Sensor Data and Interactivity: Real Time vs Discrete

I need to organize some thoughts for an upcoming article. There is a lot of interest in using Internet of Things sensor data in my research group, and my work in persuasive computing is being linked to it rather heavily. There are multiple ways to categorize sensor data interactivity. I have lately been mostly considering a simple categorization: real time interactive and discrete interactivity.

In the former scenario (real time interaction), the end user application interacts with sensor data in a continuous fashion. This has the potential to create a feedback loop where a change in sensor data prompts action in the application, which in turn affects future sensor readings. For a very simple example, if a GPS navigator shows that the user is going the wrong way, the user can change their course in response, and therefore future GPS readings will be affected. This approach is technologically challenging, because it demands continuous connection between the application platform and the sensors. For instance, as of now, many physical activity meters have limited compatibility with mobile devices. If compatibility exists, it may be limited to only a certain mobile OS. One key agenda in Internet of Things research is enabling wider interoperability between sensors and user devices, but we are not there yet.

If we are able to guarantee real time interaction between sensors and applications, new opportunities open up for designing persuasive games. These opportunities arise because they give us the ability to include new kinds of activities as game actions. In the past, this has been achieved through specialized controllers and more recently with sensors built into devices (accelerometers in mobile phones, Microsoft Kinect etc.) Once sensors in everyday environments become more and more available, they also become more prominent as something to build a game on. All sorts of new physical activity games are rather obvious developments, but for creative designers all kinds of sensors can become game interfaces - whether for a persuasive purpose or simply harmless fun. Contemporary alternate reality games are just a glimpse of all sorts of crazy stuff that can be done in the future with IoT technology.

However, like I stated, we are not there yet. Still it is quite usual for persuasive applications or games to use sensor data in a more discrete fashion. Pedometer step counts are downloaded into an application periodically - and perhaps more importantly - after the fact. While performing the activity itself (walking), the user will not directly see how the application reacts. Therefore the user in turn cannot react to what the application is telling them. All interaction is therefore delayed. Furthermore, by the time the data is downloaded into an application, it has become just a number. Although it still represents activity, the activity itself took place in the past. From the perspective of using the application, we could substitute the data with a random number within the same range and observe no difference. Generating data is not part of the interaction between user and the application.

This is basically the scenario that I suggested the three axes for in my previous post. To reiterate: it highly resembles free-to-play games because something is brought into the game from the outside (i.e. real money in f2p games). No matter how much we try to dance around the issue, the fact remains that the game rewards the user based on the sensor data it receives from them. It is hard to obfuscate this fact due to the discrete nature of interaction. To alleviate the problem, in-game benefits granted by sensor data input should be carefully considered. For instance, the "rewards" should be thematically appropriate and function as gameplay or customization elements instead of direct measure of success. If the game is used to persuade players to become more fit, their in-game "fitness" should reflect improvements in their real life fitness. Powering up an avatar is one rather obvious example. This allows players to see virtual improvements in their virtual selves before real life improvements become perceptible.

In theory there is an upside to this more limited use of sensor data: because the input is just a number, a game developed for one purpose can rather effortlessly be fielded for another purpose. In reality however persuasive power is likely reduced if there is no thematic connection between activity and application. This concludes my random musings for now.

The Three Dimensions Model of Persuasive Game Design

Hi! It's been a very long while since I last updated this blog. Not at a whole lot has been happening to write about because the research has been kinda stuck. I have also been writing entries to that other blog. I've been doing a lot of reading though, and there should have been some more updates about that stuff. Maybe later. This time around I just want to put something on paper.

I have been following the gamification discussion mainly through Twitter, and it pains me that it not much has changed in the past two years. Scores, leaderboards, badges and whatnot are still considered perfectly valid. Although there's no entirely unanimous research against them, the studies are kind of piling up. Although it can be argued that studies supporting rewards are also piling up, the mere fact that the issue is highly controversial should make us pause. We're often working in domains where mistakes can be quite harmful and if a method is potentially damaging, its use should be seriously reconsidered. There's that, and of course there's also the fact that it's not really game design, as has been pointed out by actual game designers in the debate. Awesome people around the world are making "gamified" applications that go way beyond the simplistic approach, and for that I commend them.

Somewhat recently I ran into some advice that had been given to companies that provide well-being programs to other companies' employees. Sure enough, the standard issue gamification bullshit was all there was. Obviously I don't want to take this route because a) I am concerned about the potential risks of using rewards and b) doing so would degrade me as a researchers and designer. However it does turn out that coming up with game concepts while avoiding the obvious routes is freaking hard. To help me in this task, I came up with a three-dimensional model to which all design should adhere to. The basic idea of the model is to help every player being able to feel like they are in the game. For instance if the game is cooperative, everyone should be able to contribute. I generally prefer cooperative games in this domain anyway, because competition has a higher risk of dropping players from the game.

Generally speaking there should be three different axes available for players to affect the game's outcome. The first two axes are directly related to whichever behavior is being reinforced by the game. I use the terms long term progress and short term progress. The former shows how far the player has come since starting to play the game or how much progress has been cumulated from the very beginning; the latter follows more recent trends in behavior and should generally be normalized (e.g. to make amateurs and professionals able to compete, we compare who has the bigger relational increase in the behavior). These two axes form the two core dimensions of persuasive applications. They generally provide rich feedback with the purpose of making the user more aware of their own progress and thus more motivated. The third axis on the other hand is what I think is really required to make a persuasive application into a game: decision making.

