Product Gamification presentation delivered by Asif Rajani, during the Warsaw Venture Cafe at Varso Tower on 30/September/2021. Source: Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards By Yu-kai Chou

1. Product Gamification
Develop great products to optimize human motivation
Asif Rajani
Warsaw Venture Cafe
30 September 2021

2. The Speed
Camera Lottery

3. Agenda
Human-Focused Design
• Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling
• Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
• Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
• Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession
• Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness
• Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience
• Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity
• Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance
• Left Brain vs Right Brain
• White Hat vs Black Hat
The Octalysis Framework
• The Speed Camera Lottery
• Facebook
Cases

4. Human-focused
design
• “Human-Focused Design” as opposed to the
“Function-Focused Design.”
• Gamification: gaming industry was the first to master
human-focused design.
• Gamification: integration of fun elements of a game
into real-world applications.
• Gamification is using Game Mechanics and
Techniques to engage and motivate people through
their Core Drives.

6. Level II

7. Level III

8. Agenda
Human-Focused Design
• Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling
• Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
• Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
• Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession
• Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness
• Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience
• Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity
• Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance
• Left Brain vs Right Brain
• White Hat vs Black Hat
The Octalysis Framework
• The Speed Camera Lottery
• Facebook
Cases

9. CD1: Epic
Meaning &
Calling
• A player believes that he is
doing something greater
than himself, or he was
“chosen” to do something.
• Wikipedia or Open Source
projects
• “Beginner’s Luck”

11. CD2:
Development &
Accomplishment
• The internal drive of making
progress, developing skills,
and eventually overcoming
challenges.
• The word “challenge” here is
very important, as a badge
or trophy without a
challenge is not meaning
• This is also the core drive
that is the easiest to design
for and coincidently is where
most of the PBLs: points,
badges, leaderboards mostly
focus on.

12. CD3:
Empowerment
of Creativity &
Feedback
• When users are engaged in a
creative process where they
have to repeatedly figure
things out and try different
combinations.
• People not only need ways
to express their creativity,
but they need to be able to
see the results of their
creativity, receive feedback,
and respond in turn.
• Legos and painting.

13. CD4: Ownership
& Possession
• This is the drive where users
are motivated because they
feel like they own
something.
• Willingness to accumulate
wealth but also virtual goods
or virtual currencies within
systems.
• Customization of profile or
avatar.
• Collection of stamps or
puzzle pieces.

14. CD5: Social
Influence &
Relatedness
• This drive incorporates all
the social elements that
drive people, including
mentorship, acceptance,
social responses,
companionship, as well as
competition and envy.
• Drive get closer to people,
places, or events that we can
relate to.
• Optimization of online social
strategies.

15. CD6: Scarcity &
Impatience
• Wanting something because
you can’t have it.
• Appointment Dynamics.
• Facebook when it first
started: at first it was just for
Harvard.
“Not expensive enough”

16. CD7:
Unpredictability
& Curiosity
• Willingness to find out what
will happen next. Many
people watch movies or read
novels because of this drive.
• Gambling addiction.
• Companies running a
sweepstake or lottery
program to engage users.
• The very controversial
Skinner Box experiments,
where an animal irrationally
presses a lever frequently
because of unpredictable
results.

17. CD8: Loss &
Avoidance
• This core drive is based upon
the avoidance of something
negative happening.
• Avoid losing previous work.
• Avoid admitting that
everything you did up to this
point was useless because
you are now quitting.
• Opportunities fading away:
people feel like if they didn’t
act immediately, they would
lose the opportunity to act
forever.

18. Agenda
Human-Focused Design
• Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling
• Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
• Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
• Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession
• Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness
• Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience
• Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity
• Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance
• Left Brain vs Right Brain
• White Hat vs Black Hat
The Octalysis Framework
• The Speed Camera Lottery
• Facebook
Cases

19. Left Brain/Extrinsic
Motivation is the
motivation that is derived
from a goal, purpose, or
reward.
Right Brain/Intrinsic
Motivation, is the
motivation you get by
inherently enjoying the
task itself.

