Public Gamification : A Quest to Implement Digital Public Sector Innovation

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Public Gamification:
A Quest to Implement
Digital Public Sector Innovation
Candidate: Joshua Wong TianCi
Supervised by Professor Patrick Dunleavy

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Acknowledgements
Submitted as part of the BSc (Hons) Government and Economics, London School of
Economics and Political Science, May 2016. Endorsed by the Civil Service College, Singapore
and Persistent Systems Ltd.
Gratitude is due to my academic supervisor Dr Patrick Dunleavy who took on and disciplined
the writing of an undergraduate, my organisational liaisons Swapna Dayanandan (Singapore’s
Civil Service College), Rohit Bhosale (Persistent Systems) and Mayur Jain (Persistent
Systems), my parents who raised and supported their son through an overseas education, my
inspiring friends who dared me to dream and shaped my values, the civil servants and the global
gamification / serious gaming community that inspired, mentored and danced with this upstart,
and last, but not least, the countries of Singapore and the UK that provided a society that I am
proud to have grown up in.
For the future.
(Photo Credits: Citizen Dan of A Good Citizen)

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Contents Page
Abstract Pg 4
1. Introduction Pg 5
2. Conceptualisation: aspiration and inspiration Pg 9
3. Design: creating sustained behaviour Pg 13
4. Requirements: unique and exceptional Pg 21
5. Methodology Pg 29
6. Case Study Analysis: Singapore, UK and India. Pg 32
7. Conclusion Pg 39
Appendix Pg 43
Bibliography Pg 47

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Abstract
Gamification uses engagement strategies characteristic of games for purposes beyond
entertainment. There is currently an acute lack of cases of usage in the public sector that raises
questions about the former’s potency as a solution and the latter’s capacity to innovate. Yet,
what little research on public gamification tends to ignore these questions by focusing on the
end results rather than the implementation process.
The dissertation outlines how public gamification can be successfully implemented using both
theory and case studies; “Every Door is the Right Door” (Singapore), “Idea Street” (UK) and
“SmartPune” (India). It forges an ideological framework for understanding the innovation and
charts a roadmap to explore how the different implementation challenges can be resolved. It
makes the following broad insights through qualitative analysis. From the solution’s
perspective, misconceptions of and confusion regarding gamification can be resolved using 2
foundational principles; games as inspiration for methods and games as aspirations for
outcomes. From the practice’s perspective, gamification’s criticisms can be resolved with better
gamification design. The gamification process can be modelled as a behavioural cycle that
enhance its effectiveness by incorporating relevant psychological, technological and game
design expertise into its design. From the public sector’s perspective, challenges of public sector
innovation stem from its unique system of accountability as well as the exceptional
organisational problems the system creates. However, innovation enabling measures can still
take place within constraints.
Overall, the dissertation shows how there can and will be more cases of public gamification.

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1. The Present: a Quest!
Gamification uses engagement strategies characteristic of games for purposes beyond
entertainment. Games have historically played a deep cultural role in human civilisation despite
present day prejudices of video games. Additionally, recent years have seen gaming technology
and design reach new levels of sophistication and mainstream acceptance. The result is a
movement unprecedented in scale and manner to create an engaging and intrinsically motivated
society outside of entertainment platforms by consciously using game-based thinking
(McGonigal, 2011a). Gamification thus sprung from the ideological origins of the video
gaming industry (Chou, 2015).
It’s in the spirit of contemporary innovation that this dissertation proposes the initially
improbable solution of gamification to a seemingly impossible problem. Governments
historically have great innovative capacity (Dunleavy et al., 2007). However, presently many
see them as “slow-moving bureaucrac(ies) characterized by red tape, inertia and stalemate”
(Sørensen and Torfing, 2012, p.2) due to inherent limitations that accompany its power
(Hughes, 2003). Meanwhile, demand for public sector innovation is driven by emerging social
and economic challenges, the higher expectations of citizens (European Commission, 2013)
and comparisons to an increasingly enterprising and digitised private sector (Margetts and
Dunleavy, 2013). To perform its epic duties, governments need to strategically implement
transformational innovation to empower themselves rather than be overwhelmed by digital
change (KPMG LLP, 2014). The stage is set to examine how these 2 evolving but relatively
separate fields can converge to form a new one; public gamification.

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However, in place of convergence is an empirical puzzle created by a lack of successful public
sector gamification examples. This disparity is especially stark when compared to other digital
solutions and the private sector. It suggests significant and distinct challenges to implementing
public sector innovation and gamification’s potency as a solution. This multi-causal puzzle can
be broken up into 3, smaller theoretical puzzles. From a solution perspective, misconceptions
of gamification’s nature, despite evangelism of its potential, cloud an understanding of its
public sector relevance. From a practice perspective, criticisms towards gamification’s
effectiveness, despite successful case studies, dispute its innovative potential. From a public
sector perspective, challenges to public sector innovation causing it to lag behind private sector
innovation, despite past successes of implementation, question the public sector’s capacity to
digitally innovate. These puzzles must be collectively tackled to reach a decisive conclusion.
Consequently, the dissertation proposes the following research question to guide a response to
the puzzles; “how can public gamification be successfully implemented?” On a conceptual
level, a definition (Marczewski, 2015a, p.11) has been adapted to the following: “the use of
game design metaphors to create more game-like experiences beyond entertainment”. “Game
design metaphors” will be defined as lessons, elements and strategies applied to non-
entertainment contexts (Marczewski, 2015a). Its use represents the first foundational principle;
games as inspirers of methods to solving problems. “Game-like states” are psychological
outcomes (Huotari and Hamari, 2012) of optimised engagement and motivation (Chou, 2015)
associated with entertainment games (Marczewski, 2015a). As an end, it represents the second
foundational principle; games as creators of psychological outcomes to aspire towards1
. More
specifically, public gamification implementation will be conceptualised further as digital
1
For more exploratory detail, please see the appendix for 2 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive
frameworks that cover the different types of “Game Design Metaphors” and “Game-like States”.

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application implementation. The dissertation engages the 2 initial non-engineering
implementation stages; the “Requirements” stage, where the public sector’s organisational
objectives and unique resources are set, and the “Design” stage, where the gamification practice
design software architecture specific to stakeholders. In this manner, this research
operationalises an approach to examine how implementation challenges may be overcome.
This research on public gamification implementation is relevant to the wider literature.
Gamification has great relevance to public management. As a design innovation, it combines
expertise already being co-opted to achieve public sector objectives such as neuroscience
concepts (Civil Service College, 2016b) (Halpern, 2015) and big data (Dunleavy, 2016). Its
promise for engagement and motivation generation potentially augments the tools of
government in a digital age (Hood and Margetts, 2007) and ensures that the web-based
technologies powering the second wave of Digital-Era Governance (Margetts and Dunleavy,
2013) engage rather than simply connect society. Within the field of public sector innovation,
such research contributes to the larger trend of innovation within the public sector (Dunleavy
et al., 2007) (Dunleavy and Carrera, 2013) rather than innovation by the public sector
(Mazzucato, 2013) (Schumpeter, 1934). Additionally, such research has relevance to public-
private networks with external experts to implement digital innovation (Sørensen and Torfing,
2012) as part of the larger vision for Government 2.0 (Ong, 2012). Within the field of public
gamification, it further distinguishes itself from research on the possible forms (Asquer, 2013),
its potential relevance (Chakraborty, 2015) and ethical implications (Stensgård, 2015). It
outlines broad implementation dynamics rather than analysing particular case studies (Bista et
al., 2012) (Dargan and Evequoz, 2015). In doing so, it contributes to the under-researched fields
of public gamification (Asquer, 2013) and public sector innovation (Dunleavy et al., 2007).

