meaning, Accomplishment, Empowerment): If something is engaging because it lets you express your creativity, makes you feel successful through skill mastery, and gives you a higher sense of meaning, it makes you feel very good and powerful.

Ch.3: Black hat gamification (Scarcity, Unpredictability, Avoidance): On the other hand, if you are always doing something because you don't know what will happen next, you are constantly in fear of losing something, or because you're struggling to attain things you can't have, the experience will often leave a bad taste in your mouth - even if you are consistently motivated to take these actions.

Ch.3: Once one has achieved mastery in Level I Octalysis, they can then apply it to Level II Octalysis, where we try to optimize experiences throughout all four phases of the player/user journey. These phases are: - Discovery (why people would even want to try out the experience), - Onboarding (where users learn the rules and tools to play the game), - Scaffolding (the regular journey of repeated actions towards a goal) and - Endgame (how do you retain your veterans).

Ch.6: The key to Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment is to make sure users are proud of overcoming the challenges that are set out for them. Jane McGonigal, renowned game designer and Ph.D. in Performance Studies, defines games as "unnecessary obstacles that we volunteer to tackle."

Ch.6: CD2: Game techniques within development and accomplishment - Progress Bars (#4) LinkedIn introduced a little Progress Bar (Game Technique #4) on the side of user profiles to show people how complete theirs were. Our brains hate it when incomplete things are dangled in front of our faces. When we see a progress bar that is taunting us as only being 70% of a human being, it gives us that extra push to finish the Desired Actions and achieve the Win-State of completeness.

Ch.6: CD2: Game techniques within development and accomplishment - The Rockstar Effect (#92): Twitter is a great example of utilizing the Rockstar Effect. Most people remember Twitter's innovation being the limitation of only 140 characters within a message (which is an interesting balance between Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience combined with Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback), but few people remember that another one of Twitter's key innovations was the one-way follow.