Using this model, each player can affect the game in three different ways: improving their overall behavior over a long time span (progress); improving their rate of improvement (improvement); making meaningful decisions in the game (strategy). The model bears similarity to some free-to-play games. We can consider the behavioral axes as something that is bought with currency because it comes from outside the game (e.g. physical exercise measurements) but gives the player some advantage. The last axis reflects how well the player does with what they get from the first two axes. Although there is a similarity, in general the two behavioral axes should not be treated the same as in-game payment systems in f2ps. A game that aims for behavior change should allow these axes to have more impact on the game. Unlike f2p games where "pay to win" is frowned upon, a persuasive game should be e.g. "exercise to win".

It is also noteworthy that the two behavioral axes are interrelated in most scenarios. The higher a player is in the overall progress axis, the harder it is for them to keep improving their performance. It means that players who are "ahead" will be stronger on this axis while players who are "behind" will be stronger in the second axis. Over time, that strength in the second axis will gradually move over to this axis. Notice that these axes are different, which means they should have different effects in the game, making the "ahead" players stronger in one way and the "behind" players useful in another way. When done like this, the poor performers will feel motivated to improve their performance because it yields quick returns all the while the good performers won't feel cheated or punished for "doing too well".

Finally, the third axis does not necessarily serve any behavioral change function on its own. It can do so, if the gameplay is related to the behavioral change goals (e.g. requires knowledge of good habits). Its primary purpose is to make the entire thing more interesting - it's what actually makes it a game. Being good or bad on the third axis is not related to behavioral change goals of the game but simply the player's own interest in the game. It's the glue that actually makes the entire system work. The third axis needs to have significance because otherwise players are likely to lose interest in the game (i.e. it's really just a system for tracking progress - nothing wrong with that, but don't call it a game!). Regardless of your target audience, this is very likely the hardest axis to work with because it requires brilliant game design. However, your target audience is very likely to make it even harder.

So there you have it for now. This model is my design philosophy for behavioral change games and so far I can only tell that designing games that are just games is nowhere near as hard.

Two Approaches to Increasing Physical Activity

It's been a long while since I wrote something. For quite some time there were no topics to write about. Lately I have been doing a lot of research into persuasive technologies and pretty much anything that surrounds the issue. While there is still a lot more to look into, I'm starting to form a clear enough picture.The topic I'm about to delve into should have a familiar ring to it. However, this time around the perspective is more informed.

It starts with an article by Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: Classic Definitions and New Directions. We're hearing a lot of talk about intrinsic motivation from gamification... uh, actually, let's not go into terms. Just check this blog post by Chelsea Howe to get a reference point. In their taxonomy of human motivation Ryan and Deci place intrinsic motivation on the far right, opposed to amotivation in the far left. The implication is that intrinsically motivated actions are the most self-determined and the most likely to be carried out. This we already knew. What's interesting about this taxonomy is in the middle. Instead of considering extrinsic motivation as one big undesirable lump, it is shown to have different degrees of internalization. The leftmost type of extrinsic motivation is the antagonistic, reward-driven motivation called external regulation. It is the type of controlling relationship between the actor and the motivator that is criticized by e.g. Alfie Kohn in Punished by Rewards. 

Kohn's criticism also applies to the second type of extrinsic motivation called introjection. Actions in this stage of extrinsic motivation are driven by social approval. They are important for the person's ego. Although it is less externally controlled than pure external regulation it can still involve a controlling relationship between the source of approval and the actor. Praise is an ego-stroking reward that fits into this category. Or losing weight to avoid being mocked. In these two stages are dependent on external pressure. If the pressure goes away, motivation to do the activity goes away with it. People who have once been motivated through external rewards may fall below their base level once the rewards stop coming. In encouraging physical activity, it should be clear to us that this kind of motivation cannot be healthy, even if it works as long as rewards last. Behaviorists are not wrong, operant conditioning does indeed work - but important matters like physical activity should not be approached with a "whatever works" attitude.

However, there are two more types of extrinsic motivation where the source is to an increasing degree internal. What they have in common is that the activity's goal truly matters to the actor. Although they might not enjoy doing the activity in itself, they understand the importance of doing the activity because it progresses them towards the goal. Even better, they identify with the goal and it becomes a part of their ideal self ("I want to be fit to stay healthy" versus "being fit is a part of who I want to be"). The activity becomes valued by the actor and they feel they are doing it for themselves. In developing persuasive technology, this is where we should by playing ball. Of course it only works if the actor actually values the goal - if they do not, then things will be a lot more complicated. However, I consider that situation to be beyond what we can do with just technology.

So there are two fields where we can operate. The most common approach taken in HCI research is to aid users that are in the better half of extrinsic motivation - they have already established a goal of increasing their physical activity. In this domain, persuasive applications are helpers. It is their job to improve the actor's feelings of competence. There are a lot of ways to go about this. Simple technologies like pedometers alone fulfill one specific need of competence: progress feedback. Technology can quantify activity, allowing the actor to see how well they are doing. It goes up from there. Technologies can help to pick suitable short term goals. They can nudge. They can help connect with like-minded people who are going through the same things. The wealth of persuasive technologies that can be employed once the actor is at least somewhat motivated towards the big goal is huge.

The other field is where exergames operate. It's kind of like a shortcut. Because physical activity is a very broad term, there are a lot of specific activities within it. Exergames in particular aim to create a new activity that the actor might find fun to do. It is possible to jump from amotivation straight into intrinsic motivation if a suitable activity can be found. Dance Dance Revolution has been mentioned to death. Other popular examples include Geocaching. It's not just new activities though. Simply finding an enjoyable sport can do the trick. Technology can step in and help a person to find an activity they might actually like. This is best achieved by making it as effortless as possible to try out new activities. Exergames, especially mobile games, can have a very low barrier of entry (e.g. $1 for a mobile game that allows you to start immediately, or even free-to-play).