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The arguments here are organised into three substantive chapters supported by case studies and
a conclusion. Chapter 2 examines the first theoretical puzzle, the nature and relevance of
gamification, and elaborates on how the 2 foundational principles can communicate them.
Chapter 3 examines the second theoretical puzzle, the effectiveness of gamification, and
elaborates on how the gamification process can be modelled as a behavioural cycle and how
relevant expertise can enhance its design’s effectiveness. Chapter 4 examines the third
theoretical puzzle, the barriers to public sector innovation, elaborates on the unique and
exceptional challenges faced and how they can be resolved by innovation enabling measures
that can take place within constraints. Chapter 5 details how the material relating to the case
studies were procured and analysed. Chapter 6 compares and contrasts the case studies to test
earlier theoretical insights; “Idea Street” of the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions,
“Every Door is a Right Door” of the Singaporean Civil Service College and “SmartPune” of
the Pune Municipal Council. Chapter 7 puts the final conclusions in perspective, evaluates its
academic and commercial contributions, and considers the implications for the future and of
public gamification.

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2. The Solution: ‘Gamspiration’
The dissertation begins by engaging the first theoretical puzzle of the nature and relevance of
gamification. This is necessary to provide further elaboration of an ideological framework to
fully introduce the innovation. Successful cases of gamification have invited grand projections
on its potential to transform society (Schmidt, 2009) (McGonigal, 2011a), organisations
(Gartner, 2011), and the government (Comerford, 2012) through engagement and motivation
design. However, problems have arisen. There is confusion about what constitutes gamification
given the diverse ways to define it (Llagostera, 2012) and the parallel rise of similar innovations
(Deterding et al., 2011) to desegregate work and play (Reeves and Read, 2009). This creates
misconceptions, such as how gamification is frivolous (Herger, 2011), as well as criticisms that
question its relevance beyond gamers (Palmer, Lunceford, and Patton, 2012), and its
uniqueness as an innovation (Economist, 2012). Moreover, other innovators wishing to apply
game principles beyond entertainment have shied from labelling their work gamification. This
is because they view the term as limiting given its association with being points (Robertson,
2010) and badge (McGonigal, 2011b) obsessed.
The dissertation’s response is that criticisms and confusion of gamification come from a failure
to communicate 2 foundational principles of game-based thinking; 1) games as inspirers of
methods to solving non-entertainment problems and 2) games as creators of psychological
outcomes to be aspired to outside of entertainment. These 2 principles must be simultaneously
communicated to resolve these misconceptions and establish its relevance to the public sector.

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Inspiration “game design metaphors beyond entertainment”
The definition’s inspirational aspect is important firstly because its conceptualisation
specifically references domain and objectives. Gamification design is not applied by
practitioners from entertainment gaming industries for the primary purpose of fun. Rather, the
pioneering work of these industries in motivational design (Chou, 2015) has inspired
gamification practitioners or gamifiers to apply them in areas where entertainment or fun is not
the main function. Overall, this aspect addresses misconceptions that gamification is frivolous
or entertainment-centric.
Secondly, the aspect distinguishes gamification’s innovative focus from the wider field of
games and play. Gamification transfers game elements beyond the traditional field of
entertainment either as explicit gamification (or serious gaming), by creating a game with non-
entertainment objectives, or implicit gamification, by integrating elements into existing non-
entertainment platforms (Chou, 2015). This aspect excludes from the definition of gamification
products with entertainment as their main user objective such as advergames (Deterding et al.,
2011). It also excludes products promoting playful activities, characterised by free-form,
expression and exploration, rather than gameful activities with rules and definite goals
(Deterding et al., 2011). It distinguishes itself from innovations defined by expanding game-
elements to different mediums rather than objectives; such as augmented and alternate reality
games. Overall, this aspect clarifies confusion about gamification’s nature.
Finally, the aspect emphasises that gamification encompasses the full spectrum of metaphors
used to create engaging experiences. Gamification goes beyond the prominent, structural
elements of points, badges and leaderboards (Werbach and Hunter, 2012) and includes content

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elements. For limiting gamification methods to the former denies implicit meaning in
generating behavioural outcomes (Kapp, 2013) and validates criticism of superficiality.
However, such criticism should mature rather than condemn the practice (Herger, 2014).
Overall, this aspect recognises criticism and incorporates them for gamification’s betterment.
Aspiration “game-like experiences beyond entertainment”
The aspirational aspect’s first reason for importance is created when it explores the broad
ideological reasons for gamification’s effectiveness. Gamification is ideologically linked with
the video gaming industry. Uniquely, industry practitioners singularly achieve success by
creating products that serve no other function beyond engaging and intrinsically motivating
people (Chou, 2015). Although video games do not exclusively generate intrinsic motivation,
practitioners are masters of systematically engaging for engagement’s sake after decades of
designing digital platforms with that singular emphasis (Chou, 2015). Other industries are
limited and relatively inexperienced given that they need to balance both functional and
engagement demands (Chou, 2015). As a result, they aspire towards, but never surpass, the
video game industry’s unprecedented standards for motivational states (Deterding et al., 2011).
Despite the difficulty in innovation design, these aspirational standards open the possibility of
using game metaphors in non-entertainment areas. Overall, this aspect highlights
gamification’s value and relevance beyond gamers.
Secondly, the aspect’s video game industry association distinguishes gamification as an
innovation. Gamification aspires to engage and enrich people by being receptive to how the
video game industry generates outcomes that are unique motivational design standards (Chou,
2015). This intellectual understanding of the industry’s effectiveness lead gamifiers to reject

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the adequacy of existing engagement innovations, such as loyalty programs, and embolden
them to systematically aspire towards superior, alternate approaches. The result is a new,
unified design practice that distinctively blends game design, motivational psychology,
behavioural economics, user experience, neurobiology, computer science and enterprise
systems to effectively and systematically engage users in non-entertainment settings (Chou,
2015). Overall, this aspect addresses criticism that gamification is simply a repackaging of
existing practices for marketing or branding purposes (Economist, 2012) (Bogost, 2011).
Finally, the aspect provides a widely resonating narrative of the innovation’s long run societal
potential which the inspirational aspect alone cannot provide. The focus on making things more
game-like should be on the grand vision of shifting away from a reality where human behaviour
is driven solely by functional requirements, extrinsic rewards and hedonism towards an
engaging and enriching one that is optimally designed for intrinsic motivation (McGonigal,
2011a) (Chou, 2015). While the inspirational aspect of seeing game elements going beyond
their natural habitat is exciting, conceptualising gamification beyond inspiration overcomes
multiple barriers limiting the practice. It moves away from negative associations of video
games towards more relatable ideas such as motivation and engagement. Moreover, it builds
bridges between implicit gamifiers and serious games practitioners as their diverse design
approaches is subjected and secondary to their shared goal of systematically creating better
realities and experiences. Ultimately, a more aspirational focus on the bigger vision of
designing a more engaging and enriching reality unites the game-based thinking movement
and establishes its relevance to the public sector and wider society.

