Gamification

GAMIFICATION
- Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and addicting elements found in games 
and applying them to real-world or productive activities
- We call it "gamification" because we believe that the gaming industry was the first to master human-focused design. 
- Games have no other purpose than to please the user.

ONBOARDING
Provide a Good Learning Curve
'Most successful games start with a few rounds that act as a tutorial', followed by a few easier rounds to help players get started.
https://medium.com/the-mission/sloths-anonymous-a-lazy-guide-to-overcoming-laziness-d925faea69b8\
Mundane tasks may seem like little monsters, but conquering them often leaves us with a driving force of motivation 10 times their weight.

STORY
The story may not be highly in-depth, but it should be interesting enough to keep the player motivated to see what happens next.
The story develops over time and new characters or missions may be added as the game progresses. 
The desire to see what happens next is a common motivation, so a good story can keep your players coming back for more.

LEVELS
'By structuring a game into individual stages, you offer a sense of accomplishment.' 
Consider the example of Candy Crush Saga—players enjoy each individual level, but every 15 levels constitutes a “stage.”
Moving from one stage to another is a big accomplishment and helps move the story along
There are “objectives†in the games, such as killing the dragon or saving the princess, but those are all excuses to simply keep
the player happily entertained.(YC)

PROGRESS BAR
visual progress is mad-powerful stuff
Each day you work on your project, mark it with an X using the brightest, most visible, most irritatingly obvious color you can.
Before you know it, the chain you make (xxxxx) will become a habit that you can’t stand to break (or a game you can’t stand to lose)
It’s a reminder of where you are, so you don’t go back to where you’ve been. 
positive reinforcement is far more effective than its negative counterpart

CURIOSITY
What happens if you click here or there? 
Will something special occur if you mix these two plants together to make a potion? 
Encourage your players to try something new by rewarding their curiosity. 
Surprises and exploration will always make a player want to come back and play again.

ACCOMPLISHMENT
That’s one level of candy crush that is so difficult to beat is frustrating, 
but there is something very rewarding about “beating” the level. 
Don’t be afraid to challenge your players - it can be a big drive to bring players back to play 
even more—especially if they have friends who are already boasting of having beaten the level or accomplished the goal.

LEADERBOARD
'Find a way to display high scores and give your players something to beat' 
Even if they have passed a level, some players will want to come back and try to score higher or accomplish more. 
Consider the feature in King.com’s games—players can notify their friends if they beat the level high score.

EXTRA FEATURES
Are there certain powers or boosts available in your game? 
Find a way to make your player’s quest to receive these powers. 
By attaching a value to power, you make it more desirable and encourage your players to work harder to achieve it.
Encourage your players to come back day after day by rewarding them with extra lives, special features or unique items. 
In-game rewards are also a good “prize” for completing a quest in the game.
In-game rewards are encouragement to stick with a game even when it becomes a bit stale or aggravating.
Offering in-game boosts and “help” can lower the frustration level and make the game fun again.

SHARE-ABILITY
Offering players a way to encourage friends to join the fun is one of the best ways to organically grow traffic. 
While those invitation notifications can be annoying, people do want to know what hot game their friends are currently enjoying.

AGRESSION RELEASE
Offer Features to Release Aggression
Do you ever wonder why so many games have “bombs?”
Allow your players to reduce their frustration with features that allow them to make a big impact. 
The bomb birds in Angry birds and candy bombs in Candy Crush are just a couple of examples of these aggressions-reducing features.

MULTIPLAYER CO-OP
One of the best ways to get a player back into the game is by encouraging player-to-player interaction. 
If a gamer need help from a friend or two to proceed in the game, 
they will invite new players and encourage other players to come back again. 
While you don’t want to take this too far, a small amount of dependence is a good thing.
You don’t want your players to become bored or too frustrated with the need to find a certain object, meet certain goal to proceed. 
Making it challenging is important, but you do want to make it possible to proceed.
*https://medium.com/the-mission/sloths-anonymous-a-lazy-guide-to-overcoming-laziness-d925faea69b8\
If you’re in the couch potato club, I strongly recommend finding someone who is not, if only to kick you in gear. 
Let’s be real, sloths need a drill sergeant.
find someone who will poke you every week.

