GamificationThe Chemistry of an Enhancement Drug

May 30, 2018

Author: Mikkel Lund (Study no. 20092128)

Supervisor: Thessa Jensen

10th semesterInteractive Digital MediaAalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Project period: 01-02-2018 to 31-05-2018ECTS: 30Pages: 60.4 (144,960 characters includingspaces)Appendix: 8.6 (20,675 characters includingspaces)

Abstract

(1.3 pages; 3,091 characters with spaces.)

This master thesis is a theoretical work on theconcept of gamification. Gamification is a con-cept that was coined in 2002 and became signif-icantly more popular in 2010. The concept is ex-pected by Gartner’s Hype Cycle to be commonlyused by companies and organizations in 2019 atthe earliest.

To try and answer how gamification can beused to elicit and nurture intrinsic motivation to-wards non-artificial feats, this master thesis givesinsights into: what gamification is; how it works;why it sometimes works and sometimes does not;where it comes from; and what are some of theadvantages and pitfalls of gamification. At theend it features a suggestion on how gamificationcan be used to elicit and nurture extrinsic moti-vations toward non-artificial feats.

The basic meaning of gamification is to make

non-game contexts into games by applying gamedesign elements to the non-game contexts. It dif-fers from traditional game design, as the gamesdesigned through gamification, are designed witha secondary objective of eliciting and nurturingintrinsic motivation towards non-artificial featssuch as learning, working, and other real-life ac-tivities that may benefit from increased intrinsicmotivation.

When humans are intrinsically motivated to-wards an activity, their performance and creativ-ity increases in regard to the activity.

By the use of game design elements in gam-ifying non-game contexts, gamification is an at-tempt to use intrinsic motivation to increase per-formance and creativity of non-artificial feats.

Games are a natural way for humans to simu-late, play with, and explore scenarios inside an ar-

tificial universe, a magic circle. Inside this magiccircle the players can increase and decrease theirperception of the challenges they face, making iteasier to enter and maintain a state of flow.

Flow is also a perfect condition for learning tohappen, as flow is a state without either boredomor anxiety. Boredom can result in the player’s at-tention being divided or directed towards otherthings, while anxiety can overwhelm the player’sattention. Both boredom and anxiety can makeit difficult to concentrate, and anxiety can evenimpair learning. While in flow the player is com-pletely engaged in the activity, and his or herentire attention is directed towards the activity.

By making non-game contexts into games bygamifying them, it becomes easier to enter and

maintain flow as well as apply elements that con-nect the non-artificial activity to the three com-ponents of intrinsic motivation: relatedness, au-tonomy, and competence.

The process of gamifying non-game contextsfollows most of the same procedures used in gamedesign, so by looking into the fundamental proce-dure of game design, this master thesis featuresan attempt to use those fundamentals to createa guide for gamifying non-game contexts. Theguide is focused on using game-design proceduresto elicit and nurture intrinsic motivation towardsnon-artificial feats, thus it gives suggestions onhow to use game design to connect game designelements to the components of intrinsic motiva-tion.

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Gamification 32.1 Gartner’s Hype Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.2 Gamification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.3 Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3 The Chemistry of Gamification 133.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133.2 Why play or game? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223.3 Other concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

4 Problem Formulation: A New Prescription 294.1 Defining gamification once again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334.2 Problem formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

5 Case: A Sample of Gamification 375.1 Case: ToDoALot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375.2 Upgrading to the digital age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

6 Gamify 416.1 Game design and gamification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416.2 Gamification protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

7 Conclusion 55

8 References 57

Appendices 61

A Auto Ethnography of Mikkel Lund 63A.1 My introduction to games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63A.2 The point of no return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63A.3 My game addiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64A.4 A study in games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66A.5 Beginning my self-diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

B The process of writing this thesis 69B.1 My motivation to study gamification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69B.2 Reigniting intrinsic motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69B.3 Plan of May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70B.4 Final stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

C Approved Bibliography 73

D Motivation Model Sketches 75

Chapter 1

Introduction

I am an experienced gamer (someone whoplays games). I have played video games sinceI was a child. Games (video-, board- and othergames, you name it) have always been a big pas-sion of mine. They could mesmerize me and keepme engaged in their artificial universe for hoursboth as a child and as an adult (if I can everjustify calling myself that, now close to my 30’s).

When I enrolled in medialogy at Aalborg Uni-versity (Aalborg, Denmark), a study that was of-ten considered as a games-study, I told myself,I would not have anything to do with games orthe development of them, as it was a leisure timeactivity, not something I could make a living of.However, as we will explore in this master the-sis later, we humans are social beings, and ourrelations to others is a major motivational fac-tor, so when I met some friends, who unlike mewanted to make games (every single semester -except for the bachelor project, where we de-signed a platform for gamifying classroom activi-ties), I changed my mind, and jumped right intothe study of games (even started a game devel-opment company with my new friends). Moreon my background and experience with gamescan be read in appendix A Auto Ethnography ofMikkel Lund.

I am now enrolled in interactive digital me-dia (also at Aalborg University), and this is myfinal project - my master thesis. Although gam-ification is not a digital media per say, it doeshave great relevance to digital media, and digi-tal media have great relevance to gamification -I explain this relationship a bit more in chapter 4Problem Formulation: A New Prescription.

I have decided to write about gamification,because it draws on the magic of games - the

mechanisms that makes games so engaging thatthey can compel someone like me to dedicate somuch time and energy to them. In fact, once Ibegan looking more into the concept (which wasnot new to me), I realized just how much gamesmeant to me, and that I was actually somewhatof an addict - playing games was often a habitmore than something I consciously decided to do,much like smoking is (which is also an addictionI am familiar with). Researching gamification inthis project, is more than just a research into themechanisms of games, but also a diagnosis of my-self - an understanding of why games affect me,like they do, hence the title ”Gamification: TheChemistry of an Enhancement Drug”. In addi-tion to this realization, I believe that many usegamification without being aware of why it some-times works or does not work, risking failure orworse, addiction. Gamification is to me, morethan just using points, badges, progress bars andthe like to engage and motivate people into doingcertain things or tasks, or as Kapp (2012) putsit:

”to trick learners into doingsomething they don’t reallywant to do” - (Kapp, 2012, p.42)

I want to understand gamification and themechanisms beneath it, and from this under-standing, create guidelines for how to use gami-fication in another way, a (hopefully) better way- as an answer to this question (the problem for-mulation):

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How can gamification be usedin a way that elicits and nur-ture intrinsic motivation?

Gamification (in my opinion) comes from theword game and the suffix ”fy”. The suffix ”fy”means to ”make into” or ”apply attributes of”that which comes prior to ”fy” (Definition of FY ,2018), thus to gamify, literally means to makeinto game or apply attributes of game.

To support this idea, here is a small list ofother examples of the use of the suffix ”fy” (allwords are taken from www.merriam-webster.com- an online, English dictionary):

Clarify : To make something clear or under-standable.

Nullify : To make something null, void or of novalue.

Personify : To give characteristics (or at-tributes) of a person to something that isnot a person.

Simplify : To make something simple.

Classify : To give class to something or arrangeit in classes.

That covers just the literal meaning of gami-fication. What I want to find out is:

what gives meaning to thisword, gamification? And whyhas it attracted so much atten-tion?

This is the initial question that initiates theresearch done in this master thesis.

Personally I find gamification interesting, as Ihave myself experienced (and still to this day ex-perience) the effect that games can have on one’smotivation to do, what I sometimes may considerto be, mundane and unproductive activities - whywould I spend so many hours on playing World of

Warcraft, if it did not really give me anything Icould use, rather than do something more ”pro-ductive”?

I have experienced the addiction that gamescan create, but I have also experienced, how theycan drive us to create, learn, and even makefriends. Gamification seems to me, to be amethod to utilize the power of games to moti-vate us to create and learn.