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3. The Practice: designing behavioural cycles
Understanding gamification’s nature and relevance allow discussion of a second theoretical
puzzle; gamification’s effectiveness as an innovation and how better gamification design can
realise its potential. There have been many successful attempts in exporting game-based
thinking (Herger, 2014) (Chou, 2015) to generate engagement results beyond an entertainment
context (Li, 2014) (McGonigal, 2011a). However, most gamified applications are currently
projected to fail to meet business objectives (Gartner, 2012) due to design. The criticism stems
from gamification design tendencies to depend on novelty, extrinsic non-monetary rewards
(Herzig, Ameling, and Schill, 2014) and the tendency to unnecessarily emphasise competition
(Shaughnessy, 2011). This leads to unintended results (Bates, 2016), superficiality (Bogost,
2011) and inconsistent engagement over both time (Hamari, Koivisto, and Sarsa, 2014) and
user diversity (Broer, 2014).
The dissertation’s response is that better gamification design can deliver behavioural results
with increasing effectiveness over time. It explains how the gamification process can be
modelled as a behavioural cycle. The simple model is then used to explain how psychological
concepts, technological developments and game design considerations relate to behavioural
cycle design as well as how they can be incorporated to enhance the effectiveness of
gamification and address its criticisms.
A basic model for behavioural cycles; data driven habit creation.
A behavioural cycle can be created by combining psychological and technological processes.
The psychological aspect can be modelled as a habit formulation process using (Eyal, 2014)’s

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Hook Model for a number of reasons. Firstly, psychological models for behavioural cycles
within the set of accessible gamification literature are rare and the closest approximation is a
linear rather than a cyclic model (Hamari, Koivisto, and Sarsa, 2014). This model has
limitations as linear models by definition don’t model cycles and because it doesn’t explain
how psychological outcomes are formed after game elements have triggered an action.
Secondly, a model from habit psychology model can substitute a bespoke gamification model
given that habits, “automatic behaviours triggered by situational cues” (Eyal, 2014, p.1), form
the basis for repeated behaviour (Duhigg, 2012) and thus gamification (Robson et al., 2015).
Thirdly, Hook’s model was chosen over the other dominant model in the literature, (Duhigg,
2012)’s Habit Loop, because its digital product design focus is more relevant to the dissertation.
Moreover, the dissertation wishes to examine long-term psychological motivation as a
distinctively separate stage of the cyclic process rather than as an overall outcome of it. The
technological aspect can be modelled as an analytics process using (Wu, 2015a)’s Components
of Gamification System. Recent advances in analytics enable systems to better measure and
interpret user behaviour and nature (Paharia, 2013). Combining these 2 processes results in a
basic model for data driven habit creation for sustained motivational and behavioural outcomes.
The following outlines how Wu’s and Eyal’s frameworks combine to create a basic model for
behavioural cycles. Eyal’s psychological framework focuses on motivation formulation that
occurs within the person’s brain as habits are formed while Wu’s technological framework
focuses on “trigger”-“action” evaluation in the platform’s processor by analytics. Both aspects
share stages 1 and 2 of the behavioural cycle and not stages 3 and 4.

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Stages Psychological Technological
1 Initially, “triggers” comes externally to
create, through anticipation, short-term
and extrinsic motivation for…
“Triggers” deliver feedback that leads
to…
2 …“actions” to receive the ... …“actions” that create…
3 … variable “reward”. This accordingly
creates with cycle repetition…
…behavioural “data” that is processed
by…
4 … “investment”; the long-term
intrinsic motivation that internalises
the source of subsequent “trigger” and
cycles.
…an engine with a set of “rules” to
determine the next “trigger” for
subsequent cycles.
When these processes of habit creation and data driven response combine, they form a basic
model for the behavioural cycles created using the gamification process.

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Acquiring talents; psychology, technology and game design.
The basic model enables examination of how gamification design can become more effective
in different ways. The model explains how gamification achieves some form of sustained
behavioural change (Palmer, Lunceford, and Patton, 2012) (Xu, 2011) of which the underlying
science of the process has been validated independently of the gamification practice (Maritz,
2012). However, significant, desired change is not automatic (Gopaladesikan, 2012). This is
because the design process, the incorporation of different factors grounded in the scientific
approach (Karatas, 2016), is not a straightforward process (Jacobs, 2013). This provides
opportunities for gamification design improvement to enhance its effectiveness and address its
criticism. The dissertation relates expertise from the evolving fields of psychology, technology
and game design thinking to the model and how they can be incorporated to realise such
opportunities.
Psychological concepts
Gamification design can become more effective by leveraging more concepts from different
psychological fields; such as psychology focusing on making platforms generally more
engaging to users. This increases the “reward” and “investment” generated by gamification.
Understanding why people extrinsically and intrinsically behave draws from concepts in social,
positive and neuropsychology (Ryan, Rigby, and Przybylski, 2006) (de Paz, 2013).
Accordingly, game and gamification designers successfully commercialise these concepts to
create engaging digital platforms (White and Briggs, 2012). Concepts improving achieved
behavioural outcomes rather than increasing engagement can also be incorporated. This
ensures gamification generates “action” that achieves more productive results. In general,
gamification design can take into greater account behavioural psychology to design choice

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architecture (Thaler and Sunstein, 2009) that guide users away from undesired irrational
decisions (Kahneman, 2011). For more specific contexts, gamification design can incorporate
cognitive psychology usage in education (Dredge, 2012) and neuroscience in health
(Mcgonigal, 2015). With better psychology, gamification creates more engagement and desired
behaviours for more effective outcomes.
Technological trends
Gamification design can also become more effective by incorporating technological trends;
such as the increasing immersion of users in a more gamifiable reality through hardware
developments. This allows more frequent and extensive opportunities for gamified “feedback”
in people’s lives. People are increasingly connected and exposed to digital realities
(Andreessen, 2011) given the development of, the proliferation of, and dependence on
increasingly compact and powerful hardware such as laptops, phones and wearables (Kemp,
2015). Additionally, physical reality is increasingly internet-connected due to developments
involving mobile networks (Future Agenda, 2014) and the internet of things (Fuhriman, 2015).
As a result, a greater proportion of people’s lives becomes more malleable just like the digital
worlds of entertainment gaming platforms. This gives more opportunities to embed game
elements within users’ lives to enable interaction. With better design, the delivery of more
sustainable, visceral and extensive experiences becomes possible.
A second incorporable trend is how this digital immersion is accompanied by descriptive
analytics developments. This enables gamification platforms to utilise a larger and richer set of
user “data”. Digital immersion additionally allows generation of greater and more intimate data
by people (Paharia, 2013). This data is leveraged using developments in computing power that