REWARDS
I treat me, myself, and I to a movie every time we reach a milestone.
Whatever the reward, plan it in advance. 
If you have something to look forward to, than your goal will feel less like a burden and more like a goal.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

YUKAI CHOW

DAY 2: Are you a robot or a human?
- Human-focused design matters: people have feelings, insecurities, and reasons they want or do not want to take action.
- Most systems are function-focused, designed specifically to get the job done. 
- Gamification is a form of human-focused design, a process that optimizes for human in system 
  as opposed to pure efficiency of the system.
- Remember the Blackberry? 
When screens got bigger, consumers had the opportunity to interact with items on their screen. 
To create the user experience of interaction with a screen, Blackberry took a function-focused approach: 
they added a wheel to the mobile phone that allowed the user to scroll through each item, then click on the wheel to select it. 
- Apple took a human-focused approach to this user experience.
Instead of using a wheel or a pen, Apple optimized for the best pointing tool that all humans have -- their finger.
- Look around you, what do you see that is function-focused? 
- How can it be improved by focusing on solving the need of the human as oppose to the need to complete a task?

MOTIVATION
- the three core elements of motivation in the workplace are **Autonomy, Purpose, and Mastery.** 
- games have spent decades learning how to master motivation and engagement, most games these days are simply focused purely on
entertainment
- you are happy for the moment but it doesn’t necessarily improve your own life nor the life of others in the long run.
- imagine a game where the more time you spend on it, the more productive you are 
- You would play all day, enjoy every minute of it, and as a result, your career would grow, you would make more income, 
- build better relationships with your family, create value for your community, and solve the hardest problems in the world.

DAY 3
- Human motivation can seem simple at first
- "Why do people buy an iPhone?" 
- Obviously it's because they're crazy Apple fanatics, right?
- Believe it or not, there are 8 fundamental reasons why someone may want to buy an iPhone:
- These are the 8 Core Drives of human motivation at work. 
- Human-focused design utilizes these 8 Core Drives to motivate users to take an action.
- Think about a recent decision you made or a decision that you have to make. 
- Use the 8 Core Drives to analyze this decision and the different ways you are motivated to take action.

** CD1: EPIC MEANING A& CALLING
- Epic Meaning & Calling is the Core Drive where a user believes that they are doing something greater than themselves 
- or that they were “chosen” to do something important. 
- Great examples of CD1 in action are when a user devotes time to maintaining a forum (Wikipedia) 
- or when a user contributes to an entire community (Open Source projects) without expecting any form of payment.
1. "I believe Apple makes the most beautiful products in the world and I want to show my support by buying their products."
- e.g. wikipedia "heroes that protect the collective knowledge of humanity"
- GPS app, Waze, users were shown an image of a traffic monster - join us today to battle the Traffic Monster together!
- a cause greater than yourself
- it wasn't just about getting from A to B anymore, it was about collectively defeating the enemy for the greater good
- the need or the urge to be a part of something much bigger than just yourself
- when this drive is activated, participants choose to be members of your system 
- participants take action not because it necessarily benefits them directly, but because it benefits a greater cause.
- Their work is more important than any one person;
- Eastern parenting e.g. win to bring honor to the group, losing would bring shame 

** CD2: Development & Accomplishment
- Development & Accomplishment is 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 meaningful at all. 
- This is also the core drive that is the easiest to design for 
- and coincidently is where most of the PBLs: points, badges, leaderboards focus on.
2. "The iPhone helps me be more productive in business and in life."

** 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. 
- This is why playing with Legos and painting are fun in-and-of themselveS
- Evergreen Mechanics, where a game-designer no longer needs to continuously add more content to keep the activity fresh and engaging.
3. "I love drawing and expressing my creativity with iPhone apps."

** CD4: Ownership & Possession
- users are motivated because they feel like they own something. 
- When a player feels ownership, they innately want to make what they own better. 
- Besides being the major core drive for wanting to accumulate wealth, this deals with many virtual goods 
- or virtual currencies within systems
- Also, if a person spends a lot of time to customize their profile or avatar, they automatically feel more ownership towards it too. 
- Finally, this is also the core drive that makes collecting stamps or puzzle pieces fun.
4. "I have bought every iPhone generation and need to add this new one to my collection."

** CD5: Social Influence & Relatedness
- This drive incorporates all the social elements that drive people
- mentorship, acceptance, social responses, companionship, as well as competition and envy 
- When you see a friend that is amazing at some skill or owns something extraordinary, you become driven to reach the same level. 
- it includes the drive we have to draw closer to people, places, or events that we can relate to. 
- If you see a product that reminds you of your childhood, the sense of nostalgia would likely increase the odds of buying product. 
- Many companies are putting a lot of priority on optimizing their online social strategies using this drive
5. "All my friends are buying iPhones."

** CD6: Scarcity & Impatience
- This is the drive of wanting something because you can’t have it. 
- Many games have Appointment Dynamics within them (come back 2 hours later to get your reward) 
– the fact that people can’t get something right now motivates them to think about it all day long. 
- This is the Core Drive utilized by Facebook when it first started: at first it was just for Harvard. 
- Then it opened up to a few other prestigious schools, and eventually all colleges. 
- When it finally opened up to everyone, many people wanted to join because they previously couldn’t get in.
6. "I want to buy the iPhone before they are sold out."

