Presentation shared by @MoodyRain at the BarCamp Saigon 2011.
This is part 2 of 2.
Note: Thanks to Gabe Zichermann for a few of the images. Search for him to find some truly great presentations on gamification.
37. Key Takeaways
Make it fun!
Easy to play but hard to master
Light the way with clear progression
Reward your player
Anything can be gamified
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38. Thank You!
@moodyrain
@TeamSkunkworks
For more informaGon about our
company visit Skunkworks.vn We’re
hiring!
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Editor's Notes
Gaming industry continues to see explosive growth especially with the relatively new social/online games\nThe concept of gamification has been around for years (just look at the airline industry)\n
Today I’d like to walk you through what gamification means and then talk about the tools that you can use to introduce it to your own community programs.\nFinally I will walk you through some real world examples and end with a few places you can go to get more information\nSo let’s get started with what this all means \n
This is just a lot of buzzwords to mean...\n
This is just a lot of buzzwords to mean...\n
This is just a lot of buzzwords to mean...\n
So it’s a fine balance of skill and challenge\n
There are many mechanisms that are used to “gamify” an activity \nThe aspects that, taken together, create a compelling, engaging user experience. \nDon’t use all of them at once!\nUse Progress Mechanics to “light the way” towards learning and mastery \n
Even if there’s not a really value associated with them, people keep collecting points \nCan also be split into various categories with the purpose of driving different actions or behaviour - XP, social points (klout reputation points), in-game currency\nPlayers get the feeling of investing time and energy well, with the sense of earning something.\nPoints and credits are also the intermediate step that enables challenges, leaderboards and the obtaining of virtual goods.\n
So you earn points...but what do you do with it?\nFor a proper gaming economy - you must give the player something they can buy, gain and sometimes consume. \nAugments the interest of the players that can buy or earn a vast choice of objects, from clothing to weapons and skills\nSelf expression - decorating their avatars and showing them to friends and colleagues\nThe nice thing is that virtual goods don’t generally cost you a lot to create if you do it right. Hold back some of your content\n
Or let them buy real goods\nThis is really good for rewarding based on what people genuinely like already\nBut beware of gaming the system (more on that later)\nIn this case, every coke product you buy allows you to go to the website to input a code & collect points to “buy” things\nEven if someone doesn’t like coke, you do get that purchase but you miss out on the brand stewardship and ambassadors. This is called gaming the system - more on that later\nBut if the player like coke, it’s a win-win. The player gets rewarded for doing something they already do, you get the sale and the “fun” connection with your brand.\n
Another mechanism that’s really infiltrating the mainstream marketing campaigns is the concept of badges\nThese are rewards you give your players to motivate the most important behaviours - register :) \nThink of this is a lever you can use, tweak depending åon the cycle of your campaign - Gowalla partners with Disney and so they add new special Disney stickers to motivate certain behaviou\nSurprise & delight with easter eggs\nCan be shallow and case people to game the system\n
Challenges are the “missions” that users can accomplish acting in the game. \nProvides a roadmap for the game - breaks down big goals into little ones - gives your player a more regular sense of satisfaction - keeps them playingGREAT at igniting competition.\n
This is the roadmap that points the way through the game (the blueprint for the player)\nThe levels system provide milestones to reach that can the shared and highlighted in the status of the user. \nThe structure can be based on points that everyone gains to level up, granting the access to new contents and possibilities.\nIt’s really important that users are shown how far they have to go/how much they have to do to keep them motivated though\n
Provides a way to classify and order the performance of users. \nA more focused one can ignite the spirit of competition, driving the interest and raising the time that a user spends in game. \nThe system can include multiple leaderboards, tracking different aspects of the game so everyone can compare their capability with others. \nKeep it relevant though - or this looks just like another boring excel spreadsheet - just you and your friends\n
Okay so those are the tools you can use to create a game. Just a few more things worth noting before you start\n
Ties it all together and makes it a bit more fun (remember the purpose of gamification?)\nThis is a screenshot of Mafia wars (FB game). You can see their levels are clearly mapped out and what reward & points are for playing. You also see what items you need to play (armor, guns, hot cars)\nImagine if this “story” was stripped out? This is what it would look like. Not very interesting, huh? Why would I do a job for 945k green dots???\n