I believe that both of these approaches are correct. The first approach is suitable for people who are prepared to get into exercising but need a little push to start and a lot of pull to keep going. The second approach can work wonders with people who do not care about exercise and don't have any fitness goals. It is worth notice that these people can also get started with an exergame and realize that they actually have the competence to become fit if they keep going, which in turn allows them to assume a healthy exercise routine. Or they might want to start doing other exercise to become better at their game or sport. At this point we can combine methods from the first approach to help their training.

To summarize, there are two clearly distinct fields to play in regarding motivating physical activity. Both have their uses, and both have their unique challenges. Research has been done in both fields, but we're still waiting for a physical activity revolution to happen. In this field it seems rather typical that research prototypes do not turn into products, and commercial products are not necessarily up to date with their psychological research. There is still a lot more space for both research and new products in this domain. Oh, and physical activity is just one thing, there's more to come.

Serious Games and Gamification Seminar Talk

This is the talk I gave at the seminar. Or, rather, the script of the talk. I didn't really follow this script to the letter, but I said pretty much the same things. Except because of time constraints I had to skip the player types section.

Slide 1 (Intro)

Hello. I’m Mika Oja from the computer science and engineering laboratory, where I study games and gamification, especially in the context of ubiquitous computing. The topic of this talk says gamification principles but it’s not entirely accurate. I tried to avoid the fundamentals as such. So now that we have seen lots of examples of serious games and gamification, it’s time to let the academic loose. In this talk I will mostly raise questions which I think should be seriously considered when thinking about gamification. I am more interested in gamification for good. Marketing gamification makes me feel a bit uneasy. But I guess that’s how marketing is.

Slide 2
The first big question is of course, what is gamification? Here’s the thing: there are two views of the subject. This is a very recent academic working definition for gamification which was presented at the introductory part of the gamification workshop at CHI this year. “gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game contexts”. It sounds pretty self-explanatory, no? Except, what is a game design element? According to the authors, this can be a lot of things. To translate this into English, it’s more or less designing game-like elements that enhance the experience of doing a task.

So, what is not gamification? Serious games are not gamification, the definition specifically excludes complete games. This is a rather fuzzy border and I’ll come back to it the end of my talk. This academic definition also makes a distinction between gamification and playfulness by stating that gamification only includes games, not play. Again, if we look at some definitions of play and games this is a very fuzzy border. Finally, gamification is a design paradigm thus excluding the use of game technologies and development practices from the definition.

However this is just a working definition and there is no certainty of whether it will stick.

Slide 3
And here’s the second answer, the public opinion. It seems to be a rather general view that gamification is a marketing trend which emphasizes the use of simple things from games. Scores, leaderboards and so on, you know the drill, and if you don’t, we’ll get there soon enough. The presumption is that these are easy to use, which is quite a bit removed from the truth. This type of gamification has penetrated popular web sites far and wide, which is a probable contributor to how the word is presently understood. Nevertheless, this general opinion of the term’s meaning seems to have its share of negative connotations, and many designers dislike the term.

Since it is widely popular, and just growing, let’s take a look at the trend.

Slide 4
Here is the basic toolkit of gamification. Points, levels, leaderboards and achievements. Looking at the list we can easily say that these are all pretty shallow examples of game mechanics. These are not really central pieces in games, just some tools that make games better if used right. Next we are going to take a closer look at these, to get a good grip of what’s going on.

Slide 5
Let’s start with points. That’s my profile from Gameful, a site that uses both points and levels. In games players get points for doing things the game designer wants to encourage. In gamification, the premise is the same. There are two basic schemes of using points. The simplest scheme is simply racking up points for doing actions on a website. This can act as a feedback mechanism, giving the user some information of how well they are doing. Points are also a status indicator in a sense. Although not exactly points, discussion boards typically track and show the number of posts made by each user, and typically users with more posts are taken more seriously.

Points can also be redeemable, in which case users can gain virtual items or even actual prizes by spending their points. In this case the points are more like virtual currency. Think experience points versus money on role-playing games - the former accumulate indefinitely while the latter is spent on regular intervals. Experience is status, money is a resource. Often in virtual currency economies the points can also be given to other users in trade for favors or other virtual resources. For example, users can offer rewards to those who answer their questions. As we all know, virtual currency in games can become a really serious business and points in websites are no different. If the points have high perceived value, they can influence participation and decision making.

Levels are almost entirely a status indicator. In this sense they are quite similar to badges, but not exactly. Again, there are two basic schemes for gaining levels. One is simply tied to points like leveling up in World of Warcraft - rack a certain amount of points, go up a level. Unlike points, levels typically are tied to a scale where there is a maximum. Levels are typically better for indicating user ranking on a site because the numbers are much simpler than points. Levels also act as milestones in a point-gaining system. Levels are not always tied to points however. For example in Gameful levels are gained by completing a bunch of requirements, different for each level. These assignments act as a tutorial for interacting with the site and other users. In this sense levels are like achievements.

Slide 6
Leaderboards are also often linked with points, and they are yet another indicator of status. Put simply, a leaderboard is a ranking system that shows who’s got the most points. They are more competition-oriented than levels, they are, after all, a clear ranking. Leaderboards allow users to set goals for themselves but unlike levels, these goals are tied to performance of other users instead of preset limits. Typically users can see different subsets of the leaderboard, which allows them to set realistic goals for themselves. While getting on top of the all-time global leaderboard can be nigh-impossible, being the best during a single week is more achievable, as is being the best among one’s peers.

However, the suitability of leaderboards can be questionable in many contexts. Not everyone likes competition, and being on the last places of a leaderboard can be discouraging rather than encouraging. Whereas the highest level in a system is achievable by anyone, the top positions on a leaderboard are achievable only to a selected few. This can lead to a situation where users are unable to set realistic goals for themselves and give up trying. This can happen if leaderboards are the only way of setting goals. Smartly designed leaderboards where it is possible to compete in many categories alleviate the problem, but regardless I would say that out of all these techniques, leaderboards are the ones that have potential for doing harm.