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allow for the collection, storage and manipulation of larger and more chaotic data sets as well
as descriptive analytics that allow them to be comprehended (Wu, 2013a). Management and
processing of richer data sets enable gamification platforms to gain better user understanding
to provide more bespoke experiences (Paharia, 2013).
A third incorporable trend is how other forms of analytics act on the richer data set in
increasingly powerful ways. Gamification design can now have more robust “decision trees”
and more dynamic “triggers”. For example, predictive analytics enable what is not being
explicitly tracked to be estimated, modelled and validated (Wu, 2013b). Additionally,
prescriptive analytics enable automated feedback and recommendations for engagement
process improvements (Wu, 2013c). Currently, these compose only 5% of the utilised analytics
in gamification (Wu, 2015a). Over time, the increased familiarity and usage of these
technologies will lead to gamification platforms capable of creating a more bespoke, responsive
and controlled psychological experience.
Game design considerations
Gamification design can also become more effective and address criticisms by incorporating
game design consideration; such as how deep engagement can be created using multiple
“trigger” variations. For example, badges visually representing achievements (Werbach and
Hunter, 2012) can cause different behavioural results (Hamari, 2015). Badges can guide
“action” as goal setters to raise expectations, give feedback and chart optimal progression
(Bandura, 1993). Additionally, badges can motivate through different “reward” and
“investment” by using social psychology to create social pressure (Chou, 2015) or positive
psychology to create feelings of development and accomplishment (Chou, 2015). Going

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further, the same type of motivations can be achieved differently. Badges designed to motivate
users using social pressure can enable users to signal conformity and group identity (Hamari,
2015) or peer comparison and competition (Festinger, 1954). Moreover, beyond structural
badge design, narrative badge design can compel action by giving contextual meaning for
badge achievement (Kapp, 2013). This form of design precedes gamification (Palmer,
Lunceford, and Patton, 2012). Deeper, less superficial, engagement can be created with a more
digitally malleable platform and better use of the various design options.
A second consideration is how different settings call for different types and levels of “rewards”
and “investment” to maximise intended results. It’s important to identify how appropriate
different motivations types are. For example, early gamification conceptions emphasised and
were largely defined by competition (White and Briggs, 2012). However, competition is
effective in some but not all cases. Competition is effective when skills mastery through
repetition is required but not when creativity or learning is required (Herger, 2014). Going
further, the appropriate motivation levels need assessment. Competition is effective when users
are evenly matched but not when players perceived other players to have an unfair or
overwhelming advantage (Herger, 2014). In both cases, having more competition may even
cause burnout or skewed performances (Chou, 2015). Understanding these considerations is
necessary to shape design that creates productive results rather than unintended, criticised ones.
A third consideration is how the appropriateness of the “trigger”, and thus the “rewards” and
“investment”, changes over time. Novelty can produce some initial results even if the same
“trigger” type is used (Hamari, 2015) but overstimulation due to a finite variability of
experiences (Velasco, 2015) leads to diminishing long-run effects (Eyal, 2014). Variation can
be achieved by increasing the challenge of the “action” to attain the reward. This increase is

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required to continually engage users that have increasing platform proficiency over time
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Difficulty can be increased by magnitude but also through the
challenge’s uncertainty and rule obscurity (Wu, 2015b). Additionally, variation can be
achieved by shifting the “triggers” from the extrinsic to the intrinsic (Wu, 2015b). The level of
“investments” and thus reliance of intrinsic, internal “triggers” to drive behaviour must increase
for more automatic and long-term behavioural outcomes (Eyal, 2014). To accommodate
variation requires the design to contain a “psychological roadmap” on how to engage users
progressively at different stages as well as a “decision tree” for the analytics to apply the
appropriate parts of the design in response to actual, and not predicted, actions (Wu, 2014).
Gamification design incorporating such innovations provide the deeper and sustained
engagement needed for behavioural cycles and respond to criticisms of long-run inconsistency.
The fourth and final consideration is how the appropriateness of the “trigger” and thus the
“rewards” and “investment” varies based on gamification platform users. Recognising that
users are motivated and engaged differently (Yee, 2006) has led the video-gaming industry
(Bartle, 1996) (Kim, 2014) and gamifiers (Marczewski, 2015a) to frameworks to identify how.
Beyond these meta-classifications, users vary by more easily identifiable classifications such
as regional culture. For example, gamification design in an Asian context require material
rewards for initial stages (Herger, 2014) and an overall more social emphasis (Thom, R. Millen,
and DiMicco, 2012). Additionally, users vary across more definable demographics such as
gender or age. For example, competition generally does not resonate relatively well with
women (Coppens, 2015) and the mature (Yee, 2016). Gamification design that accommodates
such variation in its psychological roadmap and decision tree can respond to criticism of
inconsistency by delivering systematic results over different contexts and users.

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4. The Public Sector: unique and exceptional requirements
Beyond design stage challenges are requirement stage challenges, which leads to the third and
final theoretical puzzle; the public sector’s capacity to digitally innovate and how better
innovation enabling measures can be taken within constraints. The public sector is capable of
continuous, large-scale implementation of digital technology in its operations and digitally-
enabling institutional changes (Dunleavy et al., 2006,) (Margetts and Dunleavy, 2013).
However, there is both a chronological (Symonds, 2000) and cultural lag (Margetts and
Dunleavy, 2013) in its implementation relative to the private sector. This leads to scepticism
regarding the public sector’s innovative capacity (Sørensen and Torfing, 2012). Large, public
sector organisations may incorporate private sector best practices (Hood, 1991) given their
counterparts similar internal structure and, to a lesser extent, service provision (European
Commission, 2013). However, completely duplicating such practices is tricky as the inherent
political, legal and ethical constraints faced distinctively by public organisations (Dunleavy et
al., 2007) need to be adhered to (Hughes, 2003).
In response, the dissertation argues that better innovation enabling measures can be taken in
the public sector within constraints. It thematically outlines how the internal and external
challenges faced by public organisations are caused by a unique system of accountability, how
it creates further exceptional challenges common to all large organisations, and how they can
be resolved despite these constraints.

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Unique system of accountability (Internal)
The first theme outlines how the public sector’s system of accountability creates internal
challenges by initially examining how the system is unique. This stems from the resource
acquisition process. Financially, unlike the private sector, public sector organisations primarily
derive their budget through taxation (Hood and Margetts, 2007) to provide public goods. In
terms of data, governments often have unique access to sensitive and private information about
their citizens when conducting their public duties (Dunleavy, 2016). Governments have the
coercive authority to gather these resources from other societal members due to their mandate
to extensively and inclusively serve society. In contrast, private sector organisations free from
this burden have a clear and sole line of accountability to their managerial board and
stakeholders (Hughes, 2003). Overall, the system of accountability gives governments both
distinctive powers (Hood and Margetts, 2007) and constraints.
Significant bureaucracy accompanies the greater power bestowed to public organisations. The
greater mandate of the government subjects it to high accountability standards. Financially,
governments are obliged to use taxpayer’s funds with integrity and prudence (Behn, 2000).
This obligation, potentially combined with austerity or small-government ideologies, can exert
considerable political pressure. In terms of data, governments have to guard against the self-
interested actors seeking to exploit public goods or the vulnerable. This can be especially
problematic given technological illiteracy of how individuals’ data can be misused and
exploited given constant big data developments (Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier, 2013). In
response, governments have created extensive legal and bureaucratic rules (Borins, 2001) to
regulate and justify its operational conduct. This tightens financial control due to the resulting
cultural tendency to only spend money when the clearest possible financial case is made