Gamification is a concept that borders to andincludes many other concepts and topics. To geta good understanding of what gamification is,how it works, and where it comes from, I will at-tempt to explore some of the key concepts andtopics that are relevant to understanding gamifi-cation. It is not a straight path from one topicto another, and therefore I ask you to be perse-vering.

My definition of gamification (which I ex-plain later in chapter 4 Problem Formulation: ANew Prescription), apart from the literal meaningmentioned above, is the following:

Gamification is the process ofusing game design elements ina non-game context to designa game or a game-like con-text that can elicit and nur-ture intrinsic motivation to-wards non-artificial feats.

To understand how I get to this definition, itis relevant to understand the topics: game, playand intrinsic motivation (and a few others con-nected to these).

Finally, I will be using my own gamified ToDo-list, which I presently call ”ToDoALot”. It is agame which I have been working on prior to thismaster thesis and still is working on. I use itdaily to motivate myself to do my daily chores,as the game utilizes my daily chores as a factorin the game, thus doing my daily chores affectthe game. ToDoALot will be explained more inchapter 5 Case: A Sample of Gamification.

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Chapter 2

Gamification

Let us start with considering, where the termgamification comes from, where it is now in itsdevelopment, and where it might be headed.This should justify the relevance of this masterthesis - is gamification something that has cometo stay like the internet? Or will it be forgotteneventually like (hopefully) fidget spinners?

The concept gamification has attracted somehype and attention since it was first coined byNick Pelling (a game developer) (Bohyun, 2015)in 2002. However, it was first in 2010 that gam-ification got a ”wide-spread adoption” (Bohyun,2015). This can also be seen on the GoogleTrends for gamification (Gamification - GoogleTrends, 2017) (see figure 2.1), as it shows a sig-nificant increase in the search for gamification in2010.

It was then in 2011 that Deterding, Dixon,Khaled, and Nacke (2011) defined gamificationas being the use of game design elements ina non-game context. Hereafter, the popularityof gamification rose (not necessarily as a resulthereof, but there could be a correlation).

If we look at ”Gartner’s Hype Cycle” from2013 (Dale, 2014; Gartner’s 2013 Hype Cycle forEmerging Technologies Maps Out Evolving Rela-tionship Between Humans and Machines, 2013)(see figure 2.2), we can see that gamification isat the tip of the ”Peak of Inflated Expectations”,this means that it was here, the hype was at itshighest. From here it was estimated to take fiveto ten years to reach the ”Plateau of Produc-tivity”, which means that it should by that time(2018-2023) become a commonly used technol-ogy.

At this point (in 2013) it had been threeyears, since the popularity of the concept began

its significant increase (as seen on the GoogleTrends figure 2.1) - three years of hype before itwould begin its decline. But what does the riseand fall on the Hype Cycle mean?

2.1 Gartner’s Hype Cycle

”Gartner’s Hype Cycle” is a graph showing anoverview of the emergence of new technologies(Linden & Fenn, 2003). Just to clarify: tech-nology does not have to be a tangible conceptsuch as a tool e.g. smartphones, computers etc.,but is a practical application of knowledge (Def-inition of TECHNOLOGY , 2018). Gartner pro-vides many companies with a global overview ofemerging technologies and guidance about them(Why Gartner Is Critical to Your Business, 2018).

The Hype Cycle shows their predictions ofseveral technologies’ evolution (Linden & Fenn,2003), and as such can be used to give an under-standing of the current state of gamification.

The technologies move in different tempo andwith different intensities - even if they are on topof the Hype Cycle, the hype may be of differentproportions (Linden & Fenn, 2003).

The Hype Cycle is the first three phases onthe chart (see figure 2.3): ”Technology Trigger”,”Peak of Inflated Expectations” and ”Trough ofDisillusionment” (Linden & Fenn, 2003).

To understand where gamification is now,where it is headed and what that means, it mayhelp to understand the five phases that describesa technology’s life cycle - remember the HypeCycle is only the first three phases, the last twophases describe what happens when the hype isover (Linden & Fenn, 2003). Here is a brief de-

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Figure 2.1: Number of searches on gamification on Google from 2004-2018. The rise starts in June2010, reaching its highest point in February 2014 and at 80 in February 2018.

Figure 2.2: ”Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2013” shows gamification on top of”Peak of Inflated Expectations”. The colors on the dots indicate how long the technology is ex-pected to be about reaching the ”Plateau of Productivity” (when will it be common use). (Gartner’s2013 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Maps Out Evolving Relationship Between Humans andMachines, 2013)

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Figure 2.3: A model for ”Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies” (based on Linden andFenn (2003)), showing the five phases of the entire model, as well as the first three that make upthe Hype Cycle.

scription of the phases based on Linden and Fenn(2003):

Technology Trigger is the phase in which thetechnology is very new, and the best evi-dence of its potential lies in prototypes anddemonstrations.

Peak of Inflated Expectations is where thefirst suppliers appear, the technology ispushed to its limits, and this in return gen-erates negative publicity, which moves thetechnology into the next phase.

Trough of Disillusionment is where the tech-nology is being viewed in a more realisticlight compared to the early inflated expec-tations and gets discredited because of this.

Slope of Enlightenment is when the technol-ogy has come through the Hype Cycle.Here focus lies on experiments and expe-rience with the technology, which leads toa greater understanding of it.

Plateau of Productivity is when the main-stream gets ready to adopt the technology

and an ecosystem evolves around it.

On the Hype Cycle of 2017 (see figure 2.4)gamification is on its way up the ”Slope of En-lightenment”. This means, that the hype is overfor gamification, and focus should now be on ex-periments, experience and study of the technol-ogy to further our understanding of it.

To understand why gamification has emergednow, and not hundreds or thousands of years ear-lier, as it (gamification) originates (or at leastborrows) from games, it may help to understandthe recent development of games as well.

Digital games

Games are not something new to humans andhas been known and used by our ancestors aswell (McGonigal, 2011). However, with the in-vention of computers, the management of gamemechanics and rules (explained later in section2.3 System, rules, and mechanics) have becomesignificantly easier, and as such games have be-come much more accessible (Salen & Zimmer-man, 2004). Salen and Zimmerman (2004) givesfour characteristics that digital games have as

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Figure 2.4: ”Gartner’s Hype Cycle for the Digital Workplace, 2017” shows gamification on theway up the ”Slope of Enlightenment”. The colors on the dots indicate how long the technologyis expected to be about reaching the point ”Plateau of Productivity” - so in 2019-2022 gamifica-tion is predicted to be a commonly used technology (Hype Cycle for the Digital Workplace, 2017 ,2017-11-28)

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an advantage over games on other medias (likeboard games). These are not exclusive to digitalgames, but are more potent in digital games andmay therefore serve as clues, as to why gameshave become more popular; also keep in mindthat the characteristics are closely related to oneanother (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004), thus theadvantage of one characteristic may be the sameadvantage of another or may be connected toeach other.

Immediate but narrow interactivityA digital game can give faster feedbackto the player and thereby give the playera real-time game experience. However,Salen and Zimmerman (2004) argues thatthe range of interactivity is limited in dig-ital games (narrow interactivity), as e.g.the player only has the option to interactthrough a mouse and keyboard. I would ar-gue that since 2004, where this was stated,the games industry has evolved much, andthe interaction possibilities have evolved aswell e.g. virtual reality glasses (VR; see fig-ure 2.5), motion sensors in controllers (e.g.Wii controller; see figure 2.6), treadmillsetc. were not available (or readily avail-able) in 2004 - HTC Vive was announcedin 2015 (HTC Vive, 2018) and the Wii Re-mote was announced in 2005 (Wii Remote,2018).

Figure 2.5: HTC Vive: A virtual realityset with controllers and position trackersthat tracks the position of the head mountand controllers to allow the player to movearound the room as part of the interactionwith the game VIVETM| VIVE Virtual Re-ality System (2018).

Figure 2.6: Nintendo Wii Remote; Withaccelerometer to register movement, aswell as a sensor placed near the TV thatallows the remote to function as a pointer(Wii Remote, 2018).