** CD7: Unpredictability & Curiosity
- Generally, this is a harmless drive of wanting to find out what will happen next. 
- If you don’t know what’s going to happen, your brain is engaged and you think about it often. 
- Many people watch movies or read novels because of this drive. 
- However, this drive is also the primary factor behind gambling addiction. 
- Also, this core drive is utilized whenever a company runs a sweepstake or lottery program to engage users. 
- The controversial Skinner Box experiments, where an animal irrationally presses lever frequently because of unpredictable results
- Many have misunderstood it as the driver behind points, badges, and leaderboard mechanics in general.
7. "I wonder what new features this new iPhone has?"

** CD8: Loss & Avoidance
- This core drive is based upon the avoidance of something negative happening. 
- On a small scale, it could be to avoid losing previous work.
- On a larger scale, it could be to avoid admitting that everything you did up to this point was useless because you are now quitting. 
- Also, opportunities that are fading away have a strong utilization of this Core Drive
- People feel like if they didn’t act immediately, they would lose the opportunity to act forever.
8. "I don't want to be the loser with last year's iPhone.

DAY 4
- Frameworks make it easy for the user to not only understand the concepts,
but more importantly, understand how to implement the concepts and take action.
- For it to be meaningful and create value to the world, package it so that it is useful and actionable.

THE OCTALYSIS FRAMEWORK (Octagon where each point represents a Core Drive)
- Drives are purposefully placed, creating rhythm, symmetry, and meaning to the structure

**Left Brain Core Drives (the left side of Octalysis)
- CD2: Development & Accomplishment
- CD4: Ownership & Possession
- CD6: Scarcity & Impatience
- logic, calculations, and ownership
- Left Brain Core Drives are extrinsic motivators
- a user is motivated because they want to obtain something, whether it be an intangible good or a tangible item
- symbolically represent our logical brain as opposed to the emotional brain

**Right Brain Core Drives (the right side of Octalysis)
- CD3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
- CD5: Social Influence & Relatedness
- CD7: Unpredictability & Curiosity
- related to creativity, self-expression, and social aspects
- Right Brain Core Drives are intrinsic
- motivators: a user doesn't need a goal or reward to use their creativity
- to hangout with friends, or to feel the suspense of unpredictability, the activity itself is rewarding on its own

**White Hat Gamification (the top of Octalysis)
- CD1: Epic Meaning & Calling
- CD2: Development & Accomplishment
- CD3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
- positive motivators, engaging because it lets you express your creativity
- successful through skill mastery, and gives you a higher sense of meaning
- it makes users feel very good and powerful

**Black Hat Gamification (the bottom of Octalysis)
- CD6: Scarcity & Impatience
- CD7: Unpredictability & Curiosity
- CD8: Loss & Avoidance
- Negative motivators are always doing something because you don't know what will happen next
- you are constantly in fear of losing something
- because there are things you can't have, even though you are extremely motivated to take action
- it often leaves a bad taste in your mouth
- you feel like you are not in control of your own behavior

DAY 6
DEVELOPMENT & ACCOMPLISHMENT
- Drive that motivates through a sense of growth towards a goal and accomplishing it.
- Points, badges
- In Pokemon driven by CD2 (and many other Core Drives) to level up, get stronger, beat your competitors, earn badge
- player took a picture of his level in HALO and emailed it to all of his friends
- made sure everyone recognized the level he had achieved before he deleted his account forever.
- users wont be motivated to complete an action simply by slapping a badge on their profile.
- CD2 isn't PBLs; CD2 is the motivation to complete a challenge and accomplish an objective. 
- PBLs are a way to recognize a player for their accomplishments.

**What makes an achievement worth it?
- challenges and limitations are what make games fun
- picking up a ball is easy
- if I added limitations, rules, and obstacles, such as a funny stick, putting the hole 10 feet off the ground,
or requiring that you only kick the ball -- we suddenly have fun and engaging sports: golf, basketball, and soccer.
- To motivate a user through CD2, you must give a user a challenge.
- Challenges must be optimized for every phase of the user journey
- make the challenges too difficult during Onboarding, then the user will churn
- if you make the challenges too easy during the Endgame, then the nuser churn too
- find right balance to the challenge.
- Do you remember in 3rd grade when you got straight A's on your report card? You ran home to show it off to Mom.
- Admire trophies of your winning teams (being a fan was your role, yuo also earned trophy)
-  employee of the month award at your job? took a picture of your face on the wall and posted it on Facebook for all
- Or perhaps you remember the selfie you took in Machu Picchu that you posted #bucketlist