20. Motivational Traps in Gamification Campaigns

21. How to make
an experience
more
intrinsic?
1. Making the experience more Social
• First Win State (“Wow! This is awesome!”), only then
invite friends
• Create environments that foster socializing
• Add more Group Quests
2. Add more Unpredictability into the Experience
• Build controlled randomness into the experience
• “Variable rewards are one of the most powerful tools
companies implement to hook users.”
3. Add more Meaningful Choices and Feedback
• “Is there a way to allow my users to take multiple
routes but still reach the same goal? Are there places
that I could allow them to make meaningful choices to
craft their own experiences?”
• Avoid “Google+ Problem”

22. Make us feel powerful, fulfilled, and satisfied.
Make us feel obsessed, anxious, and addicted.

23. White Hat vs
Black Hat
• Critical weakness of White Hat Motivation: it does
not create a sense of urgency.
• Critical weakness of Black Hat Motivation: In the
long run they often leave a bad taste in our
mouths because we feel we’ve lost control of our
own behaviors.
• If there aren’t any Black Hat techniques, there
likely won’t be any breakout success;
• If there aren’t any White Hat techniques, users
quickly burnout and leave for something better.

25. Cases

26. • Which Core Drives motivate to drive slowly?
• Which additional Core Drives does the
SpeedCam Lottery add to solve this problem?
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27. Case 1: The
Speed Camera
Lottery
1. Which Core Drives motivate to drive slowly?
• Epic Meaning & Calling (Core Drive #1): driving
safely and responsibly is for a cause greater than
yourself.
• Loss & Avoidance (Core Drive #8): fining people for
driving over the speed limit.
• Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (Core
Drive #3): detectors that don’t fine but tell you
what speed you are going.

28. Case 1: The
Speed Camera
Lottery
2. Which additional Core Drives does the Speed Cam Lottery
add to solve this problem?
• Ownership & Possession (Core Drive #4): driver/player
can now potentially “earn” money.
• Unpredictability & Curiosity (Core Drive #7):
lottery/sweepstakes.
• Development & Accomplishment (Core Drive #2):
“thumbs-up”
• Social Pressure & Relatedness (Core Drive #5): everyone
around would be able to see if he is getting a thumbs up
or thumbs down.

29. • Which Core Drives motivate people to use
Facebook?
• Which additional Core Drives can Facebook
additionally use to resonate with the users
even more?
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Slido.com
#352 575

31. Which additional Core
Drives can Facebook
additionally use to
resonate with the
users even more?
• Facebook could use the following to resonate with
consumers even more:
• CD1: building in causes which I can contribute to (at the
level of Wikipedia’s knowledge sharing…Facebook wants a
more connected world, but that isn’t why most people use
Facebook)
• CD2: making me feel smart for engaging with my friends’
posts
• CD6: limiting my engagement to a few likes or comments
per day (and building a habit in the process)

32. Final Thoughts.

33. Thank you!
Source:
Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards
By Yu-kai Chou

34. Motivation to buy an iPhone?
"I believe Apple makes the most beautiful products in the world
and I want to support beautiful design by buying their products."
"The iPhone helps me be more productive in business and in life."
"I love drawing and expressing my creativity with iPhone apps."
"I have bought every iPhone generation and need to add this new
one to my collection."
"All my friends are buying iPhones."
"I want to buy the iPhone before they are sold out."
"I wonder what new features this new iPhone has?"
"I don't want to be the loser with last year's iPhone."
Epic Meaning & Calling
Development & Accomplishment
Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
Ownership & Possession
Social Influence & Relatedness
Scarcity & Impatience
Unpredictability & Curiosity
Loss & Avoidance

35. Example 2: Smarty Pig
How it works: Smarty Pig is
a personal finance app that
helps you achieve your
purchasing goals. Let’s say
you want to buy a new
refrigerator. Well, with
Smarty Pig, you set the
refrigerator as a savings
goal and then automatically
deposit money from your
bank account to your
Refrigerator account. You’ll
slowly fill your progress bar
(savings account) until
you’re 100% complete and
you can buy that
refrigerator guilt free.

36. Why it works?
• Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment: Smarty Pig uses CD2 very well in
two ways:
1. it makes the savings process incredibly easy. It’s a set-it-and-forget-it approach that makes
you feel smart and financially savvy;
2. instead of a meaningless progress bar, Smarty Pig replaces it with progress that leads to a
real-world purchase. When you hit your objective, you not only feel good, but you have
something to show for it.
• Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback: Smarty Pig let’s you name
your financial goals, giving you the creative freedom to save for whatever you’d
like.
• Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession: As you rack up the dollars in your savings
account, you’ll feel greater ownership of your accounts and pride in your ability
to save money. Furthermore, Smarty Pig does a great job at encouraging you to
spend your money once you’ve achieved your savings goals.