Give the users a sandbox to get creative in and they will surprise you\nFor the skate games, we allowed users to capture video of them skating and upload it to the website and within a week we had literally 100’s of thousands of posts, comments, votes - not just in our community\nThis website had the highest engagement metrics of all EA properties by a long shot (time spent, return visits, page views)\nAnd the best part? The community did all the work for me\nAnother good example is farmville farms - just google it\n
Make it feel like a GREAT achievement whenever a milestone is hit\nMake it good - let them feel the satisfaction \nMake them want to do a fist bumps and high fives \n\n
Gaming design 101 - make sure your players know what they have to do!\nThe first minute is the hardest: should be easy to pick up, instantly engaging, and offer you somewhere to go once you are engaged. \nIf they don’t know what to do they are unlikely to come back\nThere’s a few ways you can ease your players into the game\n
Do a straight up tutorial \nQuick and easy\nTell them exactly what they have to do\n
Or ease them in with really clear and easy tasks\nThis is the intro to a service called GetGlue which allows you to “check in” to the media you are watching.\nAll this screen is asking you to do is click on the tv shows they like\n
Also known as the lazy login \nDangle the carrot first\nLet them play for a bit - feel invested then get them to register (commit)\n
Another lazy login concept is to let them “win” something\n
The game should get harder to get to the next level (this is what is called depth) \nReward them with bigger & better things - challenges, customizations and privileges\n\n\n
But be careful of punishing your player. The more excited users are about rewards, the more incentive they will have to try and game the system.\nAvoid by:\n Build for their lifestyle and something they already like doing.\n designing a system that takes fraud into account and puts some controls in place like time-based limits. (American Idol)\n Also, consider the natural frequency for the Actions you put in place (ie rating). Extend that by X% for certain extreme cases and then communicate these reward limits in your rules. \n Most importantly, clearly communicate and enforce these rules on your site\n
And the last rule of thumb...Iterate!\nAs with any good online campaign you should be paying attention to your stats, get rid of what’s not working and double down on what is.\n
\nGild is a site that launched in Sept 2010 to help techies find jobs \n
Create profile\nProgress bar to show you where you are to completion\nTake certification tests on the site \nBadges to show off what level you are at (and for recruiters to see)\nValidate your level of expertise and qualifications for positions and against other candidates\n\n
Create profile\nProgress bar to show you where you are to completion\nTake certification tests on the site \nBadges to show off what level you are at (and for recruiters to see)\nValidate your level of expertise and qualifications for positions and against other candidates\n\n
Corporate-sponsored contests that test you with questions in your field (individual or team based)\nWin prizes like an iPod Touch, Kindle or a Canon Powershot digital camera\nGreat for recruiters who are looking for certain skill sets too\n
\nSee where you rank in your city, country, company, school\nThese are just examples of leaderboards\n
Had debit cards for some time\nPeople were losing them or throwing them away when there was only a little bit of $ left\nHard to track, costly to print cards, no way to measure loyalty\n\nShow a levelling system that is easy to understand\nReward you for activities you are already doing - playing on lifestyle\nRewarded right away - low value things\n\nSurprise & delight your community with perks - this is also a business driver\n
Had debit cards for some time\nPeople were losing them or throwing them away when there was only a little bit of $ left\nHard to track, costly to print cards, no way to measure loyalty\n\nShow a levelling system that is easy to understand\nReward you for activities you are already doing - playing on lifestyle\nRewarded right away - low value things\n\nSurprise & delight your community with perks - this is also a business driver\n
Had debit cards for some time\nPeople were losing them or throwing them away when there was only a little bit of $ left\nHard to track, costly to print cards, no way to measure loyalty\n\nShow a levelling system that is easy to understand\nReward you for activities you are already doing - playing on lifestyle\nRewarded right away - low value things\n\nSurprise & delight your community with perks - this is also a business driver\n
They used to have a literal gold card you could carry around - didn’t make as much sense as an app\nThen they go mobile!\nMakes it easier - you always have your phone (value to the biz & the customer)\nReplaces the card (cost-effective)\nRewards you for your activities and TELLS you how much more you need to do before hitting the next level\n\n