Information manipulationDigital games are particularly good at man-aging larger amounts of data, which makesit possible to: teach the rules to the playerwhile he or she is playing the game (un-like most board games that require theplayer to know the rules before being ableto play the game); hide information fromthe player and reveal it when specific con-ditions are met (e.g. ”fog of war” whichreveals parts of a map once the playerexplores them, and leaves unexplored ar-eas partly or completely invisible to theplayer) (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). This(hiding of information) is also possible ingames like Dungeons & Dragons, where thegamemaster may hide certain informationfrom the player(s). A computer can actas a gamemaster who knows the rules andmay manage information: non-player char-acters (NPCs), the game environment etc.

Automated complex systemsAs mentioned earlier, the advantages fordigital games, mentioned here, are closelyrelated, and this one may be the core char-acteristic on which the other characteris-tics are based. It might also be the corereason why digital games have made sucha huge impact on the popularity of games.Computers are able to automate many pro-cesses that in other medias rely on theplayer knowing the rules of the game, or

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following certain instructions that in digi-tal games can be handled by the computer(Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). However,this also leaves the player with little under-standing of the internal mechanics of thegame, which may be an issue in some casesor to some players (Salen & Zimmerman,2004).

Networked communicationCommunication between players have be-come easier with digital games, as play-ers can communicate without being at thesame location, and can do so almost in-stantly via network connections (Salen &Zimmerman, 2004). Salen and Zimmer-man (2004) does again mention some lim-its to this advantage due to the limited in-put devices, however as is the case with theinteraction, so has the communication ca-pabilities evolved since 2004 with e.g. voicechat in many games, or in some cases ex-ternal to the game through softwares suchas Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, Discord etc.

Digital games have added many advantagesto playing games, and expanded the possibili-ties of games. This may be the reasons for themajor increase in the popularity of games. Be-cause digital games have made games so pop-ular, more attention has been directed towardsgames. This attention has made it clearer howefficiently games (especially digital games withtheir immediate feedback) can captivate, engageand motivate us. This ”discovery” (or rediscov-ery, or perhaps just increased awareness) couldbe the source of inspiration to the creation ofgamification and other game related concepts.

2.2 Gamification

The current understanding of gamification isa contested one, as there are several differ-ent definitions of what gamification is, as wellas other concepts closely related to gamifi-cation (Stieglitz, Lattemann, Robra-Bissantz,Zarnekow, & Brockmann, 2017) (or the same de-pending on the definition). These are exploredlater in 3.3 Other concepts. Let us start witha very basic definition made by Deterding et al.

(2011), as it is very simple and can in its simplic-ity make the foundation for many of the otherdefinitions and concepts. Gamification is accord-ing to Deterding et al. (2011):

”The use of game design ele-ments in non-game contexts” -(Deterding et al., 2011, p. 10)

This describes a fundamental rule for gamifi-cation, but does not explain the purpose of theconcept. Now, adding game design elements ina non-game context could easily be consideredgame design - a game is something else than agame (a non-game context) before all the neces-sary elements of a game is applied to it throughgame design. However, Deterding et al. (2011)differs between games and gamification, as gami-fication according to him involves a purpose thatgames do not otherwise have.

This purpose often seems to be to motivatepeople. This purpose is also stated by both Kapp(2012) and Zicherman and Cunningham (2011).The motivation is often directed towards thingssuch as to do things such as learning, working orbuying etc., but does gamification actually fulfillthis purpose?

In a literature review made by Hamari,Koivisto, and Sarsa (2014), they found that gam-ification in most researches proved to providepositive effects on the contexts to which it wasapplied. Most of these contexts were educationalones. In these contexts, gamification helped mo-tivate and engage students, but also had somepitfalls such as increased competition (may beboth a pitfall and an advantage - this is discussedlater in section 3.2 Why play or game? ), taskevaluation (which will be discussed later in sec-tion 3.1 Relatedness and evaluation) and designfeatures. Among other contexts were mentionedcompanies and organizations.

Before we dive in to the distinction betweengamification and other similar concepts, it mayhelp to get an understanding of what a gameis, and why anyone would use elements of gamedesign in a non-game context (for other reasonsthan to make ’just’ a game).

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2.3 Game

To understand what a non-game context is, andwhat game design elements are, it is importantto understand what a game is. Similar to gami-fication the concept of game is also a contestedconcept (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). Salen andZimmerman (2004) presents eight different defi-nitions of game (most of them with similarities),and then they make, based on those definitions,their own definition:

”A game is a system in whichplayers engage in an artificialconflict, defined by rules thatresults in a quantifiable out-come.” - (Salen & Zimmer-man, 2004, ch. 7, p. 11)

Now that we begin to describe interactionsbetween people, players, gamers etc. the personinteracting or just acting, will be referred to asan actor. This should not be understood as anactor in a theatrical play, but as someone whoacts (makes an action or interaction).

Back to the definition of game made by Salenand Zimmerman (2004). They (Salen & Zimmer-man, 2004) further divide the definition into thefollowing six elements (not to be mistaken withgame design elements):

System: A collection of interrelated elements.

Players: Actors interacting with the game (sys-tem).

Artificial: Not tied with reality - exist in an ar-tificial environment with boundaries fromreality.

Conflict: This can include any sort of conflict,but is essential to games.

Rules: Make up the structure of the game bysetting boundaries.

Quantifiable outcome: At the conclusion of agame an outcome can be observed or mea-sured.

Now we have a definition that covers mostconcepts we could want to call a game e.g.Counter Strike, Minecraft, The Sims, Football,Chess and Hide and Seek. There might still beexceptions e.g. the game of seduction or thegame of life - neither of these are artificial (inrespect to various religions or beliefs), in thesense that there are no boundaries between these”games” and what we call reality.

Progress

In regard to quantifiable outcome, a game likeMinecraft may lack this very component, as theearly version of Minecraft did not have an endgoal. A boss fight was later added to the game(Minecraft - The End , 2018), but before thisthere was no ”end game”, so the outcome wouldbe whenever the player decided to stop playing,and what they had achieved in the game, whichcould be building different things. The game didhowever (even early on) have a system, rules,players, it is artificial, the conflict is to (at leastin survival mode) survive the nights, when mon-sters would appear, mine for resources and buildstructures (houses, mines, railroads, traps etc.).In the ”peaceful mode” of Minecraft, the ”game”is more similar to what Salen and Zimmerman(2004) calls a ”toy”, as it does not have a con-flict or a goal - it can still be used in play.

I would argue that what, Salen and Zimmer-man (2004) call quantifiable outcome, can be re-lated to what Crawford (1984) calls interaction,as the interaction leaves noticeable changes inthe game that (quantifiable or not) can act as acue of progress. In a game like The Sims, it canalso be difficult to measure an outcome, as thegame can continue as long as the player wishesit to, but whenever the player stops playing, it iseasy to see some progress. The same goes forthe other examples I have mentioned, althoughthey have scores or end conditions - The Simsdoes not really have a score or an end condition,but you could argue that money, or the value ofthe player’s home can be used as a score. How-ever, playing with LEGO also leaves noticeablechanges. This alone does not make LEGO agame, but a toy - which can be made into agame or be used as a token in a game, by addingthe missing elements: system, conflict and rules

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(the elements: player, artificial, and outcome arealready present).

”..., games are seen as a collec-tion of multiple necessary con-ditions. None of these condi-tions alone is sufficient to con-stitute a game and it is onlyin combination of them that agame emerges.” - Huotari andHamari (2012)

A game is therefore first a game once all ele-ments (conditions) of a game are combined.

System, rules, and mechanics

In regard to system it can help to discern betweenrules and mechanics, as they make up parts of thesystem (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004), but are inthemselves important elements of games.

Rules limits the player’s actions; they are ex-plicit guidelines and can (should) not beambiguous; they are fixed, binding andshared by all players; they are repeatablefrom one session of a game to another(Salen & Zimmerman, 2004).

