www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Gamification by Design Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Gamification by Design Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps Gabe Zichermann and Christopher Cunningham Beijing · Cambridge · Farnham · Köln · Sebastopol · Tokyo www.it-ebooks.info Gamification by Design by Gabe Zichermann and Christopher Cunningham Copyright © 2011 Gabriel Z, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/ institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or [email protected]. Editor: Mary Treseler Indexer: Ellen Troutman Zaig Production Editor: Kristen Borg Cover Designer: Mark Paglietti Copyeditor: Marlowe Shaeffer Interior Designer: Ron Bilodeau Proofreader: Kristen Borg Illustrator: Robert Romano Printing History: August 2011: First Edition. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Gamification by Design, the image of rhesus monkeys, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the informa- tion contained herein. 978-1-449-39767-8 [TI] www.it-ebooks.info This book is dedicated to the designers of the scavenger hunt, tag, bridge, chess, poker, and solitaire. We may never know your names, but you truly made the world a whole lot more fun. www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Contents Preface........................................................... ix Introduction...................................................... xiii 1. Foundations....................................................... 1 The Fun Quotient 2 The Evolution of Loyalty 5 Status at the Wheel 9 The House Always Wins 13 2. Player Motivation................................................. 15 Powerful Human Motivators 15 Why People Play 20 Player Types 21 Social Games 24 Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Motivation 26 Progression to Mastery 29 Motivational Moment: Be the Sherpa 33 3. Game Mechanics: Designing for Engagement (Part I)................... 35 MDA Framework 35 Game Mechanics 36 Points 36 Levels 45 Leaderboards 50 4. Game Mechanics: Designing for Engagement (Part II)................... 55 Badges 55 Onboarding 59 Challenges and Quests 64 Social Engagement Loops 67 www.it-ebooks.info viii Contents Customization 70 Gaming the System 72 Agile and Gamification Design 73 Empty Bar Problem: Foursquare 74 Dashboards 75 5. Game Mechanics and Dynamics in Greater Depth ...................... 77 Feedback and Reinforcement 77 Game Mechanics in Depth 81 Putting It Together 94 6. Gamification Case Studies.......................................... 95 Nike Plus: Making Fitness Fun 96 Gamify Questions—or Answers 98 Health Month 105 Conclusion 109 7. Tutorial: Coding Basic Game Mechanics.............................. 111 Planning a Gamification Makeover 112 A System for Tracking Scores and Levels 116 Badges 125 Displaying Player Scores and Levels on the Site 128 The Trophy Case 135 Summary 139 8. Tutorial: Using an Instant Gamification Platform...................... 141 Game On 141 Critical Elements of an Online Rewards Experience 142 Planning a Rewards Project 142 Developing a Rewards Program 156 Analytics 165 The Game’s Just Beginning 168 Index........................................................... 169 www.it-ebooks.info Preface Gamification may be a new term, but the idea of using game-thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences isn’t exactly new. The military has been using games and simulations for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, and the U.S. military has been a pioneer in the use of video games across branches. Three hundred years ago, Scottish philosopher David Hume laid the groundwork for under- standing player motivation with his views on the primacy of the irrational self. Since the 1960s, authors have been writing books that explore the “gamey” side of life and psychology, while since at least the 1980s, Hollywood has been hot on the trail of gamification with movies like War Games. And behind all this is our general love affair with games themselves. Play and games are enshrined in our cultural record, emerging with civilizations, always intertwined. We are also now coming to understand that we are hardwired to play, with research- ers increasingly discovering the complex relationships between our brains, neural systems, and game play (hint: play and games help you get smarter, faster). There’s even an emerging scientific idea that games can help you live longer by staving off dementia and improving general health. Therefore, seeing business and product designers embrace the concept of gamifica- tion should come as no surprise. As our society becomes more and more game- obsessed, much of the conventional wisdom about how to design products and market to consumers is no longer absolute. To further engage our audiences, we need to consider reward structures, positive reinforcement, and subtle feedback loops alongside mechanics like points, badges, levels, challenges, and leaderboards. www.it-ebooks.info x Preface When done well, gamification helps align our interests with the intrinsic motivations of our players, amplified with the mechanics and rewards that make them come in, bring friends, and keep coming back. Only by carefully unpacking consumer emotions and desires can we design something that really sticks—and only through the power of gamification can we make that experience predictable, repeatable, and financially rewarding. We wrote this book to help demystify some of the core concepts of game design as they apply to business, written from the perspective of what a marketer, product designer, product manager, or strategist would want to know. In that regard, we are indebted to the work of notable game designers who helped clarify and amplify the process of game design, making it into a quantifiable art and science. We have leveraged their work and refined the concepts to focus on those elements that are most relevant to business. We extracted good and bad patterns from both famous and lesser-known case studies, and we tested our concepts on countless (valiant) real- world customers to arrive at the set of demonstrable, high-impact ideas presented in this book. When used together with the Gamification Master Class (also available from O’Reilly, at http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920017622) and the supplemental videos, exercises, challenges, and resources available at http://GamificationU.com, this book becomes even more powerful. You can take a concept for gamifying your product, service, or idea and bring it to fruition using the techniques we describe. Gamification by Design takes a unique approach to this exciting, fast-moving, and powerful trend, and makes it practical. We hope you’ll find it as useful as we enjoyed writing it. Acknowledgments We want to recognize the game-design writing and work of key thinkers, including Jesse Schell’s The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (Morgan Kaufmann), Jon Radoff’s Game On (Wiley), and Ralph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design (Paraglyph Press). We are also lucky to have been able to access and distill the insights of Sebastian Deterding, Susan Bonds, Jane McGonigal, Amy Jo Kim, Ian Bogost, Nick Fortugno, Nicole Lazzaro, Rajat Paharia, Kris Duggan, Keith Smith, and Tim Chang. And a special thanks to the folks at Badgeville who sponsored Chapter 8, providing insight into their groundbreaking product, as well as practical coding and design tips that can be used in any implementation. We’d also like to recognize the efforts of Jeff Lopez, Danyell Thillet, and Joselin Linder, who each contributed in their own way by helping us research, refine, and produce this work. And, of course, to the O’Reilly Media team, including Mary Treseler, Sara Peyton, Kirk Walter, Keith (Steve) Thompson, and Betsy Waliszewski. www.it-ebooks.info Preface xi Gabe would like to thank his mother, father, (not-evil) stepdad, sister, and brother (why say in-law?), without whose support none of this would have been possible. Also, thanks to Veronica Cseke and the Fraizingers (Mary, Izzy, Rochelle, Shoshanna, and Elliot)—proof that family need not always be related by blood. And extra special thanks to Jason Evege, one of the most driven and inspirational people he’s ever met. Christopher would like to thank his family, especially his mother and father, for their limitless patience and encouragement of a child who would never stop asking questions—and then debating the answers. And special thanks to Pablo López Yáñez, for always supporting and encouraging an adult who hasn’t changed all that much. —New York City, 2011 www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Introduction Summer. At dusk, children run between trees and fireflies, shouting through laughter and squealing, “You’re it!” Math class is ending. A cheer erupts as the teacher tells her students to put their books away. She splits the class into teams. In twos, they approach the chalkboard and face off for the love of numbers and grade-school honor. It’s Saturday night. A roomful of suburban mothers are playing Mahjong. As the tiles click and scores get recorded, they laugh, complain, and bond. It is no wonder that the simple idea of a game can induce some of life’s strongest and most satisfying memories. After childhood, games were relegated to the fringes of our lives—the downtime, the fun between the drudgery of work, the opposite of real life. But the tides are turning.