This document discusses using gamification to help cure political alienation. It provides an overview of political alienation and how gamification works to motivate users. As a case study, it summarizes Hawaii's initiative to use gamification on its government website. Game elements like badges, leaderboards, and notifications were used. This increased citizen engagement with government services online from 5% to 20%. The Hawaii site received awards for its innovative approach. Gamification was found to bring citizens closer to their government by making interactions more engaging.

1. Use of Gamification for helping cure Political Alienation
1. Introduction
The relationship between a society and its political system can be inferred on the basis
of either the political-support received by the society, or the reverse of it, political-
alienation by the society (Borre, 2000). The concept of ‘Political Alienation’ goes back to
1960. The range of activities chosen by the alienator could range from social or political
violence to conscious or subconscious withdrawal or even being indifferent in context to
politics (Nachmias, 1974). An alienator can express their view in various forms, usually by
getting involved in a participation or withdrawal (ibid). Mahnic (2014) argues that political
alienation has been recognised as a common characteristic of the modern multi-cultural
and cosmopolitan society. It is mostly seen in the younger population and hence, in order to
cure ‘Political Alienation’, an approach has to be followed that appeals to them. A number of
studies indicate that the youth participation in context to voting is steadily declining
(Dermody et al., 2010). Mahnic (2014) emphasises that there is a significant correlation
between one’s behaviour with respect to ‘gaming’ and in ‘actual’ life. In addition to that,
economist Jeremy Rifkin also believes that ‘play’ is becoming as important for the cultural-
economy as work it is for industry-economy. ‘Play’ has become an integral part of people’s
life. “The more we learn to enjoy serving epic causes in game worlds, the more we may find
ourselves contributing to epic efforts in the real world” (McGonigal, 2011: 113). The
objective of this report is to conceptualise the theory and application of gamification and its
use in combatting Political Alienation using a case of gamification implementation in
Hawaii government service website.
2. Gamification and Motivation
Although, it is not very common to come across the terms ‘Government’ and ‘Game’
together, however, many recent research as well gamification initiatives taken by certain
countries have gradually started to draw attention towards the application of ‘gamification’
in government. Many scholars have explored and suggested various applications and uses
of gamification in politics (government or public sector) in their studies (Tapscott &
Williams, 2006; Mahnic, 2014). With the use of gamified-application in politics, it is possible
to have a control over the actions and decisions of the representational characters in the

2. game in order to see the results, within game (political) rules (Mahnic, 2014). Gamification
has proven to increase citizen engagement and improve efficiencies in public sector in
many cases.
The most widely used definition of gamification is: “the use of game design elements in
non-game context” (Deterding et.al, 2011). According to this definition, gamification uses
various components of game design in non-game context. Zichermann & Cunningham
(2011) refers to gamification as: ‘The use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage
users and solve problems’. The strategic objective of gamification is to ‘engage’ and
‘encourage’ participation, as supported by Dale (2014). Gamification is known for its role in
enhancing and making a product, application, operation or a ‘cause’ more alluring by
motivating users and making them come back time and again (Mahnic, 2014). In other
words, Peischl et. al (2014), game mechanics work as a catalyst for making technology
more engaging by influencing user behaviour and simulating their social behaviour.
McGonigal (2011), in their book recommends the use of ‘gameful’ (refers to ‘playful’) ways
by creating and using ‘alternate realities’ for interaction with the real world.
Gamification is found to have three fundamental pillars (factors): motivation, ability
level and triggers (see Figure 1). The presence of these three factors are crucial for a
behaviour to change (ibid). There is no single model that justifies gamification elements,
however Dale discusses an effective set of game elements that were identified by
Cunningham & Zichermann (2011). Table 1. lists down all the elements and their
significant uses.
1. Points Points are allocated when a high-value behaviour is achieved.
2. Badges
Badge are allocated on completion or achieving a task. It
represents a kind of social status.
3. Achievements A thing done successfully with effort, skill, or courage
4. Levels
It represents a gateway for new tasks and challenges and signifies
a position on a scale of amount, quantity, extent, or quality.
5. Missions
This is used to create a set of behaviours that lets the user achieve
any specific reward.
6. Contests
It refers to a competition amongst different users and reward is
allocated to those who finish most quickly or effectively.

3. 7. Leader-boards
Acts as a communication board with context to competition by
letting the user know where they stand in comparison to other
users.
8. Notifications
This is used encourage engagement when users perform a desired
action, by notifying them about their achievements, current level,
points et cetera.
9.
Anti-gaming
Mechanics
It is used to set limits on how often a behaviour can be rewarded.
Table 1: Gamification Elements
Figure 1: The Science behind Gamification (Dale, 2014)
Mahnic says, the process of gamification works by adding game elements including
points, badges, virtual currencies, levels and progress bars to webpages and applications in
order to improve user experience (Mahnic, 2014). However, in gamification, motivation
theories hold a strong association with their success or failure. Motivations, according to
psychology as per Ryan and Deci (2009) can be broken down into two kinds: intrinsic
motivation- ‘where a behaviour is enacted or an activity is undertaken because it aligns with
one's inner values’ and extrinsic motivation – ‘where external rewards such as money or
status are offered in exchange for engagement in particular behaviours or activities’. The idea
of using elements of game design in non-game contexts can leverage both, motivation and
engagement. Koivisto & Hamari (2014) outline the main difference between games and
gamification. They point out that ‘gamification’ is commonly used to advance goals outside
the game (e.g., adapting better and healthier lifestyles, reducing wastage, and better

