Scott Dodson discusses the concept of gamification, emphasizing the importance of intrinsic motivation over extrinsic rewards to drive sustained user engagement. He outlines essential design principles, such as establishing a voluntary user framework and creating challenges that promote flow and eustress. The presentation highlights the psychological drivers of competence, autonomy, and relatedness as key factors in user engagement and successful gamification.

1. Scott Dodson
COO, Product Owner
Bobber Interactive, Inc.

2. Me Me

3. Me
 Chronic Entrepreneur

4. Used a Game Layer
/Layer of Abstraction
 Playful Perception
 Mind numbing jobs
 Dating
 Holding a conversation
 Sales – Cold Calling
 Raising Angel/VCMoney
 Game layers worked.

5. Gamification
Examples of
really good *
gamification
*Not to scale

6. Gamification is working:
Bunchball, BigDoor,
Badgeville
 150mm users
 Views 2x
 Time 2x
 Virality 30%
 $ +50-250%
 But…

7. Still a Problem
 Gamification seen as Manipulation
 Extrinsic & Skinnerian/Behavioralist
 Spawn of Marketing
 Cookie Cutter
 Broken & “Gameable”

8. OMFG

9. Gartner Hype Cycle
We are
here

13. The Right Road…

14. To get to the Plateau of
Productivity…
 Good Gamification is not about:
 Extrinsic rewards
 Manipulation
 Outer “shell” of game: Points, Levels,
Badges
 It’s about creating Sustained
Engagement

15. The Challenge
 Great games are hard enough:
 Only 4% of games that go into production are
profitable
 Add a “real world” activity and you
multiply the difficulty of success

16. Design for sustained
engagement

17. “Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome
unnecessary obstacles” – Bernard Suits
Rules
A Goal
Voluntary
Obstacles
A Feedback
System

18. Designing for Sustained
Engagement
 I. Establish a different user “contract”
 A game is voluntary framework for the user
experience
 Obstacles desirable!

19. Eustress / Satisfying Work

20. Designing for Sustained
Engagement
 II. Design for flow; segment the
experience
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi
Amy Jo Kim

21. “Domain Resonant”
Implementation
1 2
+
66% more people than normal chose
3 the stairs over the escalator.
=

22. “Domain Resonant”
Implementation

23. Designing for Sustained
Engagement
 III. Embrace the Domain; know the Audience
 Corollary: Build the right team

24. Two Types of Motivation
 Extrinsic Motivation – Behavior
that is motivated by contingencies
(rewards, punishments) that are
separate from the enjoyment of the
activity itself
 Intrinsic Motivation – The activity
itself is its own reward because it is
inherently satisfying. In
particular, humans have specific
intrinsic needs that motivate.

25. 3 Drivers of Intrinsic Motivation
Scott Rigby - Immersyve
C COMPETENCE A AUTONOMY R RELATEDNESS
• Feeling “good at” • Freedom and agency • You matter to others
• ,they matter to you
• Expanding capability Exercising volition
• Meaningful connections
• Learning • Choosing
• Competitive, cooperative,
• Mastery • Many opportunities for
• Even removed:
action
characters in a book or
movie, developers of an
app.

26. Competence, Autonomy & Relatedness:
most reliable predictors of engagement
(PENS) Methodology: Personal Experience of Needs Satisfaction
Approach uses statistical regression analysis to predict long-term engagement
• Multiple longitudinal studies
with 20,000+ subjects PENS predicts
• Underlying psychological sustained engagement...
causality vs. solely outcome
metrics (e.g., “clicks” or “fun”) “Fun” does not.
Competence, Autonomy,
Relatedness
Predictive power
with p values <.01

27. Month 1 Month 12

28. PENS design: Competence
 Scaled challenges (flow)
 Clear & juicy feedback
 Level=expanded capabilities

29. PENS design: Autonomy
 Mechanics of Choice and Opportunity
 Open Environment - Playground
 Progression choices (focus, tree-structure)
 Sense of purpose/volition

30. PENS design: Relatedness
 You matter to them, they matter to you
 Competitive cooperative
 Reciprocity awesome; synchronicity, meh
 Player to Player; P2NPCs; P2Dev; P2Brand
“…Brave, bra
Hey! It’s the ve Sir
Hero of Robin…”
Kvatch! I
can’t believe
it! Wow!”

31. Framework/Context Critical

32. Designing for Sustained
Engagement
 IV. Motivational Psychology Critical
 Intrinsic needs satisfaction

33. Summary
 I. Establish “Game” as the user framework
(voluntary)
 II. Design for Eustress & flow; segment the
experience
 III. Game designer must embrace the domain
 IV. Focus on satisfying Intrinsic needs

34.  Gamification = engagement
through intrinsic needs
satisfaction
 ARGS
 Geocaching
 Nike+
 Stack Overflow
 Priceline
 GreatWolf Lodge / MagicQuest
 Slot Machines
 Playboy- Miss Social
 Disney/Oscars
 Starbucks

35. Thank You!
 /scottcdodson
 First Name at bobberinteractive.com
 @Gamebiz

36. Credits
 Scott Rigby- CEO Immersyve, author, Glued to Games (with Richard Ryan)
 Jane McGonigal-Creative Director, Social Chocolate, author, Reality Is Broken, Ph.D. Berkeley
 Sebastian Deterding-PhD at the Research Center for Media and Communication at Hamburg
University
 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Claremont Graduate University, former head of psychology at
the University of Chicago
 Amy Jo Kim- designer of social gaming systems, PHD University of Washington
 Wanda Meloni, M2 Research: http://slidesha.re/gg49nb
 Dr. Byron Reeves of the Department of Communication at Stanford &
J. Leighton Read, Executive Chairman, Seriosity, Inc., authors of Total Engagement
 David Edery Principal, Fuzbi co-author with Ethan Mollick of Changing the Game: How Video
Games Are Transforming the Future of Business
 Gabe Zichermann and Joselin Linder authors of Game Based Marketing
http://gamebasedmarketing.com/
 James Currier of Ooga Labs who also credits Clay Shirky and Bret Terrill
 David Helgason CEO of Unity
 Jesse Schell, Professor of Entertainment Technology CMU, CEO Schell Games. Jesse’s talk from
DICE: http://tiny.cc/TebRw
 Rajat Paharia Founder of Bunchball , building gamified, meta-game experiences for clients such as
WB, Hasbro, NBC Universal, Victoria’s Secret, Comcast
 Keith Smith, CEO Big Door.
 Kyle Findlay & Kristy Alberts, tnsglobal.com
 My sincere apologies to anyone on this list or otherwise who feels they were not properly
credited. Kindly point out my error and I will edit accordingly.

37. More Domain Specificity

38. More from thefuntheory.com

39. Thanks again!
 /scottcdodson
 First Name at bobberinteractive.com
 @Gamebiz