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(Margetts and Dunleavy, 2002). This additionally restricts data-flow through private sector
controlled digital systems to prevent exploitation. However, this overall may unintentionally
inhibit individual and organisational capacity to innovate.
Measures enabling innovation despite these challenges create high regulation and assessment
standards to mitigate innovation implementation risk. Financially, public service effectiveness
and the consequences of ignoring innovations must be assessed (Margetts and Dunleavy, 2002)
despite disincentives to measure (Hood and Margetts, 2007) and evaluate organisational
effectiveness (KPMG LLP, 2014). Assessment is required to justify deliberate innovation
investments (IDEO, 2010) and shift financial dependency away from uncertain, budgetary
slack (Borins, 2001). Legally, the right legislative and technical frameworks must be developed
and regularly updated (Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier, 2013) before progressing with data-
driven innovation. Reasonable expectations on privacy enforceability must also be set and
communicated to stakeholders (European Commission, 2013) to maintain their trust and
consent. These practices are necessary precursors to all innovation external collaborations by
large organisations and can be taken within the constraints of political organisations.
Unique system of accountability (External)
The scrutiny of stakeholders from outside the public sector may dilute strategic innovative
direction. This is one of the challenges of the second theme that outlines the external challenges
created by the unique system of accountability. Scrutiny of the high accountability standards
required of the civil service is exerted through the democratic electoral process (Behn, 2000).
Political parties, unlike private organisations, are subjected to this process of external
accountability. This requires them to fulfil certain “office seeking” objectives (Budge and

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Laver, 1986) to maintain the capacity to implement preferred policy. Although civil servants
aren’t politicians, political party members, especially ministers, have significant influence over
the strategic direction of public sector organisations (Hughes, 2003). As a result, public sector
leaders are guided indirectly by diverse and powerful beliefs outside their organisations beyond
their beliefs of optimal organisational objectives. The need to consistently accommodate both
types of beliefs for long-term public sector innovation increases innovation inertia.
Moreover, 3 main groups may exert such external scrutiny non-ideally. Firstly, the opposition
is incentivised to unduly criticise governmental initiatives to improve subsequent electoral
chances (Borins, 2001). Secondly, the media is similarly incentivized to sensationalise or skew
policy issues to engage and increase readership (Borins, 2001). Finally, citizens may have
limited knowledge to assess the innovation process and pass discerning judgements of
governmental decisions. As a collective result, the inevitable mistakes and pivots necessarily
made when implementing innovation are perceived as governmental ineptitude (KPMG LLP,
2014). This perception occurs even if results are moderately positive, inconclusive, or due to
mistakes made by private sector collaborators rather than the government (KPMG LLP, 2014).
Moreover, accountability tends to focus on errors rather than achievements; further decreasing
innovation incentives (Hughes 2003). The ideal of competitively and responsibly using
resources to effectively achieve public objectives is not necessarily achieved.
Collectively, this external scrutiny negatively affects the innovation process. A lack of
incentives and a cultural preference for traditional duties permeated downward by
organisational leaders limit innovation motivation (KPMG LLP, 2014). Even if motivation is
strong, electoral considerations can cause difficulty. Public sector organisations may be too

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risk averse or busy dealing with external stakeholders to initiate new programmes (Chapman,
2002). Even if innovation is executed, these considerations cause difficulties. Public
organisations may hype up innovation implementations (KPMG LLP, 2014) to achieve short
term political outcomes. However, this impedes long-term innovation capacity by increasing
scrutiny of the innovative process and subsequently misrepresenting its mistakes and pivots.
Finally, external scrutiny throughout the process creates an uncertain budget and strategic
direction for programmes as the strength of executive backing changes due to electoral defeat
(IDEO, 2010) or parliamentary opposition.
Measures enabling innovation despite these challenges isolate the innovation process from such
undue external scrutiny. Political scrutiny is necessary for democracy and elections but must
be realised differently to accommodate the nature of innovation. For example, an experimental,
closed door pilot-testing approach for validated learning must be implemented (OECD, 2014).
This lowers both financial cost and potential political risk in order to overcome risk aversion
and secure support. Once justified, funding must be fixed and set aside in a venture fund to
give teams the financial autonomy to conduct innovation (Borins, 2001). Reasonable standards
emphasising validated learning before product creation must be set for project evaluation and
accountability (Ries, 2011). Finally, the temptation to milk innovation for political capital by
prematurely unveiling it to external scrutiny must be resisted during the implementation
process. Only then can the innovation process of experimentation and pivoting be completed
free from undue pressure while satisfying accountability constraints in political organisations.

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Exceptional organisational problems
A problem limiting innovation in large organisations is a lack of implementation knowledge.
The manner in which such organisational problems have been exceptionally compounded by
the public sector’s system of accountability form the basis of the third theme. The public sector
traditionally takes a universal approach to implementing innovation as stakeholders expect
equal treatment of all citizens (Behn, 2000). This approach has limitations as the resulting lack
of learning increases the chances of failure. Innovation requires theorising a new operational
model comprising of different, unproven components. This must be validated and adapted
before the model can be effective in practice (Ries, 2011). Collectively testing the different
components makes it hard to disentangle the exact causes early stage experimental failures
when they likely occur. Moreover, the approach is expensive as initiating and subsequently
pivoting a large-scale initiative requires relatively greater amounts of political and financial
investments. In turn, this reduces initial innovative capacity and willingness. Measures that
enable innovation despite these challenges advocate a new, pilot-testing culture to replace the
universal approach (OECD, 2014). Individually testing different components and adapting
based on observed, isolated results allow organisations to systematically and effectively create,
validate and scale innovation at a lower political and financial cost (KPMG LLP, 2014).
Secondly, innovation is limited given the lack of open and collaborative organisational
structures. Public organisations have huge and complex structures to undertake their duties.
This causes problems in sharing information needed to create and validate new operational
models through feedback and learning. Size can impose coordination and communication
strains (IDEO, 2010). This is compounded by the additional administrative friction to satisfy
public organisations’ unique system of accountabilities. This creates information silos

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(European Commission, 2013) that restrict access to relevant public sector data by its members.
Size also makes achieving unified purpose harder due to the increased diversity and resulting
clashes in interests. Even with a strategic drive for innovation from public organisation leaders,
their middle management subordinates tend to resist sharing scarce information (KPMG LLP,
2014) to maintain perceived career capital. Moreover, there is a higher tendency for
departmental conflicts caused by differences in personality or competition for scarce resources
(Chapman, 2002). A desire to improve end-user public objectives can often be lost amidst inter-
person politics (Chapman, 2002). Measures enabling innovation despite these challenges
promote data accessibility and structures to house collaborations. New ways to format data
(Chapman, 2002) and measures that either cut across (World Economic Forum, 2014) or form
new structures outside of silos (Margetts and Dunleavy, 2002) can enable the required multi-
disciplinary approach to innovatively solve complex policy problems.
Thirdly, and to conclude, innovation is limited by a lack of people motivated to innovate. The
aforementioned conditions that impede public sector innovation attract risk-averse employees
who prize a stable or less competitive working environment (Civil Service World, 2014).
Moreover, this entrenches an unconducive innovative culture that repels potential innovators
to the private sector. HR-related measures made at different stages of the innovation process
can further enable innovation. At the recruitment stage, attempts can be made to broadly recruit
teams with both problem and solution competencies from both within the organisation and
outside. Additionally, pitches can be made based on the public sector’s distinctive, intrinsic
appeal of doing work with public objectives (Civil Service World, 2014). At the project
management stage, teams can be housed within structures focusing innovation (Gryszkiewicz
and Friederici, 2014) and informational collaboration. Supportive project managers can be

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assigned and frameworks created to allow for sufficient autonomy in decision making within
boundaries that respect public organisations obligations (Mocker, Bielli, and Haley, 2015).