Slide 7
Achievements, or badges as they are typically called, have a variety of purposes. These are nowadays really common in video games and also appearing on websites. In a rather recent social psychological analysis five uses for badges have been identified. As with levels, one aspect of badges is goal setting. The badge itself incorporates a goal, which is something that needs to be done in order to gain the badge. They also have an instructional role. Badges can inform what is possible in a system, and also nudge users towards desirable action. In a web community badges can represent the community’s values.

Badges can also tell more about a user’s identity than simple points and levels. They can tell a user’s interests and the ways they are interacting with the site. Badges are also status indicators in a website. The number of badges is one metric, but also the difficulty of gaining various badges can bring larger status rewards to those who hold the toughest ones. In games there are often different levels for achievements to show which ones are harder to get. The discussion that is going on about game achievements is largely applicable to website badges. Good badge design can improve user engagement and experience.

In a way, badges are a step up from levels, and another sideways. When badges get more complex, they can not only provide a goal but also additional requirements such as a specific way of doing something. User-created challenges are also badges of a kind, and even challenges that depend on self-reporting fall under this category.

Slide 8
First we’ll look at the topic of motivation. Extrinsic motivation means being motivated by rewards that come from the outside. A lot of boring jobs are typically motivated by paychecks only. Intrinsic motivation on the other hand comes from the joy of performing a task. A common perception is that intrinsic motivation is the one that drives behavior change, which is a desirable result in typical gamification applications. However, it does look a lot like these basic techniques we just covered are just adding more virtual rewards into the mix. However, this is not exactly that straightforward. Let’s take a quick psych lesson.

Slide 9
The flow theory, familiar for game designers, is a kind of recipe for optimal experience. I’ll explain it quite briefly as it is an important factor in understanding why playing games is so enjoyable. These are different aspects of flow. In flow, the person’s skills are on par with the challenges of the activity. In a sense, the person becomes one with the activity. Track of time is lost. Almost anything can become a flow experience but it’s often not simple. The theory deserves a lot more attention, but unfortunately we have to go back to the topic of gamification. In flow motivation is intrinsic. The question is, does gamification induce flow?

I have circled the aspects of flow where gamification can be useful. First and foremost, the gamification techniques we’ve discussed have two important features: they allow users to set goals for themselves and they act as a clear performance metric. Adding point scoring to activities can make them in a sense measurable. Accumulated points are a clear indication of the effort we have spent doing something. Popular services like last.fm or devices like pedometers all basically do the same thing: they provide us statistics of what we have done. These statistics can increase intrinsic motivation, because they enable us to follow our progress towards our goals. Without a sense of progress, there is no flow.

One problem with gamification is the fact that the actual task is often untouchable. Tasks need to be done in a certain way, and no amount of virtual enhancements change that. However, what gamification can do to alter the difficulty of tasks is to guide people towards those tasks or parts of tasks that match their current skill. These people are also more aware of their skill levels as we just discussed, so they are more able to choose suitable challenges, ones that keep them in the flow channel. In a system where all tasks need to be done eventually this only works to a certain extent though.

Even though there are a lot of things about flow that cannot be directly affected by gamification, enhancing just these two aspects can be helpful. Studies on motivation technology seem to show that it is worth the effort.

Slide 10
Next let’s take a look at Bartle’s player types. This is yet another familiar thing for game designers, but I’ll recap briefly. Killers are players who gain enjoyment from beating others. This can take variety of forms from healthy competition to ruining everyone else’s experience. Some competition aspects of gamification can appeal to these players. However, in gamification it is often much more important to prevent anyone from spoiling the fun of others. Like in a work environment, this kind of behavior would be totally unacceptable.

Achievers are interested in beating all the challenges a game has to offer. If we look at all the gamification techniques so far, it’s pretty clear that they are the best fit for achievers. Whether it is higher levels, leaderboard positions or badges, anything can be a goal for achievers. Socializers are another thing entirely. They mostly seek the company of others from a game and fulfilling the game’s goals is not that interesting to them. I’m not sure if these people even need gamification. Badges could have some utility, in the form of connecting like-minded individuals. If we go too much into this topic, we’ll eventually have to discuss the “social” games on Facebook, and I don’t want to go there.

Finally there’s explorers. Their pleasure comes from exploring a game world and finding possibilities in it. It is again questionable how much these simple gamification techniques can offer for explorer types. Hidden badges and other rewards can be useful, but only in a context where there actually is something to explore. In a more complex system, explorers can also find pleasure in finding new ways to use existing resources.

All in all, it would seem that at least with these basic techniques, achievers are the primary target for gamification. While it is worth noting that people don’t really fall exclusively into one category, in designing gamified systems it’s important to consider all the player types. It would seem that this requires moving away from simple gamification towards more complex systems.

Slide 11
Here’s an interesting question: how much game design can be applied before gamification starts to look more like a serious game? In this graph, on the blue end is a task that has no gamification whatsoever. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s a game that is designed for pure entertainment. We are now assuming that there exists a group of games that do not provide any actual benefit. You know, for the sake of argument. If we move from tasks towards games, we can find some solutions that use some gamification, like points to provide some kind of feedback.

Likewise, in the game end of the spectrum, when we move a bit from pure entertainment we’ll find games that are not designed to be serious games, but nevertheless teach some useful skills. Games that involve some mathematical skills are an easy example of this category. Closer to the center on the gamification side we have really finely crafted gamified systems, which make use of many of the techniques we discussed. This is where it already starts to get quite blurry. Likewise on the other side of the fence, there’s serious games like training simulators which do not really have much entertainment value left in them.

So, what happens in the middle? I don’t really think there is any clear border where something to the left is gamification and something to the right is clearly a game. Still, it seems to be clear that designing a gamified system is a different task from designing a serious game.