Mechanics are what constitutes the player’s be-havior (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) e.g.being able to shoot other players (in a first-person-shooter game); being able to makea character walk or jump (in a platformgame); being able to build structures orbuy units (in a strategy game).

To avoid misunderstandings, I find it impor-tant to add that rules may be prioritized, and assuch can overrule other rules. This also meansthat rules can differ between players in a gamedepending on specific conditions, although rulesare shared by all players, e.g. in the game Ludo,a player will knock another player ”home” (backto their starting point), if (the following condi-tion is met) the player lands his or her piece ona tile occupied by another player’s piece, unless(here comes the prioritization of rules into effect)the other player’s piece is standing on a ”globe”

which protects that piece from being knocked”home” (thus overruling the previous rule) or theother player has two or more pieces on that tile.These may be ”house rules” I have come to knowas common rules, but they still prove the point.Mechanics on the other hand in a game like Ludo,is the players’ ability to roll dice and move pieces.In relation to rules and mechanics:

”A system is a set of thingsthat affect one another withinan environment to form alarger pattern that is differ-ent from any of the individ-ual parts.” - (Salen & Zimmer-man, 2004, ch. 5 p. 2)

Thus rules, as mentioned earlier, are parts ofthe system as they constitute how things will ormay affect one another inside the frame of thegame.

The safety of the magic circle

The frame of a game is also a very importantelement of games, as it marks up the border be-tween reality and game.

The element that Crawford (1984) calls safetyis hidden in the element ”artificial”, as the safetyis tied to the fact that the game has boundariesfrom reality, and interactions within the artifi-cial construct therefore has no real consequences(consequences outside the reality of the game).Salen and Zimmerman (2004) also states that:

”..., the frame is a conceptconnected to the question ofthe ”reality” of a game, of therelationship between the artifi-cial world of the game and the”real life” contexts that it in-tersects. The frame of a gamecreates the feeling of safety...”- (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004,ch. 9, p. 2)

This concept (the frame), they (Salen & Zim-merman, 2004) call ”the magic circle”. The

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magic circle is a term they (Salen & Zimmer-man, 2004) get from Huizinga (1950), and is apart of what he (Huizinga, 1950) calls ”play”.

Voluntariness and play

It is also in the definition of play by Huizinga(1950) that we find the final element of games,marked with bold, that may be crucial in under-standing why gamification may and sometimesmay not work. According to Huizinga (1950)playing (or play) is:

”A voluntary activity or occu-pation executed within certainfixed limits of time and place,according to rules freely ac-cepted but absolutely binding,having its aim in itself and ac-companied by a feeling of ten-sion, joy and the consciousnessthat it is ”different” from ”or-dinary life”” - (Huizinga, 1950,p. 28)

Play is a natural concept to both animals andhumans, it is irrational, unreal, voluntary and yetvery serious (according to Huizinga (1950)). He(Huizinga, 1950) also views play as an underlyingforce from which human culture and civilizationis created. However, Huizinga (1950) does notdiffer between different types of playing, as Cail-lois (1961) also states in his work ”Man, Play andGames”. Caillois (1961) credits Huizinga for hisacknowledgement of the importance of play, butpoints out that Huizinga omits the classificationof play.

Paidia and ludus

Caillois (1961) divides play into ”paidia” and”ludus” (and further into four other categories:”agon (competition), alea (chance), mimicry(simulation), and ilinx (vertigo)” - (Caillois,1961, p. 10 (X))):

Paidia is turbulent, spontaneous, and relatesprimarily to ”children’s games”.

Ludus is more calculated, organized, and boundby rules.

Paidia may also be closely related to the Dan-ish term ”leg”: ’entertaining activity that espe-cially children, organized or spontaneously, per-form or participate in for pleasure.’ (leg — DenDanske Ordbog , 2018); and ludus may be closelyrelated to the Danish term ”spil”: ’amusing orentertaining activity performed in accordance toestablished rules and with different equipmentand props, such as cards, tokens or dice; do-ing such an activity’ (spil — Den Danske Ord-bog , 2018). This is stated to support the ideathat there is a difference between the sponta-neous, entertaining activity of playing (paidiaor leg) and the more organized, rule-governed,and also entertaining activity of playing (ludus orspil). When discussing the act of specifically us-ing ludus I will call it gaming or playing games (inconjunction), while using paidia will be referredto just as playing.

Defining game once again

Salen and Zimmerman’s definition of game seemsto fit well with Caillois’ use of the term ludus,as both implies the use of rules. However, they(Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) do not include thevoluntary element of games - it is our intrinsicmotivation (will be explained later in section 3.1Motivation) that drives us to play, not an extrin-sic (external) factor.

For now, we will use a slightly altered versionof the definition made by Salen and Zimmerman(2004):

A game is a system with whichplayers voluntarily interact inan artificial and safe conflict,defined by rules, that results inan observable progress.

The only elements from the definition madeby Salen and Zimmerman (2004) that have notyet been discussed are player and conflict.

A player must always be present to play (in-teract with) the game. A game however, can stillbe an inactive game, but if it is a closed systemwith no possibilities for interaction, it can not bea game.

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Conflict relates well, to what McGonigal(2011) calls goal (in her definition of game), as itgives the game a purpose - a sort of end conditionor a means to measure progress.

Apart from goal, McGonigal (2011) also in-cludes rules, feedback and voluntary participa-tion.

Feedback is necessary to tell the player howthey are doing (McGonigal, 2011), and can havea huge impact on whether the game gives a plea-surable experience or not (this is covered more insection 3.1 Feedback). However, in the defini-tion of game used in this master thesis, feedbackis considered to be a necessary part of both in-teraction and observable progress - without feed-back we can not observe progress nor fully inter-act with a system e.g. pressing a button withoutany other feedback than the haptic feedback ofit being pushed and released, will give the actorno indication as to what is happening.

The addition to the definition that gamesmust be a voluntary activity, as McGonigal(2011) also acknowledges, may give some issueswhen someone asks us to play a certain game e.g.a teacher invites a student to play Minecraft aspart of a class activity. Suddenly Minecraft is nolonger a game (using this definition), yet we callit a game. To address this issue, I would like toadd that when we are ordered to play a game,the game may originally be a game but is nowbeing used as a tool, much like a frying pan is atool for cooking but may become a toy if a childuses it to make imaginary food in their imaginarykitchen - the pan was originally a tool. We canstill call it a game, as it was originally designed

as such, but using it as a tool, gives it a newpurpose other than what it was initially designedfor, and this change may also alter some of thebenefits and pitfalls of the game - it might not,as a tool, be as motivating, as it might be as agame - a game is not designed as a tool, but maybe used as one.

The definition (made here) does not explic-itly include the aspect of entertainment (as isalso the case in the definition made by Salen andZimmerman (2004)). I consider the aspect of en-tertainment to be a part of the voluntary aspect,in the sense that we play the game because wewant to, and it might not always be for the pur-pose of entertainment, but at least because it isa pleasurable experience - entertainment is oftenpart of the reason why we play games, but a moreimportant reason for playing games, is that it isa voluntary activity. This can correlate to theelement of intrinsic motivation that R. M. Ryanand Deci (2000) calls autonomy (this is coveredin section 3.1 Intrinsic motivation). We decideourselves to engage in the activity of gaming forthe sake of the activity, because it is pleasurable(this may be considered entertainment, but I willuse the word pleasure instead) - we are intrinsi-cally motivated to playing and gaming.

In a sense gamification is similar to hiding apill in a cake, to try and make it easier to in-gest. Gamification covers work, teaching, buyingetc. in a game, which is something we volun-tarily engage in (the game that is). However, Ibelieve there is more to gamification than justtricking ourselves or others, as Kapp (2012) alsosuggests.

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Chapter 3

The Chemistry of Gamification

How does motivation work? And what is itthat give games the ability to captivate, engage,and motivate us?