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5. Methodology: a broad and reliable dataset
Specific public gamification case studies were sourced for the dissertation. Earlier in the three
substantive chapters, a theoretical core was initially forged from adjacent fields in public sector
innovation and gamification. As per the dissertation’s deductive approach, this was
subsequently used to engage with three, contrasting case studies.
Case Studies
Name “Every Door is a Right
Door” (EDRD)
“Idea Street” “SmartPune App”
Customer Singapore’s Civil
Service College (CSC)
UK’s Department for
Work and Pensions
(DWP)
Pune’s Municipal
Corporation (India)
Vendor Playware Studios Asia
Pte Ltd
Spigit, Inc Persistent Systems Ltd.
Purpose Learning & development
for CSC customers (civil
servants and public
officers)
Innovation generation
for employees (civil
servants)
Innovation generation
for customers (citizens)
Implicit or
explicit
gamification
Explicit (serious game) Implicit Implicit
Internal or
external
gamification
External Internal External
These case studies were selected based on content accessibility and their prominence in this
nascent field. The Singapore government is pushing for the use of “policy games” to train civil
servants through the CSC (Chambers, 2015). The latter leads by example by using EDRD to
train up to 125,000 Singaporean civil servants in citizen service policies (Civil Service College,
2014). Many sources have cited Idea Street (KPMG LLP, 2014) (Buggie and Appukuttan,

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2013) (Breed, 2012) as a clear example of impactful public gamification. From 2009 to 2013
and over 2 iterations it generated innovative measures that saved an estimated 35 million
pounds when subsequently implemented (Bradley, 2016). SmartPune was part of a digital
marketing campaign deployed in support of Pune’s digital transformation as part of the Indian
Government’s Smart City Challenge (Pune Municipal Corporation, 2015). It engaged 40,000
innovators from a city of 7 million (Persistent Systems, 2016) and the engine powering it won
the “Best Technological Development Contribution” Award at the Gamification World
Congress 2015 (Gamification World Congress, 2015). Analysis of the diverse, star-studded
cast promised to yield rich insights.
Data gathered is generally considered reliable. For EDRD, a Non-Disclosure Agreement
(NDA) was signed that allowed the CSC to vet the dissertation. However, fears of censorship
comprising accuracy and academic quality are negligible. Firstly, EDRD showcased an
example of successful public gamification implementation by the CSC that showed it in a
positive light. Secondly, the CSC required the censorship of technical details involving service
delivery protocol that had a negligible academic impact. Thirdly, checks ensured greater factual
accuracy. In return, access to the relevant material was granted. For Idea Street and SmartPune,
no NDAs were signed when gathering material. For SmartPune, connections and rapport were
established at GWC 2015 and first-hand information was given freely on request to showcase
Persistent’s gamification capacity. Incentives for reliability aligned in a similar fashion with
the CSC. For Idea Street, support was relatively limited given that the platform was
discontinued after 2013 and as Spigit became a subsidiary of Mindjet. However, project
members previously involved were happy to provide interviews. Certain details, especially
procurement costs, were omitted from the research in adherence to non-disclosure work ethics.
Beyond minor limitations, rich insights could be freely gathered.

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Case study material was gathered and thematically analysed using a 3-stage process. In the
first stage, written material was gathered in a variety of formats with an initially broad
approach to capture data given the lack of available research in this area and uncertainty of
stakeholder’s views (Braun and Clarke, 2006). In the second stage, semi-structured elite
interviews with stakeholders were arranged if it was judged that research amassed according
to the following questions was insufficient.
- “What motivations and objectives were made initially before implementation?”
- “What factors and efforts proved conducive or instrumental for success?”
- “What resources were utilised?”
- “How was the resulting gamified product designed?”
- “How was the project evaluated and what were the results?”
These questions were crafted to code data into the existing framework created by the research
question and theoretical literature. This deductive, thematic analysis was more spontaneous
and compensated for the initial lack of depth and complexity in the first stage (Braun and
Clarke, 2006). Additionally, this was used to clarify confusion in written material and gather
novel data. In the third stage, themes were generated to examine the case studies in contrast
based on how significant and recurrent they were in the data set. In this manner, theoretical
insights on how public gamification can be successfully implemented were qualitatively
supplemented with empirical data.

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6. Case Studies Themes: theory meets reality
The following 5 themes lay out the findings from the dataset, contrast their implications and
relate them back to earlier theoretical insights. The section concludes with an overview of the
different ways they do so.
‘Gamspiration’ validated
The first theme examines how different objectives influence gamification’s conceptualisation
during its implementation and how the dissertation’s definition achieves those objectives. On
one hand, there is the publicity aspect of showcasing an organisation’s commitment to
innovation and receptiveness to new ideas. This is demonstrated by applying the novel idea of
using games to solve real world problems. SmartPune was conceptualised explicitly as
gamification (eMee, 2015) as part of a wider governmental interest in this innovation (National
e-Governance Division, 2015). This was well received when it played its part in digitising Pune
(Persistent Systems, 2016). In other countries, the UK’s DWP celebrated Idea Street as an
example of successful public gamification (Burke and Mesaglio, 2010) and beyond EDRD, the
CSC set up an internal serious gaming unit to train the rest of the civil service (Ho, 2014). This
objective can be accomplished by the dissertation’s definition and many other definitions
simply with the novel idea of using fun and games for serious purposes.
In contrast, there is the disassociation aspect of shielding projects from association with
unwanted misconceptions. For the case of Idea Street, the innovation was initiated as an
innovation rather than gamification project (Cotterill, 2016) and only became known as the
latter in follow-up phases (Bradley, 2016). This was due to the team’s labelling strategy to

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dissociate the project from the notions of frivolity (Cotterill, 2016). For EDRD, the innovation
was conceptualised as a “Serious Game” to distinguish its approach from creating limited,
PBL-centric (Points, Badges Leaderboard) platforms associated with gamification and to stress
the non-entertainment objectives involved (Jain, 2016). In particular, the dissertation’s
definition addresses these issues with the foundational principles. The aspiration aspect of
gamification communicates behavioural outcomes desirable by the organisational management
and the inspiration aspect goes beyond PBLs towards all aspects of game design. Overall, the
applicability of the foundational principles is validated.
Need more design over time
The second theme examines the need for creating a design that engages players over time.
There are different ways to adhere to the third game design consideration elaborated earlier in
chapter 3 about the gamification practice. One way for a platform to improve product longevity
is by adding new content to match increasing user proficiency with novelty and uncertainty.
ERDR’s design follows this principle by allowing the CSC to continually add new case studies
to train participants (Civil Service College, 2016a), and subsequent platform expansions have
been centred around this capability (Dayanandan, 2016). This ensures the novelty, relevance
and quality of scenarios for new participants and gives reasons for experienced users to return.
Alternatively, limiting the scope and use of gamification can still generate respectable results
if this approach is not viable. Unlike EDRD which has a learning and development focus, the
purpose of SmartPune and Idea Street is innovation generation. An approach can be used to
maximise engagement within a limited timeframe if content is meant to be generated by users
rather than provided for them. SmartPune followed this principle by taking a once-off and time-