Before finishing, I’ll take a quick poke at this subject. One perspective to look at the difference is the starting point of design. Gamification is essentially designing enhancements around an existing activity. The activity in itself does not really change, it is simply made more engaging by auxiliary means. In a sense, the goal of the users is to complete the task, and the goal of design is to make them more engaged in doing so.

Serious games on the other hand start with the game. Typically we are designing a game where the intended task is one of the game mechanics. The goal of the player is to win the game, and the task gets done as a side effect.

The important question is: which one you really want to design?

Slide 12
Thanks for listening, we probably have some time for comments and questions now.

The Two Angles of Attack

When considering use of games and game design in non-gaming contexts, I think it's safe to say that we can clearly separate two approaches: starting from the game and starting from the activity or task. Nothing spectacular here, but let's discuss this anyway.

I'll start with starting from the task. This is what is called popularly gamification, or what I previously decided to call game designed activity. I am not sure if I'll stick with that though. In an article I'm writing I'm using the term game-enhanced task. Moving back to the point, the core of this approach is that we have a task and by applying game design or game mechanics we seek to increase motivation in people to undertake that particular task. Scores and other means of virtualized feedback can be considered the basic case. The task is typically measured. We can introduce goals and challenges to improve the task's completion structure.

The other angle starts with the game. This is basically what serious games are about. Instead of adding enhancements onto a task, we take the task and include it as a key mechanic in a game. The key difference is that we re-frame the task entirely. Players playing the game need not even be aware of the actual task that is being done. To them it is simply an essential part of the game, and any benefit produced by the task is, again from their point of view, a side product. This bears a whole lot of resemblance to what is suggested by McGonigal (and many others I am sure) in her book and talks.

One interesting question is that do these approaches converge at some point? If we enhance a task enough with game-like elements, do we arrive at a point where there is so much additions around the task that has in fact become a core element of a game. Or do these two approaches start off in entirely different directions, resulting in applications that will generally not resemble each other. This is an interesting question, and one that I believe will be answered in the coming years when simple gamification techniques lose their novelty due to overuse. Soon the easy way will cease to work, then what?

Let's face it, the latter form is much harder to design. Some tasks are really hard to make into a game mechanic, even though it is possible to enhance them with game mechanics. Educational games seem to be running into this problem a lot: making an educational game that really teaches the subject while still being clearly a game is not an easy task. Mathematics has it easy: math is problem solving, games are problem solving. Framing mathematical problems as game puzzles is as straightforward as it gets. This doesn't make it easy of course, but easier. However, initially I think enhancing tasks with game mechanics will seem much more attractive, especially since the name gamification carries the illusion that it is easy (which it is not).

It is unavoidable that both of these approaches will face the same problems as games, or any products really. Novelty wears off quickly and after that only quality matters. However I believe that the future belongs to the game angle, at least where it is applicable. And it will become more applicable with ubiquitous computing technologies and smart game designers. However, all our beneficial games will have to compete with entertainment games (which is one problem with educational games). Are we up to task this time around? We shall see.

Anyhow, the implications of these two angles are an interesting question that I believe has not been asked yet. It is not a straightforward topic to explore, because whenever two approaches are combined there are a lot of variables and it is hard to control the ones that are not relevant to the study. This could well be my topic.

The Name Game

After reading this article by Ian Bogost I thought I might as well redefine my relationship with the word gamification.

The word is currently a bit fuzzy. For some or most people, it seems to mean applying only the easy stuff from games to other contexts. Namely: scores, leaderboards, achievements and rewards. Some people on the other hand like to lump all use of game design for other contexts under the same term. This is bound to create some confusion, especially since there are a lot of people who think gamification (the shallow one) is evil. I think that too. In my earlier post when I defended gamification, I did so in the larger meaning of the word. Now I'm thinking I should abandon the word as well.

The problem with (exploitative) gamification is that it will give more beneficial efforts a bad name. It does not seem very fair to group together something repulsive like frequent flyer points and, say, Sparked. The latter is aimed for a really beneficial cause, the former is aimed for suckering people into flying more. Nope, not really appropriate. Their abundant use of scores etc. can also weaken their usefulness over time. It might be cool for a while, but I cannot help thinking how quickly it gets really tired. We need good game design to survive that.

In my papers and talks, I have been and will be careful not to call my work gamification. I have not yet decided on a really good name, but at the moment I like to call it "game designing activities" or "game designed activities". For one it's a fairly descriptive title. I also don't want to use anyone else's term at the moment because there is no consensus whatsoever. I don't want to pick sides, so I'll just use my own definition for the time being. Once the community agrees upon a name, then I can start using it. Whether it's going to be gamification after all or something else, as long as it's definition fits my work I can use that.

So in the future when I'm talking about gamification on this blog, you should assume I'm talking about the evil, shallow, exploitative marketing trend. If I'm using some other term, then I'm probably talking about the good stuff. So, just FYI.

Random Bits

I don't have a big subject just now, but I do have some random things I want to write about. So let's get them out.

I modified my job game a bit again. I realized that the achievements that require me to gain exp every day can be harmful. The problem is with requiring side-quests on weekends. While it's all good to set some goals to do game design on weekends it kind of pushes all the game design tasks from week days to weekends because the exp needs to be gained then. So I ditched those achievements. I might bring them back and limit them to working days only. That was more productive. Note to designers: achievements should be thought out really carefully. Faulty goals can ruin the experience and change the way the game is played.