4. financial decision-making), referred to as extrinsic motivation, however ‘games’ is
considered totally intrinsically motivated. Table 2. are some of the example of extrinsic and
intrinsic motivational rewards as outlined by Dale (2014).
Extrinsic Intrinsic
Money Recognition
Points/Badges/Trophies
Personal
Achievement
Prizes Responsibility
Penalties Power
Quests Fun
Progress bars Mastery
Table 2: Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivational Rewards (Dale, 2014)
3. The Hawaii Government Gamification Initiative
One of examples of the use of ‘gamification’ in government is by Hawaii government.
Hawaii used gamification components in it online-service in order to aim for an increased
engagement of citizens with the government. This initiative was hugely appreciated
because of its success. Hawaii, is the 50th and most recent to join the United States. It
possesses 11 billion dollar enterprise, with 36 line of businesses and 230 business
functions, however just 5 percent of the government related transactions were made online
using their online web-services (Wood, 2014).Hawaii’s official Internet portal, ehawaii.gov,
is run and managed by Hawaii Information Consortium (HIC), a Hawaii corporation and
wholly owned subsidiary of e-Gov firm, NIC Inc (HIC, 2014). According to an interview with
the general manager of Hawaii.gov, Russell Castagnaro, with State Scoop, Hawaii
government has already taken a massive leap in engaging citizens online by using game
techniques that are being currently used by game developers such as awarding badges,
cross-promoting similar products, user interface improvements, leaderboards (Community
board in case of Hawaii Government) and notifying users of with their accomplishments

5. related to the site activities (Stegon, 2014). It is through gamification that it is being
possible for Hawaii government to deliver its services to its inhabitants the way it is
expected (ibid).
This project was managed and executed by a partnership between NIC and Hawaii.gov
and was initiated with its very first step of providing a single online service (one-stop shop
for citizens’ government needs)for their state’s businesses- My.Hawaii.gov, which was
launched in September 2013. Hawaii.gov took an approach of gamification in order to
create a completely customisable experience for its users with the government irrespective
of the device it is being used on (HIC, 2014). This online service was to help entrepreneurs
start and expand their businesses using several different agencies by bringing them all
together in one resource, says Bhagowalia, former CIO of Hawaii Government (Bhagowalia,
2014). A ‘progress meter’ was added to the interface which helped the entrepreneurs to
keep a track on different stages that they reach while completing their information on the
online portal. The My.Hawaii.gov portal today has approximately 450,000 registered users
(GCN, 2014).New service has been integrated with seven of Hawaii’s 17 departments which
includes history of all the transactions and business conducted online with the state. It also
gives and integrated access to about sixty of the hundreds of online services that are offered
in Hawaii in one single credential system (NIC, 2014).According to the HIC 2013 annual
report, single credential system allows other state offices to administer and access portal
services.
Simple elements like assigning badges, proactive offering of similar services (cross-
promotion of government services online) and informing the users about new updates if
any, really made a great impact in de-alienating the government website Hawaii.gov. One of
the main objective(s) of this project was to promote all the online government services
simultaneously (HIC, 2014). This is because of different adoption rate for different online
services (GCN, 2014). When users applied for one service online, for instance, an online
application for a professional or vocational licence, they get suggestion about related
services. This helped in driving up the adoption rate. In addition to that, the citizens were
also introduced to a new functionality known as ‘mySavings’ that shows savings of using
online services over traditional methods. Using this functionality the users could get to
know of the total time (by not having to queue up in government offices), total miles and
total currency saved (by not using paper) per service used online. The number of saved

6. hours, papers and miles were communicated to the users by issuing ‘badges’ to them. Not
only the users could have a check on their own savings, but they could also see where they
stood amongst all other registered online service user, with the help of community board
feature on the My.Hawaii.gov website, creating a slight form of competition (HIC, 2014).
This project has not only received a very positive response from the users with a rise in
online service usage rate from 5 to 20 percent, but also, the state of Hawaii has been
announced as the winner of ‘Best of Web Awards-2014’ (Govtech.com, 2014). With nearly
4,000 entries from across the US and around the world, the state of Hawaii has also been
the silver award winner of The 2014 Davey Awards, for its innovative e-government
initiative (HIC, 2014).
4. Conclusion
My.hawaii.gov is an example of an effort leveraging gaming concepts and centralized
notification to increase the awareness and adoption of all e-Government systems.
Nevertheless, gamification could be considered to be a potential solution towards curing
‘Political Alienation’. Sanjeev Bhagowalia, former governor’s chief advisor for Technology
and Cyber Security for the State of Hawaii, says “Hawaii is glad to have used gamification to
their state portal and online government services as it has brought their citizens closer to
their government” (Govtech.com, 2014). The criticisms and exceptions of the application of
gamification principles to combat Political Alienation however must be taken into
consideration at all times. Application of gamification is not simple because the planning
and execution of gamification are very complicated as it demands for interdisciplinary
expertise about information systems, organization behaviour, and human psychology. ). If
applied correctly and effectively, gamification can result into an experience that is engaging
with learning benefits, especially in youth and help in eliminating Political Alienation. In
addition to that impact of gamification and induced motivation in different age groups and
gender needs further scrutiny with context to public sector engagement, as research claims
that there is a demographic difference in perceived benefits from gamification (Koivisto &
Hamari, 2014).

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