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limited approach. It supported a specific section of a clearly defined timeline even though the
eMee platform has the capacity to support the innovation over a longer timeframe (Persistent
Systems, 2010). Reflections after the first iteration of Idea Street concurred as the design
discouraged competition through an increasing point gap between old and new users due to
points accumulation of the former (Cotterill, 2016). The suggested alternative was a series of
once-off time limited challenges rather than a continuous platform for general innovation
(Cotterill, 2016). In this way, the system retained engaging novelty and ended initiatives on a
high note to build goodwill for successors (Cotterill, 2016).
A final approach suggested is to adapt design over time to cater to organisational objectives
and levels of user fatigue. The element of virtual currency was first introduced in Idea Street
to generate short-term engagement. This gave the platform a distinctively gamified feel and
helped to virally grow the community of innovators (Bradley, 2016). However, the currency
element was removed from the platform in the second iteration in order to place more design
emphasis on the reputational score. This moved the motivational emphasis away from
competition towards social pressures in order to achieve a more spread-out innovation process
for a much larger community (Bradley, 2016). In the long run, gamification design can be
slowly phased out as the need for it drops relative to other considerations, as with the case of a
lack of continuation of the Idea Street programme after 2013 (Bradley, 2016), unless a more
diverse blend of techniques could be provided. Ultimately, the design must cater to the
experience’s chronological length.

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Adapt as necessity requires
The third theme examines the ways in which gamification can be successfully implemented by
adapting to address needs across different contexts. For example, EDRD was successful
because its design tackled a problem not easily solved using more conventional methods;
training multiple civil servants in an abstract skillset within a short time-frame (Civil Service
College, 2014). Non-digital, face-to-face training would provide quality training at an
insufficient scale. Using solely a digital, PBL-centric platform would be inadequate because of
the difficulty in evaluating abstract skillset development. Combining the best of both
approaches created an optimum, hybrid model for learning within technological limitations and
design capacity. Similar lengths to adapt design were taken by Persistent Systems to fulfil the
Indian government’s problems of low or inappropriate citizen use of digital platforms (National
e-Governance Division, 2015). The eMee Performance Management System, a platform
designed for internal, workforce gamification (Bhobe, 2015), was used to perform the external
role of marketing by using it as a “smart room” to power a front-end application (Pune
Municipal Corporation, 2015). Finally, besides organisational needs, individual needs can be
leveraged for successful implementation. The socially-oriented design of Idea Street suited the
DWP given the initial lack of an internal departmental communication channel (Cotterill,
2016). In this way, a large number of socially motivated users became ideal early adopters of
the platform. Ultimately, adapting to address needs create successful solutions.
Different playstyles to innovation
The fourth theme expands on different early-stage approaches to innovation. This complicates
one of the assertions made earlier in chapter 4 about the public sector; innovation by large
organisations should take an initially small scale approach. On one hand, this assertion is

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validated by how Playware Studios’ nimble, small-scale approach for implementing EDRD
and other projects give it a competitive advantage. By keeping costs in terms of manpower,
financing and implementation time low relative to their competitors, they are able to implement
multiple, successful projects (Ferrer, 2016) (Playware Studios Asia, 2016) and give their teams
significantly more hands-on experience (Jain, 2016). This puts them in a good position in terms
of reputation and skills to execute more large-scale and resource intensive projects in the future.
However, innovation can be initially implemented on a large scale under certain circumstances.
Firstly, the manner of gamification, if not validated internally via pilot testing, must have been
successfully applied in similar cases. The Spigit enterprise platform that powered Idea Street
was recommended by the DWP’s Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at the time, James Gardner,
based on his private sector experience with the platform (Cotterill, 2016). Secondly, efforts can
be taken to establish an attractive, mutually beneficial commercial agreement to overcome
initial resistance and circumvent financial constraints; as was the case with Spigit (Bradley,
2016). These are ways in which pilot-testing can be circumvented without associated problems
of wastage and failure. Ultimately, different situations can accommodate different approaches.
Innovation intensification
Finally, the fifth theme elaborates a need to concentrate innovation for successful
implementation. This is an innovation enabling measure briefly mentioned earlier in chapter 4
about the public sector. The managerial trend of creating innovation hubs outside of large,
bureaucratic organisations follows this principle (Gryszkiewicz and Friederici, 2014).
However, the case studies interpret this principle with differing approaches. EDRD
concentrated innovation by physically creating a conducive environment. It only can be used

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as part of workshops mainly held at the CSC (Dayanandan, 2016); the government’s centre of
excellence and innovation. This ensures that external participants are immersed in a new
environment that requires their full and present attention. Furthermore, the CSC team behind
EDRD would be able to smoothen and learn from the design friction of participants caused by
the onboarding process of an unconventional platform.
In contrast, innovation can be concentrated by separating a critical mass of engaged users away
from a larger pool of users. Idea Street achieves this by restricting the use of the innovation in
terms of digital access. By using a closed beta testing process, they only targeted early adopting
users who were highly receptive to innovation and could contribute to a conducive innovative
environment. Moreover, these users also enthusiastically evangelised the platform and added
to the hype generated by its initial secrecy (Cotterill, 2016). SmartPune takes a complementary
approach by restricting the use of the innovation in terms of time. The app was utilised as part
of a larger plan to digitally transform Pune that followed a specific 5-part timeline (Pune
Municipal Corporation, 2015). By condensing the time-frame to use the platform, it generated
a significant amount of engagement from users who were incentivised by a sense of urgency
to act quickly. Ultimately, there are different ways to concentrate innovation.
Looking for more cases
The case studies collectively supplemented the theoretical insights in different ways. Firstly, it
added new material that fell within but was not initially elaborated by the roadmap; such as
context adaptation of design (third theme) and measures enabling innovation intensification
(fifth theme). Secondly, it challenged existing theoretical material, such as the recommendation
of pilot-testing (fourth theme), and further developed it by identifying factors confounding its

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success. Thirdly, it validated existing material; such as the strength and applicability of the
ideological framework to understand gamification (first theme). Fourthly, it proposed some
counterintuitive points; such as how gamification’s effectiveness requires it to be implemented
in a limited manner (second theme). Finally, despite the small sample size, it helped empirically
assess which of the challenges and recommendations theoretically outlined are more
prominent. Overall, the cases studies were very useful in complementing the dissertation’s
general, theoretical emphasis and validating it with empirical data.