Gamification utilizes game design elements inan attempt to create the right conditions to moti-vate us to do things outside of the artificial envi-ronment of games, with the same creativity, driveand engagement that we experience inside the ar-tificial environment.

To me games are something I play for the ac-tivity itself, because I enjoy playing games (somegames more than others). The achievements,badges, progress bars etc. is to me not the mainreason, but they sure help make the game moreinteresting and fun if implemented and used well.However, the main reason or reasons are: to ex-plore; create; prove and improve myself; socialize,when the game allows it; get fully immersed, for-get myself and time; and have a good time withit. Even when I lose (get killed, lose a match, dosomething stupid), I am usually having a goodtime. Why is this? If games do not attributeto my life and give some sort of value, why doI easily get motivated to play games? more sothan I do, when I do something that gives mereal value, tangible value, such as working, exer-cising, studying etc.?

3.1 Motivation

According to R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000) thereare different types of motivation. At the basiswe have intrinsic motivation and extrinsic moti-vation.

Intrinsic motivationintrinsic motivation is motivation that

comes from internal values. R. M. Ryanand Deci (2000) connects it to the feel-ing or perception of competence, auton-omy, and relatedness (these concepts areexplained later in section 3.1 Intrinsic mo-tivation).

Extrinsic motivationextrinsic motivation is motivation thatcomes from external values such as re-wards, pleasing of others etc. (R. M. Ryan& Deci, 2000).

Csikszentmihalyi (2014) differs between ex-trinsic and intrinsic motivation, where extrinsicmotivation can be determined to be the drivingforce, when an actor does a task for other rea-sons than the task itself. When ’work is its ownreward’ the driving force is intrinsic motivation -again, playing and gaming are intrinsically moti-vated activities - we play or game primarily forthe sake of the activity itself.

Similar to this definition is the definitionof ”telic” (Greek for goal or ”an end”) and”paratelic” (Greek for ”alongside (para) goal(telic)”) by Apter (2007): where telic is activ-ity driven by a specific goal such as winning agame, passing an exam, or getting paid; andparatelic is activity driven by the activity itself,or by the arousal gained from it (Apter, 2007).As such telic is similar to extrinsic motivationand paratelic is similar to intrinsic motivation, atleast by the definition given by Csikszentmihalyi(2014).

Our earliest experience of intrinsic motivationcomes from childhood, as R. M. Ryan and Deci(2000) states that children early on have a moti-vation to explore and learn even when no reward

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is expected (no extrinsic factors), thus connect-ing our intrinsic motivation to play and our earlyability to learn.

They (R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000) also talkabout how intrinsic motivation improves perfor-mance and our ability to learn compared to ex-trinsic motivation which decreases or even ob-structs our performance and ability to learn.

Intrinsic motivation

R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000) divides differenttypes of motivation on a continuum from amoti-vation (the lack of motivation) to extrinsic moti-vation and to intrinsic motivation (see figure 3.1).There is a somewhat fluid transition from onetype to another e.g. one can be more or less mo-tivated by external values depending on, to whatextent the ”motivated” person have a feeling ofcompetence, autonomy, and relatedness towardsthe task at hand - the border between the termsmay not be very distinct but rather blurred.

R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000) do not examinethe source of motivation, but rather works on thefactors that may elicit and sustain intrinsic moti-vation. We can not, based on their (R. M. Ryan& Deci, 2000) research, determine from wheremotivation comes, but rather what factors in-fluence motivation - like observing chemical re-actions without understanding atoms. However,they do divide motivation into three core valuesthat gives some structure to intrinsic motivation(R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000):

Competence is our feeling or perception of be-ing capable of doing the task at hand.

Autonomy is our feeling or perception of beingresponsible for the outcome of the task aswell as the decision to deal with it in thefirst place.

Relatedness is in my opinion a bit more ab-stract than the other two values, as it issimilar to (if not the exact same as) otherconcepts such as connectedness. Libbey(2004) discusses different terms such as:engagement, attachment, bonding, andother terms (in relation to schools), andrelates these to the term ”connectedness”.She (Libbey, 2004) does not connect the

term to relatedness, but she describes itseffect on students’ motivation - in thiscase she talks about teacher support, sostudents’ connectedness to their teacher.Teacher support was also proved to havean impact on students’ motivation in a re-search by A. M. Ryan and Patrick (2001).In their research A. M. Ryan and Patrick(2001) found that when students feel thattheir teacher is supportive and tries tounderstand them, they feel more moti-vated to study, while a teacher promot-ing performance goals decreases the stu-dents’ motivation. This is also mentionedby R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000), as the stu-dents’ perception of the teacher being sup-portive (they can relate to their teacher)help motivation, while lack of autonomyand relatedness (and of course compe-tence) decreases or obstructs their intrinsicmotivation. Relatedness is therefore ourfeeling of connection to others, our envi-ronment and aspects of the task at hand.

Amabile (1996) also recognizes competence(a sense of competence and mastery) and auton-omy (a sense of control) as keys to our intrin-sic motivation, thus backing up Ryan and Deci’stheory of intrinsic motivation. There is howevermore to their understanding, as can be seen onfigure 3.1.

The Motivation Continuum

On figure 3.1 we have amotivation on the left,being the complete lack of motivation - no per-ception of relatedness, autonomy, or competence(R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000). On the right we haveintrinsic motivation - perception of complete re-latedness, autonomy, or competence (R. M. Ryan& Deci, 2000). In the middle R. M. Ryan andDeci (2000) divides extrinsic motivation into fourtypes of regulation: ”external regulation”, ”intro-jected regulation”, ”identified regulation”, and”integrated regulation”.

External regulation is completely motivatedby extrinsic factors and relies on rewardsand punishment - thus we are motivatedby trying to avoid punishment and gain-ing rewards, but do not feel autonomy,

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Figure 3.1: The figure shows a spectrum of different types of motivation and regulation types relatedto them. (R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 72).

competence or relatedness toward the task(R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Introjected regulation happens when the reg-ulation is more connected to intrinsic val-ues than the external regulation, and maybe driven by a need to avoid guilt or anx-iety or to enhance the ego (e.g. pride)(R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000). An example ofthis can be given from my personal experi-ence with the game development companyStonePlant Studios that I established to-gether with some friends (see appendix AAuto Ethnography of Mikkel Lund). I didnot feel competent enough to do it; I didnot feel it was my responsibility or idea (Imay have felt I had some influence (auton-omy), but it was not much); and it reliedmore on my relation with my friends andmy passion for games. However, the driv-ing force was the want to be a businessowner - an entrepreneur. I rarely enjoyedthe work there, and the work I did was moreoften to not disappoint my friends and tofeed my ego.

Identified regulation is when we have someidentification with (or personal connection

to) the task (R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000)e.g. we understand that a cold shower inthe morning is good for us, so we may do it,although the experience is not very pleasur-able (at least not to some, including me).

Integrated regulation is the most autonomousof the four types of regulation, in whichthe task is considered to be connected toour other values and needs (R. M. Ryan& Deci, 2000) e.g. when the supervisorasks a student to read a gigantic book ona subject that may have relevance to hisor her project. It is an external regulation,knowing that the subject is relevant, butthe student can connect it to his or herintrinsic values.

R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000) also states thatthe four types of regulation are placed on theircontinuum depending on the degree of autonomy- how much we are in control of the regulation.They (R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000) also state thatthe less autonomous the regulation is, the morealienated we feel from the task - thus we loserelatedness towards the task.

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Extrinsic motivation

Although R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000) divides ex-trinsic motivation into four regulations, it seemsthat there can be a somewhat overlap betweenthem, depending on how much value the taskgives to the actor’s (the one doing the task) in-trinsic values.