I have reached level 3 and hacked my way to level 7 bosses. The last one I defeated was Prismatic Ghost. I just make up the names after I've randomly generated the requirements for defeating the boss. I also renamed the skills in the game to theme it into a fantasy setting:

Programming -> Melee

Writing -> Sorcery

Game Design -> Creativity

Reading -> Lore

Networking -> Cooperation

Research -> Experimentation

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My paper "Designing Ubiquitous Computing Systems to Transform Activities into Games" was accepted to the doctoral colloquium workshop in GPC2011. I have not yet received the reviews of my paper but nevertheless it does mean two things: 1) my thesis topic has received a certain level of acceptance; 2) I will get to present it to an audience and receive feedback from people outside my research group. I will tell you more about the exact contents of the paper a bit later after I have read the reviews, given the presentation and received feedback. It will also be available in the proceedings of the conference.

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As a final note, Jane McGonigal's awesome talk at the Game Developers Conference is available for free here.

Saving the World. With Games!

I was supposed to write this post last week but turns out I actually had something more important to do. If for some reason you did not guess from the title, this post is about Reality is Broken (Jane McGonigal).

Here's a really brief summary. The youth of today are gamers. Almost everybody plays games at least to some extent. They are becoming extraordinary at something, but what exactly? Putting the emphasis on players of multiplayer games, McGonigal suggests that collaboration is one of their most important superpowers. However, they are presently using their powers almost exclusively in virtual worlds because the real world cannot compete. Reality is not a very well designed game. That is why, she suggests, if we could make reality a better game, we could harness the power of all these gamers and truly save the world. We could also design games to make these gamers happier by guiding them to do what are called happiness activities.

The book is really inspiring and I strongly suggest reading it. It is highly optimistic and you might find yourself not in entire agreement, but nevertheless, it is a compelling vision. Do I subscribe to it? Mostly, yes. I mean it is clear to me that politics has failed to save the world, so we the people must do it ourselves. I also know that it just won't happen if we don't make saving the world interesting. Even if we choose to look past McGonigal's optimism, the baseline she proposes in her book is valid: we need to get epic wins in reality. We need feedback and meaning. World saving is too often an activity that feels meaningless, lacking feedback. Feedback, how strange the way we always seem to get there.

If we return to reality (do we have to?), it would take some really compelling game design to make world changing games that people would truly want to play over the ones about saving virtual worlds. It is easy to get people already interested in world saving to get involved in world saving games. They have the initial drive to save the world. The bigger challenge is to get those people interested who could not care less. This is the part that makes me doubtful. Is it even doable? I'd like to see it happen but I'm a bit too cynical to believe in it just now. I think the same largely applies to any other means of trying to activate people. However, I think this problem goes away if we don't try to think too big.

The second part of McGonigal's book is the most interesting in my opinion. It keeps gamification on a personal level. The goal is to improve lives of people as individuals. Happy people are more likely to take interest in matters beyond their own. Depressed or other wise anxious people (alarmingly huge part of today's youth) are very unlikely to lift a finger. With projects like Quest for Learning I think gamification is an important method to return people to life. The first step in saving the world is to save us from boredom and negative stress. Only then it becomes possible to engage people in more lofty goals. The ironic thing about happiness activities is that people don't feel like doing them when they are not happy.

All in all, I mostly stand in agreement with McGonigal (and indeed, she says much of what I just did, just with different emphasis). My view however is less optimistic. I expect people to be self-centered. It might not be very nice of me, but I think it's an aspect that should always be kept in mind when designing. The bottom line is what counts though, and that's where I think McGonigal is right: games can save the world. They can do so gradually, piece by piece, mending people as individuals. Every small improvement is a victory. After all, we need to see our progress to stay motivated.

Level Up!

I gained my first character level in my job game yesterday. My programming and research skills are now at level 2 and my reading skill at level 3. I haven't gained any achievements yet.

Today I started a bigger task and I realized my quest list for that task is way too short. This is one thing that is important with these kinds of games: it's necessary to have quests that cover everything there is to do, and can be done in a short time. If it takes too long to complete a quest, the progress following aspect of the game is lost. So I will need to rewrite the quest list for a bit. I still haven't come up with any really cool achievements.

So is it helping any? I think it is. The small tasks, which I usually hate doing, get done when they are framed as easy experience. The fact that I actually keep a list of them is probably more helpful though. Even though exp gaining doesn't really contribute towards anything, there is a certain amount of satisfaction gained simply from updating the character sheet. It's that small moment of closure, for a task done. I like that. Maybe a normal task list would have the same effect, but it does have slightly less to do when a task is complete - primarily, there is no reward.

I have thought of another thing that could help me guide my efforts: boss monsters. These would be simple challenges that can be defeated when I have the right combination of skill levels. Again, no real purpose, but like achievements, they would provide more goals. More goals often equals better as there are more reasons to do a task. One way to do boss monsters would be to use a random generator with total skill level requirement as an input and per skill level requirements as output. For example, a level ten boss could require programming at 6, game design at 3 and writing at 4. After defeating that boss, there would be another boss, one level higher and so on. At the end of my thesis work I could see how many bosses I have managed to beat.

That was actually such a cool idea that I'll go and implement the boss generator after finishing this post. Maybe I'll have a couple parallel dungeons so that if there is a boss I get stuck on for a really long time, I can explore the other dungeon in the meanwhile. Or maybe there could be three bosses for each level, and I need to beat one in order to proceed. That sounds even better. Let's do it, bye for now.

What Gamification is not

This is (kind of) a reply to this article. The author accuses gamification of misleading people and being childish. The point being that it's wrong to hide real problems underneath a gamified reality. I myself am now two thirds into McGonigal's book Reality is Broken, and unless I ignore most of what I've read, there is just no way I can agree with Chaplin. In less friendly terms, I think the article is a load of bull.