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7. The Future: Gamified Government?
The research concludes the importance of 2 foundational principles in defining gamification,
how gamification’s effectiveness can be enhanced using different expertise from psychology,
technology and game design, and how measures enabling public sector innovation can take
place within the constraints. The chapter and the dissertation close by assessing the
conclusions’ limitation, their academic and commercial use, and their implications for the field
of public gamification, the public sector and wider society.
Limitations of this analysis
Conclusions and insights were made within some broad methodological limitations. Firstly,
the theoretical roadmap is comprehensive but not collectively exhaustive. Within the roadmap,
some challenges and recommendations were not covered adequately as shown by analysing the
case studies. Engineering focused implementation stages of implementation not covered by the
research should be examined; especially since technological barriers can have short-term
significance (Raftopoulos, 2015). Beyond the practice and the public sector, there are also
demand-side digital innovation challenges found outside of public organisations (Margetts and
Dunleavy, 2002). Secondly, the broad theoretical insights made need more thorough validation.
The dissertation’s qualitative approach explained and explored inter-related variables while
generating nuance and novelty from the case studies. More quantitative research need to further
test the conclusions’ external validity. Subsequent research can use regression to test the
identified variables’ significance, large-sample surveys can identify additional variables
omitted from this research (Mahoney and Goetz, 2006) or more case studies can be used.
Thirdly, this dissertation took a more theoretical and deductive approach to examine the case

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studies. More inductive research can yield a deeper and different roadmap. Despite limitations,
overall the dissertation outlines broad insights to successfully implement public gamification.
Future endeavours can use this research to support the field’s expected growth.
Discussion of this research
The ideological framework that seeks to promote a better understanding of gamification can be
used for future research and greatly smoothen unnecessary resistance towards gamification.
When searching for a gamification definition, the dissertation found a lack of alternatives that
could communicate the 2 foundational principles. Definitions are methods-centric and
accommodate inspiration but not aspiration, “practice of reverse engineer(ing) what makes
game effective and graft(ing) them into a business environment” (Werbach and Hunter, 2012,
p.12), “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts” (Deterding et al., 2011),
outcome-centric and engage the latter but not the former “process of enhancing a service with
affordances for gameful experiences” (Huotari and Hamari, 2012), too function specific
“integrating game dynamics into your site, service, community, content or campaign, in order
to drive participation” (Bunchball Inc, 2010) or do not make the distinction between the 2
principles “making something more game like (Chou, 2015, p.6). Our framework can be used
to inspire better definitions that accommodate both principles; such as (Marczewski, 2015a)’s
adaptation or (Jürgens, 2015)’s “the user-centered-design-process of game-thinking to achieve
predefined goals within non-game-contexts”. Additionally, the framework can be validated by
research that analyses how the different definitions of gamification maximise its effectiveness
across different contexts (Llagostera, 2012). This brings value to the wider practice.

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The roadmap provided towards public gamification implementation has commercial value.
This research contains commercially valuable insights to gamifiers and civil servants drafting
proposals for more productive interactions between governments and gamification. Moreover,
these insights are transferable. Implementing gamification or digital technologies for other non-
profit (Fu, 2011) or political (Mahnic, 2014) objectives will engage with similar requirements
stemming from public accountability demands. Moreover, this study of public organisations
enriches a previously understudied niche in enterprise gamification. The design considerations,
illustrated by competition generation and achievement recognition through badges, are useful
in designing gamified apps and more traditional forms of motivation and incentive design in
public policy and wider society.
The roadmap also generates academic value and can be used for future research in public
gamification. The dissertation can be used to inform broader discussions in more well-
established fields. For example, the recommendations and empirical data can influence
discussions on which public sector management models best accommodate gamification and
other forms of e-governance (Dunleavy et al., 2006). More specific questions on public
gamification can build upon the broad theoretical literature; such as assessing the different
intrinsic motivations the public sector is distinctively capable of leveraging when
implementing gamification. Subsequent research can focus more on illustrating in greater depth
or identifying more considerations specific to either the public sector or gamification; such as
the relative lack of competitiveness by the public sector (Sørensen and Torfing, 2011) or the
legal aspect of implementing gamified products that inherently gather and redistribute large
amounts of information. Overall, the dissertation provides a good starting point for future
pioneering efforts in this rising field.

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Conclusion: Onward
In conclusion, this research supports a vision of a gamification-augmented government that
enriches society with intrinsic motivation. Despite challenges, the many possible ways for
public gamification implementation predict more successful cases as the practice and the public
sector acts on them and have better expectations of each other (Gartner, 2011) (Marczewski,
2015b). This also gives rise to broader questions that accompany this proliferation, such as the
limitations, political relevance and ethical implications of public gamification. Like all
innovations, public gamification is shaped by changing political, cultural and economic forces
that may lead it to cause unintended effects in unforeseen forms (Morozov, 2011). Moreover,
attention should be given involving the greater capacity of governments to influence citizen’s
psychology and behaviour for large-scale, data-driven manipulation (Asquer, 2013). However,
ultimately public gamification still holds great potential to transform society (Chou, 2015)
(McGonigal, 2011a) (KPMG LLP, 2014) if the technology and design are successfully steered
in the right direction. In a manner reminiscent of visions past (Dunleavy et al., 2007), a
gamified government at the forefront of progressive innovation may in the future not seem like
such a mythical beast.

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Appendix
Examples of game design metaphors.
“Game design metaphors” are defined as lessons, elements and strategies applied to non-
entertainment contexts (Marczewski, 2015a). (Werbach, 2012)’s Game Element Hierarchy
provides a Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive (MECE) framework to cover the
variants in Game Design Metaphors. His starting premise is that all gamified products or games
can be formed and understood by a set of game elements. These elements serve as experiential
building blocks which designers can pull apart and rebuild their projects in accordance to their
needs. They can be classified in the hierarchy based on degrees of abstraction starting in
descending order from dynamics, big-picture aspects of the system that cannot be directly
designed, mechanics, basic psychological processes that drive behaviour, and components,
specific instantiations of mechanics and dynamics.
The Game Element Hierarchy by Kevin Werbach (Derntl, 2014).

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Examples of psychological outcomes behind game-like states.
“Game-like states” are psychological outcomes (Huotari and Hamari, 2012) of optimised
engagement and motivation that are associated with entertainment games (Marczewski, 2015a)
and lead to behavioural (Huotari and Hamari, 2012) and ideological outcomes. (Chou, 2015)’s
Octalysis Framework is similarly MECE. His starting premise is that the objective of
gamification is the maximisation of motivation for desired behavioural outcomes through the
use of 8 core drives (Meaning, Accomplishment, Empowerment, Ownership, Scarcity,
Unpredictability, Avoidance). These can alternatively be classified into black hat (negative) -
white hat (positive) and left brain (extrinsic tendency) - right brain (intrinsic tendency). More
information can be found online using resources generated by the Octalysis Group.
The Octalysis Framework by Yu-kai Chou (Beerda, 2014).

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The Octalysis Framework; Left Brain vs Right Brain (Beerda, 2014).
The Octalysis Framework; White Hat vs Black Hat (Beerda, 2014).

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Motivations
“Playing World of Warcraft online awakened my political consciousness. As I was 13, people
were much older than me, but in that egalitarian community, adults interacted and trusted me
as an equal. Because of that, over the years as a member of many guilds, I was exposed to not
only an incredible variety of people but also the many ways their differences in values and aims
came together. I stopped playing since my IGCSE year, but lessons were learnt: Where there
are differences, there is politics. Good governance ensures the prosperity of the community.
Bad governance allows it to destroy itself. To protect what you hold dear, no one is more suited,
or more responsible, than yourself. The concepts of economics and politics provide me with
the ever applicable tools to both find the truth and shape reality with it in a wide variety of
situations, and a formal education of them in cosmopolitan London gives me the perspective
to do so with cultural versatility.”
UCAS Personal Statement 2012.

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