The process of pulling extrinsic values towardsintrinsic values, may be linked to what Festinger(1962) calls cognitive dissonance, which is whathappens, when we try to assimilate thoughts, be-liefs, or values that are somewhat alien (or ex-trinsic) to us - they are in dissonance to our ownintrinsic thoughts, beliefs, and values. However,we will often attempt to rectify the dissonance,by aligning the extrinsic values with our own e.g.a smoker arguing that death comes for us all,to justify his or her habit, which is in dissonancewith his or her knowledge of smoking being lethal(Festinger, 1962).

As earlier mentioned, the less we feel compe-tence, autonomy, or relatedness towards a task,the less intrinsically motivated we feel to do thetask. In this case, external values can help mo-tivate us, though it seems that external valuesalone (without connection to the three compo-nents of intrinsic motivation) can not drive us,unless the motivation is of external regulation,so the payment is necessary to avoid punishmente.g. to get food to avoid hunger.

Csikszentmihalyi (2014) however, also pointsout that extrinsic rewards are necessary for civ-ilization to exist. He (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014)refers to the parable by Aesop about thegrasshopper and the ant, in which the ant workshard to gather supplies for the winter, while thegrasshopper is enjoying himself by playing music,but when winter comes, the ant is well prepared,and the grasshopper suffers from his neglect ofthe extrinsic reward of ”food during the winter”.

Extrinsic rewards may obstruct our intrin-sic motivation if they become a necessity, thuspulling us towards external regulation, where themotivation is driven by the reward rather thanthe activity. However, if the motivation is intrin-sic thus driven by the activity itself, the extrinsicreward may support our intrinsic motivation.

”As resources accumulate inone place, they lay down theconditions that make innova-tion possible.” (Csikszentmi-halyi, 2001, p. 10)

Csikszentmihalyi (2001) states that althougha person may be intrinsically motivated to work ina certain field or with a certain subject, extrinsicrewards can not be discounted.

”The most synergistic useof human potential is whenpsychic energy gets investedin activities that are simul-taneously autotelic and pro-ductive.” - (Csikszentmihalyi,2014, p. 182)

With this, Csikszentmihalyi (2014) is sayingthat the optimal use of our attention, energy orresources is in activities that both arise from in-ner goals (or intrinsic motivation. ”Auto” mean-ing ”self” in Greek and ”telic” meaning ”goal”in Greek) and at the same time is productive, sothat we may enjoy the work (as the grasshopperdoes in Aesop’s parable) and reap the reward (asthe ant does).

Feedback

Feedback is something both R. M. Ryan and Deci(2000) and McGonigal (2011) puts emphasis on:McGonigal (2011) uses it as one of four core el-ements in a game; R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000)points to the importance of positive feedback ineliciting and nurturing intrinsic motivation.

In regard to extrinsic factors: feedback, re-wards and communications that supports or elic-its our feelings of competence during an activityenhances our intrinsic motivation towards thatactivity (R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000). Again, thisseems to point towards the degree of connectionbetween the external values and our intrinsic val-ues (in this case competence). These extrinsicfactors are also very relevant to games, as is ex-plained later 3.2 Why play or game?

The problem, e.g. with a grade, is then that itis (usually) not within our control, or at least may

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feel as though it is not, thus we can not deter-mine whether we have the competence to acquirethe extrinsic reward that it is. Of course, if wecan get to a point where we feel confident thatthe grade, we want, can be achieved by us withour skills and resources, it may become a moti-vating extrinsic factor instead, as we now havethe competence to achieve it, the autonomy toearn it (our own actions, our own reward) andthe relatedness should be present from the be-ginning, at least to our study, supervisor, and/orour family and friends, who may give us attentiononce the grade is posted on Facebook.

Apter (2007) states that it is possible toswitch between the states of telic (goal-oriented)and paratelic (activity-oriented). He (Apter,2007) gives an example of walking to reach adestination (a goal), and once we realize thatwe have enough time, we may shift our atten-tion from reaching the destination to enjoying thewalk itself - thus switching from a telic state toparatelic state or being externally driven to beinginternally driven.

In regard to an exam, it may be possible toswitch between extrinsic motivation and intrinsicmotivation if one can change the perception ofthe goal or the challenge.

The example of walking given by Apter(2007) can also be connected to resources (oneof Amabile’s six driving factors, these are cov-ered later in 3.1 Amabile’s six driving factors) -at one point resources are sparse, and focus liessolely on reaching the destination, but once theresources are in abundance (enough time) the fo-cus changes.

Amabile’s six driving factors

Amabile (1998) divides the drive for creativityinto six different categories which may also beable to aid in mapping the underlying mecha-nisms of motivation. She, however, calls them:”How to kill creativity”, as her perspective onthem, is that of what organizations and compa-nies often fail to do, when trying to support cre-ativity. Although the focus here is on creativity,she also links them to intrinsic motivation (Am-abile, 1998).

Challenge is about creating a good balance be-tween an actor’s expertise (or competence)

and the challenge of the assignment givento them (Amabile, 1998). This may taketime, if someone else (other than the actor)should find and establish that balance, asit requires insight into the actor’s abilities(Amabile, 1998). This also correlates verywell with flow, which will be described laterin 3.2 Flow, and competence described ear-lier in 3.1 Intrinsic motivation.

Freedom is closely linked to autonomy, in fact,Amabile (1998) states so herself. It ismainly the freedom to choose how wewant to go about an assignment (Ama-bile, 1998). From someone else’s perspec-tive, this means that one can give an actora goal, and leave the strategy and tactics(basically how the actors wants to accom-plish the goal) up to the actor. This sup-ports intrinsic motivation and creativity inthe actor (Amabile, 1998). This could alsomake a good environment for the actor toenter flow, as they themselves can controlthe challenge level of the assignments lead-ing the actor to accomplishing the goal.

Resources is yet again about balance (Amabile,1998). The actor must have sufficient re-sources at his or her disposal (Amabile,1998). The resources are time, money, en-vironment, tools (Amabile, 1998), and ba-sically anything external to the actor’s ownabilities. Too little resources kill creativ-ity and the same does too many. Again,this can relate to challenge and flow. Thefewer resources allotted, the higher the risk(or challenge) of reaching the goal with theresources; the more resources allotted, thelower the risk of reaching the goal with theresources.

Work-group features is about creating diver-sity in a team of actors and good chemistrybetween them (Amabile, 1998). This maybe very challenging, as diversity can alsolead to conflict of interests, but will unlikea homogeneous team better support cre-ativity, as all actors (with the right chem-istry) will be able to draw on each oth-ers’ strengths (Amabile, 1998). This re-lates both to resources and relatedness: the

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skills that the different actors have, can beseen as a sort of resources - the diversityin skills (abilities) create a wider range of”tools” (resources); the chemistry in theteam (if good) ought to create relatednessbetween the actors in the team.

Supervisory encouragement is about recog-nizing creative work and ideas, and refrainfrom evaluating the quality of the ideas(Amabile, 1998) - ”’A’ for efforts” in asense. Again, this relates to relatedness, inthis case to the supervisor, but it also re-lates well to evaluation, which will be cov-ered later in 3.1 Relatedness and evalua-tion.

Organizational support is about having an en-vironment (organization) in which creativ-ity is encouraged (Amabile, 1998). Nowmoney may not be the right way to do this,as money is an extrinsic reward that maygive the actor a feeling of being controlled(Amabile, 1998). This is in a sense a stepup from supervisory encouragement, andmoves further up to the entire organizationthat both the supervisor and the actor is apart of - thus again, relating to relatedness.

Although both competence, autonomy andrelatedness are present in these drives, the drivesthat Amabile describes, help get a better under-standing of the underlying mechanisms of moti-vation.

The Octalysis model

The Octalysis model is also a great model for il-lustrating some of the underlying mechanisms ofmotivation, which R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000)(as earlier mentioned) do not look into, as theyare focused more on the factors that elicits andnurture intrinsic motivation. It may be difficult todiscern between factors (eliciting and nurturingintrinsic motivation) and underlying mechanismsof motivation, but the octalysis model seems toat least map some of the mechanisms (if not all).