Like I said before, gamification is powerful, and we need to be responsible about it. However, I seriously do not think it is compelling enough to make people do just about anything. The rule of thumb here is: if there is zero incentive to do something, gamification does not magically create it. This is openly admitted by gamification advocates. Another thing to keep in mind is Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. The theory goes: unless the lower level needs are met, people do not feel any strong desire for higher level needs. It's that simple. Can you figure out where games fit in that hierarchy? Yeah, you guessed it: we don't give a shit about playing a game when our safety is compromised. So sorry, I can't see how "Instead, they are trafficking in fantasies that ignore the realities of day-to-day life. This isn't fun and games—it's a tactic most commonly employed by repressive, authoritarian regimes." You see, unlike authoritarian regimes, games we partake voluntarily do not command any actual authority over us.

Let's move on to: "Chore Wars is a benign example—if pretending you're being rewarded helps you do your chores, fine. But it reveals that McGonigal is not advocating any kind of real change, as she purports, but rather a change in perception: She wants to add a gamelike layer to the world to simulate these feelings of satisfaction, which indeed people want." If there actually was the option to magically make chores disappear, most people would take it, no? However, there isn't. Not now, not in the near future. So how exactly is it fair to blame gamification for not solving problems that are not solvable with our current technology at all? Yeah, I thought so too. The point of Chore Wars is to enable players to get better feedback on doing their chores, set short term goals and add unnecessary obstacles. I typed enable in bold because I think it's the definite keyword here.

Chores are not optional. We do not gamify them to get people to do them, we gamify them to make them more fun and motivating. See, the incentive is already there: someone has to do it, and that someone is most likely yourself. Gamification is not some black magic that compels people to do their chores. So really, what exactly is bad about providing virtual feeling of satisfaction for an activity that in itself has little to no satisfaction? Once basic needs have been met, enjoying life is about perception. If we can create the tools that allow people to improve their experience of life, I don't see a reason why we should not create them. I can see why Chaplin can think we shouldn't when she writes "Do adults really need to pretend they're superheroes on secret missions to have meaning in their lives?". This is representative of the world view that has been impended upon gamers many times. My answer: if it improves their experience of life, why the hell not?

So how gamification does help? Not everyone has the mental strength to just start doing all the things that are supposed to be good for us, like exercise, healthier eating and being more motivated about our jobs. It needs practice. Being happy is not easy. Gamification has the power to make it easier for people to overcome themselves, as it provides clearer goals and better feedback. Even though it is artificial, it allows us to measure progress in many activities where results are not immediately visible. It allows us to set goals that can be met and obstacles that make activities more interesting, even if they are harder. It changes the way we think about things we either have to do or should do or are doing. Finally, it allows us to play together and connect.

I do think frequent flyer points are evil. Skinnerboxed games, likewise. We already talked about this. More importantly, the concerns and limitations of gamification have been notified by advocates already. I think Chaplin simply does not like that we are having fun doing stuff that should not be fun. This is sadly a world view that is even this day shared by many many people, including those in places of power. But we gamers are growing in numbers and we will gamify our future if it pleases us. It's 'opt in' baby, so feel free to be left out if you don't want to share the fun.

Color Me Gameful

Like any real scientist, I will need to do a lot of experiments. Yesterday I decided to start with myself. I have had lack of motivation recently. This is mostly because currently my job is a bit fragmented: there are individual tasks here and there, and there are no clear milestones in sight. I started reading McGonigal's book and while reading I realized that if I am to promote this gamification or gameful design, I might as well try it on myself first. Sure, I could have done a task list for milestones like normal people but where's the fun in that?

So I turned my job into a game, of sorts. It's not a hugely impressive design I'm afraid, but it will help me do some things such as keeping a sight on my goals and get a sense of progress, every day. I decided to stick to very basic gameful techniques: experience points, levels and achievements. I wrote a character sheet on the whiteboard in my office, with my name on it, my character class (scientist / game designer), my level and experience. In addition I also wanted to see a bit what I'm doing most, so I added six skills and levels for them as well: programming, writing, design, reading, networking and researching. This is my feedback. At any time during the day I can gaze up from my computer and see how I'm doing.

With feedback system in place, it was time to set some goals. I wanted to call them quests. I decided to divide my tasks into storylines, quests and side-quests. Storylines are larger tasks which consist of several quests. Side-quests are quests that I'm supposed to complete on my own time, and they include mostly designing games for pure entertainment. I assigned an experience point reward for each quest, based on my expectation of how long it will take me to do it. Some tasks I know I don't particularly like I gave some bonus on top to make them more lucrative. In addition, completing a storyline yields bonus experience on top of the quests it's made of.

Finally I added achievements. I will need to think more of these, but the basic purpose is to keep me more challenged and engaged. One important set of achievements are awarded for getting results every day. To earn these achievements, I need to gain experience points every day. Even on weekends (side-quest exp). Vacation is excluded though, because when I'm traveling around somewhere I don't have many chances to do anything productive and, frankly, I don't think I should. I would like to especially come up with achievements that require me to do tasks in a certain way, but it's hard to come up with these just now.

Like I said, these are very basic techniques and I should do a lot better in the future. However, this experiment is meant just for myself, so I'll let it slide. It's also interesting to see if this succeeds in making me more motivated, even if it's really basic. Now, this should be achievable with to do lists and such, but I feel more motivated to keep this going if in itself it supports my goals. While I might not be able to write a paper on this, I am looking forward to learning something. Oh, and getting my job done better. I have also suggested a similar system for our game development team.

Let's see how it goes, I'll be reporting! After all, one set of achievements requires me to blog once per week.

Not Alone in the Universe

My last entry was about gamification and the good, the bad and the ugly of motivational schemes. Like I wrote, I am concerned about how the power of gamification will be used - not least because even the term's Wikipedia definition makes it sound evil. Turns out I'm definitely not the only one. It's a big world so this hardly surprising, but it's nice to know at least a bit about who these people are.