Chou (2016) have made the Ocatlysis model(see figure 3.2), in which he illustrates eightcore drives: meaning, accomplishment, empow-erment, ownership, social influence, scarcity, un-predictability, and avoidance.

These drives are based on his observationsof what makes games engaging (Chou, 2016) -thus motivating us to play games. Some of thesecan be related to the three components of intrin-sic motivation that R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000)describes (relatedness, competence, and auton-omy).

Meaning (Epic meaning and calling): we feelthat we have a calling or a belief e.g. con-tributing to Wikipedia, not for money orfor writing it on our resumes, but becausewe believe in the governing of humanity’sknowledge (Chou, 2016). Chou (2016) alsorelates this to ”beginner’s luck”, as it canseem like a calling that may drive us, whene.g. we receive a very rare item from thevery beginning of a game - we feel chosen,destined, called upon.

Accomplishment (Development and accom-plishment): our feeling of making progressand accomplishing things. Achievements,points and badges can be used to targetthis drive, but it is important that they arenot given, for lesser or no efforts (Chou,2016).

Empowerment (of creativity and feedback): weare allowed to express ourselves and wit-ness the progress of our own creations andchoices (Chou, 2016). Chou (2016) explic-itly connects this drive to intrinsic motiva-tion.

Ownership (and possession): we feel own-ership, attachment of responsibility oversomething and thus a need to protect, nur-ture and develop it (Chou, 2016).

Social influence (and relatedness): he (Chou,2016) specifically relates this to relat-edness, as our feeling of relatedness tofriends, mentors and other social groupsand entities (Chou, 2016).

Scarcity (and impatience): we want somethingbecause it is difficult to obtain; it is a chal-lenge to get it; the feeling of somethingbeing exclusive (Chou, 2016).

Unpredictability (and curiosity): we do notknow what is going to happen next (Chou,

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Figure 3.2: The Octalysis model shows eight core drives: meaning, empowerment, social influence,unpredictability, avoidance, scarcity, ownership, and accomplishment, derived from games’ ability toengage us. (Chou, 2016, p. 2).

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2016). This is what happens in alea (gam-bling), as we take a chance on the slot ma-chines (Schull, 2012). It is the same drivethat drives us to watch movies or read nov-els, the feeling of wanting to know what isgoing to happen (Chou, 2016). It is thesame drive found in rats in the Skinner box,in which they may or may not get a reward(food) when clicking a button - they willclick the button despite them not feelinghungry (Chou, 2016).

Avoidance (Loss and avoidance): the drive toavoid certain things or loss (Chou, 2016).

If we look at these eight drives that Chou(2016) has illustrated in his Octalysis model, wecan draw connections between them and otheraspects, we have discussed earlier about gamesand motivation.

Competence is closely related to both accom-plishment and scarcity: as accomplishment is ourdrive to prove ourselves, make progress and be-come better; and scarcity is the drive of achievingor acquiring something exclusive, something welldeserved after much work - as Chou (2016) alsopoints out, the rewards must not be gained forlittle or no effort.

Ownership is (although a different word) sim-ilar to (or entirely the same as) autonomy, as itis the drive coming from the feeling of owningsomething, being responsible for it, and havinginfluence over it.

Avoidance is similar to introjected regulation,as they are both our drive to avoid certain thingssuch as pain, disappointment, sorrow, loss etc.

Unpredictability as Chou (2016) states it, isthe feeling of wanting to find the missing pieces,knowing the end of the story, but can be relatedboth to the zone that gamblers enter when gam-bling, as the uncertainty (the chance) drives usto find patterns and take control over the un-predictable (Schull, 2012); and in a story, it canrelate to relatedness as our relation and socialconnection to the characters - we want to knowwhat happens to them, as we connect or relateto them, we become immersed in their lives.

Empowerment can also relate well to interac-tion, as it is our drive to make choices, create andperceiving the impact that our actions leave on

the environment of the game or in the feedbackwe receive from the game.

Chou (2016) mostly attributes feedback toempowerment, but it may well serve all eightdrives, as the feedback can target each drive,if we take feedback to be received information,whether it is as points, a progress bar, a badge,a placement on a leaderboard etc. These termswill be discussed later in section 6 Gamify.

Relatedness (as a component of intrinsic mo-tivation) can be related to meaning as it is a callto us (our values and beliefs) - we feel relatedto the calling (the task). Social influence is re-lated to what Caillois (1961) talks about: ourdrive to compete; prove ourselves; and be part ofa social construct. This may also connect socialinfluence to relatedness, as our relation to ourteacher (mentor) or other social entities.

Relatedness and evaluation

In a social context, it is the attention that we aregiven by others that creates a connection or relat-edness between us and them, and with this con-nection we become an interactive system (Csik-szentmihalyi, 2014) - we know that our actionswill be noted.

With interactive system, Csikszentmihalyi(2014) means that two or more people with re-lation (or relatedness) to each other, are able tointeract with each other e.g. a child looks athis or her mother, once he or she confirms thatthe mother is looking, he or she can perform atask in front of her, and know that the action thechild does, will somehow create a reaction fromthe mother, thus the action (the performed task)becomes an interaction with the mother, and themother creates feedback to the child - they areas such an interactive system.

From the attention we get from others, webecome aware that we may receive affirmation.This could be considered an extrinsic reward ofsorts, as it is coming from others. However, asCsikszentmihalyi (2001) also states, it is not theintrinsic motivation alone that will drive innova-tion, but a mixture. Also, the relatedness cre-ated towards those giving us attention, shouldaccording to both R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000)and Amabile (1996) nourish our intrinsic moti-vation. However, it must be dependent on the

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type of relatedness (or interactive system as Csik-szentmihalyi (2014) calls it) created between us,as if we feel that we are being evaluated by theother party, we will lose our intrinsic motivation(or creativity) (Amabile, 1996). So, e.g. thefeedback that a child gets from its mother is anextrinsic factor, but without her attention, andthe knowledge that she is attentive of the child’sactions, the child’s intrinsic motivation might notbe enough driving force to make the child act.

Whether something is creative or not, orwhether it is a good or a bad performance, is,according to Csikszentmihalyi (2001), heavily de-pendent on the social context - it is others whojudge the quality of the work performed.

Without relatedness towards others, we onlyhave ourselves to evaluate our performance, andthat does not seem to suffice. I will make theassumption that the extrinsic evaluator does nothave to be a person, but if it is, it should besomeone we feel relatedness towards, or it can beanother kind of interactive system e.g. a game, atoy, our environment - something external to usthat will give feedback to us, when we interactwith the system, so that we may use the feedbackto determine the outcome of our action, and fromthat be able to judge whether we are doing goodor bad.

Some outcomes may be possible to evaluateby the actor, while other outcomes such as oneof creativity, may require an external evaluator toevaluate it, as Csikszentmihalyi (2014) suggests.

As self-evaluation is important to drive in-trinsic motivation and from that creativity, theprospect to reap extrinsic rewards for successfulwork also has influence on the growth of creativ-ity.

Amabile (1996) states that when evaluationis perceived as coming from an internal locus, theperformance may be improved, while it may de-crease when the evaluation is perceived to comefrom an external locus - the feedback should aidin the receiver’s (the person receiving the feed-back) own evaluation, rather than be presentedas external evaluation (or external judgement).

It is even possible that, un-der some circumstances, cer-tain types of reward might en-hance enjoyment and, hence,creativity. - (Amabile, 1996, p.155)

Amabile (1996), in this regard, also differs be-tween actors in cooperation or as audience, wherean audience, although somewhat a social con-cept, will decrease the intrinsic motivation of theactor (the one doing the task, and thus the cre-ativity), while a colleague (actor in cooperation)will increase the intrinsic motivation (and thuscreativity) towards the task. In terms of social in-fluence, it makes a difference whether we have aconnection (relatedness) towards other actors inour social environment. As previously mentioned,it holds great value in the context of evaluation,whether the evaluation comes from an internallocus (ourselves or perhaps a colleague, workingon the same task) or an external locus (an audi-ence e.g. an examiner).