I've spent good part of the last couple of days watching videos from the GDC vault, especially this year's serious games track. Especially two sessions, We don't Need no Stinkin' Badges: How to Re-Invent Reality without Gamification (Jane McGonigal) and The Great Gamification Debate! (many many people), sparked my interest. Incidentally, I ordered McGonigal's book just a day before watching these sessions and now I'm really looking forward to reading it. To recollect for a bit, (at least some) people involved in gamification are not very happy with the term. The term has an ugly ring to it as it makes game mechanics sound like something you just slap on a product to magically make it better. McGonigal promoted the term gameful design instead, and in her lecture explained rather thoroughly what she meant by that.

To summarize very briefly, the goal should not be simple gamification but to really make games of activities. We should really consider what is it about gaming that makes people do it, and then set out to truly transform the world. Curiously, I arrived mostly at the same conclusions in my recently submitted doctoral colloquium article (not accepted yet, so fingers crossed!). I wrote "Instead of considering how to improve applications or systems by likening them to games, it is the activity that should be the target of design" and "I propose to reach these design goals by treating applications like tools inside a game or as an additional layer of mechanics built on top of ones existing inherently in the activity itself." (pardon me my science). Basically what I mean is, the word processor should be considered like the hero's weapon in a game. Hopefully you can follow the logic of that.

One really good observation McGonigal pointed out in her speech was this: games empower us. This is an angle I have not considered so directly but it's definitely worth a thought. Games are not isolated from our lives, they transform us. Scientifically I would need proof of this, but since we are in a cozy blogging environment, just take my word for it (or McGonigal's or someone else's, and I'm pretty sure I can dig up an article to refer). Like my two hobbies, swordsmanship and Tekken, they exist in symbiosis: I can reflect between them to understand my weaknesses better. Hell, most of my friends are from my various gaming-related hobbies! All in all, empowerment is a really important thing to consider.

But let's get back to the topic for a bit. Gamification or whatever we will call it in the future is not new per se, but its hype cycle has started just a year ago. I did a quick a Google Scholar search for the word and did not turn up that many results. However most definitely the number is bound to rise, quickly. Industry is taking up the challenge. The growing community at Gameful.org (my new home) is yet another sign. The HCI community has been discussing similar stuff for a while now, but they use different names (ambiguity, aesthetics etc). Overall it's a good time to be writing a thesis on the subject, as the possibility to make a strong contribution is definitely there. What's left to be seen is can I rise to the occasion...

Gamification - Motivation and Motivation Schemes

It's been a while since the last entry - I have been busy with stuff and thinking about what direction my research should take. Now I'm back at writing again and it's time to resume the tradition of book summaries. About a month ago I finished reading three books from the list of gamification books on gamification.org wiki. By the time I selected which books to read the list was actually much shorter and I picked every book I had not read yet. These were: Fun Inc. : Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century (Tom Chatfield), Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges and Contests (Gabe Zichermann & Joselin Linder) and Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete (Byron Reeves & J. Leighton Read).

One common point that was made in all the books was this: like it or not, the future belongs to gamers. The youth of today almost live and breathe video games. Scratch that, it's not just the youth that play games these days. Game-Based Marketing has some relatively recent statistics but the web can most likely do better. Nevertheless, gaming has made some serious conquests: first mobile and more recently social networks. Chatfield focuses his entire book on just exploring the growing phenomenon and does a good job of telling people what is gaming all about. His book might not hold any revolutionary ideas of how to gamify things but is suggested reading for people who are skeptical of gaming in general.

Of course the logical step that should follow is that if everyone's a gamer sooner or later, does it not make sense to transform our daily activities to take advantage of this playful attitude? Indeed, it seems that many people think it does. On top of presenting many good suggestions on how to use virtual worlds and certain principles from them in work, Reeves & Read also present a rather thorough comparison of work and World of Warcraft guild activities. The two are strikingly (but not surprisingly) similar. There is just one major difference: people are paid to work but they pay to play WoW. Clearly, work needs to improve. The answer is gamification of work. I don't think we will see complete virtual worlds to support work anywhere in the future, but that doesn't mean we can't take a lot of good influences from games in general.

The idea is nowhere near new, and has been employed in various forms. The authors of Game-Based Marketing seem to have especially fallen in love with airlines' frequent flyer point systems, and they analyse it heavily. After reading the analysis I actually found it a bit disturbing. In gaming, I think there are good, bad and ugly motivational schemes. Normal, especially single player core games, are mostly on the good side - they are based on learning and problem solving (i.e. the stuff that is emphasized in good game design literature). The bad is grinding (i.e. doing the same thing all over again in hope of (random) prizes), present in massively multiplayer online games in particular. The ugly? Taking advantage of social pressure. The whole "you will look bad at the eyes of your peers if you don't X".

The last one I've labeled ugly because it's kind of in the grey area. Competition also falls there in a way, when you think about the people who are last on various lists. It also has to do with keeping up appearances, which can be an important motivation to some people. However the problem is that it can make some people feel incredibly bad about themselves. This is actually something worth a lot of consideration about gamification: if playing is no longer voluntary (being part of one's job for example), will it have negative consequences on some people? I think it's a problem when games are creating more social pressure. There's enough of that around as is.

Overall, the bad and the ugly are a huge ethic dilemma. The gaming industry is in it for the money, and these motivational schemes are excellent at keeping players playing, and therefore keeping the revenue streams stable. The same goes for other commercial types of gamification such as marketing. Gamification is powerful, I think at this point there's no denying it. In academic research it should be our goal to put some serious consideration to these ethical questions, and strive to create beneficial gamification. I mean, really improve lives. This is what my research will be about.

As a finisher, I seriously recommend reading Fun Inc. and Total Engagement. These are really solid books that summarize why you should consider gamification - of everything.