In this regard John Dewey (Brinkmann, 2017)believes that relatedness is crucial for our abilityto learn, and it is as role models or masters thatothers can help us learn. Such role models can beour teacher, supervisor, parents etc. The relat-edness towards the one giving us evaluation mayhold great importance here.

From Amabile’s six drives it is also appar-ent that the feedback (or evaluation) should begiven for the effort more than the result. Withthat said, rewards for good results may still help,which was explained in 3.1 Extrinsic motivation.However, evaluation focused on the outcome mayaffect the challenge of the assignment, whichcan disrupt flow and diminish intrinsic motiva-tion while evaluation focused on the effort maygive freedom (one of Amabile’s six drives) to theactor, which will in turn support intrinsic motiva-tion.

We need feedback to evaluate our actions,and when that feedback comes from other ac-tors such as teachers, parents, an audience etc.it is not enough that we feel relatedness towardsthem, if the intention is to support our intrinsicmotivation or creativity, the feedback given fromthe external source must aid us in our own self-evaluation rather than be an external evaluation

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of us. It may be difficult to find a balance thatallow external evaluators to support intrinsic mo-tivation while still having to ensure that the actormakes the proper evaluation.

Let us put it into context. I am assumingthat most people know what it is like to per-form at an exam (the context). If the studentat an exam is to be the primary evaluator, it isimportant for the external evaluators (the exam-iner and censor) to give adequate feedback thatdoes not give a direct evaluation of the student’s(the actor and primary evaluator) performance,but rather give feedback that allows the studentto evaluate him- or herself properly. It probablyshould not be feedback such as: ”you are incor-rect”, ”you have not done your research prop-erly on the subject”, but could instead be morequestions towards the same topic (is usually agood indication that something is not answeredto a satisfactory level) - the external evaluatorsbecome interactive systems which give feedbackrather than definitive evaluation.

There is likely much more to this balance,than what is described here, but for the sake ofscope, it will suffice to state that feedback shouldbe given that allows the actor to evaluate him-or herself, when the intention is to support theactor’s intrinsic motivation. Perhaps the exter-nal evaluator may still be able to give a gradeat the end, much like many games will tell theplayer whether they have lost or won the game -we still play the game despite knowing that thiscan happen.

3.2 Why play or game?

With a definition of game in place and an under-standing of motivation, we still need to under-stand why we play games, and how games (videogames especially) have become so popular thatmore than 44% of the online population playsgames (Bohyun, 2015).

McGonigal (2011) warned us, as early as in2011, that a ”hurricane” (she calls it) is comingin regard to the popularity of playing games:

”The truth is: in today’ssociety, computer and videogames are fulfilling genuine hu-man needs that the real worldis currently unable to satisfy.Games are providing rewardsthat reality is not. They areteaching and inspiring and en-gaging us in ways that realityis not. They are bringing ustogether in ways that reality isnot.” - (McGonigal, 2011, In-troduction)

Ishibashi (1985) also points out that the in-dustrial and digital development, have decreasedthe workload on the Japanese job market, leavingmany Japanese workers to seek play as anothermeans to give their lives meaning - as work isconsidered a virtue in the Japanese culture, andas such gives meaning to many Japanese people.One such play activities for adults may be foundin games.

What makes games such a big deal to hu-mans (and even animals, according to Huizinga(1950))?

Social value

Caillois (1961) considers games to have a socialvalue, they are most of the time best played to-gether with (or against) others. Games give atime and space for competition - to display skillsin a social environment - linking games to relat-edness.

Jane McGonigal (2011) however, mentionsthat unwinnable games such as Tetris (which hasno defined end game) shatters the misconceptionof gamers (people playing games) being highlycompetitive, thus it is not all about competition.This does not go against the view of Caillois andHuizinga, but widens the perspective of games asbeing more than competition - perhaps includingimprovement of skills (or learning). She (Mc-Gonigal, 2011) points out that gamers enjoy thecontinuous play in Tetris, even though they cannever truly win the game. One of the reasons forthis enjoyment (or pleasure), is the high-speed (or

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instant) feedback the game gives, as this helpsmotivate the players to move on by remindingthem that the goal is still achievable (McGoni-gal, 2011), or in the case of Tetris that we aredoing good.

In the case where competition leads to lessrelatedness e.g. pit players against each other,thus creating a divide between them, the com-petition may impair intrinsic motivation, whilecompetition that leads to more relatedness be-tween gamers e.g. team competition or compe-tition against the system of the game, it may bean advantage that supports intrinsic motivation,thus creating enjoyment for the players. This mayalso relate to flow, in the sense that the challengepresented by the competitor should be perceivedto be equal to the skill of the player. Flow isdiscussed later in 3.2 Flow.

Pleasure or entertainment

Bloom (2011) talks in a TED Talk about howperspective is crucial for our experience and en-joyment of things, although he does not tie thisto games, he uses wine tasting as an example,and states that we enjoy a wine more, if it costsmore and have a nicer label on it, than if it ischeap and have a less nice label on it, even if thewine in the bottle is actually the same which isunknown to the test subject. It is our perspec-tive of more expensive wines being better thatwill make us perceive the wine as tasting better,when it comes from the expensive bottle (Bloom,2011).

If something similar is the case with games,it may be possible that the gamers perspectiveon failing in games is that it is something that isenjoyable rather than stressful which it otherwiseis in real life (McGonigal, 2011). Games can giveus positive feedback when we fail, and as long aswe feel that we are somewhat in control of theoutcome (that the failure is not random but ourdoing), and that it is something we can change,we become more motivated to better ourselves(McGonigal, 2011). Koster (2013) also statesthat the enjoyable thing about games is the mas-tering of them. In that sense games are fun toplay, because we can learn and improve ourselves- become better at them.

Games can even make failing an enjoyable ex-

perience (McGonigal, 2011), thus making the ar-tificial environment not only a good place to learnbecause failing is of little (if any) consequences,but it can also be exhilarating to fail in games.

(Vygotsky, 1967) states that a child does notact on impulses in games, but adheres to therules, as the rules gives greater pleasure (or sat-isfaction) than to just act on impulses.

Learn by playing

When we play, we create an artificial environ-ment, in which we safely can explore the zone ofproximal development (Vygotsky, 1967). Vygot-sky (1980) points out that a child is always abovehis average age, taller etc. (above his level of de-velopment) when he plays, and this makes playan important method or tool for development.

The zone of proximal development is thestretch between current level of development andthe next level of development (Vygotsky, 1980).We can consider it as what lies outside of ourcurrent area of understanding (or development).

With Dewey’s understanding of learning, asbeing tied to relatedness (Brinkmann, 2017), itis also possible to relate the master or role modelto the zone of proximal development, in the sensethat the role model allows the student to getan understanding of the unknown (the knowl-edge and experience lying in the zone of proximaldevelopment) and thereby creating a scenario inwhich the student may learn from the master’sexperience, thus shedding some light on the un-known. However, a master or role model may notalways be enough to support intrinsic motivationto learn.

With the pleasure gained in the artificial worldof games, as we learn and experience our full po-tential, a classroom with books, blackboards andassignments fade in comparison, and the level ofengagement is critically low (McGonigal, 2011).It is not entirely like this anymore, as games (orjust playing in general) are becoming more widelyused in schools and educational institutions, as ameans to engage and motivate pupils and stu-dents to learn (McGonigal, 2011).

According to Vygotsky (1967), play is achild’s wish fulfillment, thus connects play toRyan and Deci’s definition of intrinsic motiva-tion, as it is their intrinsic values that motivates

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them to play.Dewey considers children, not to be natural

listeners but rather, to be natural explorers, whoexplore their world and manipulates it - they areactive learners not passive learners (Brinkmann,2017). Dewey is also known for the saying:”learning by doing” (Brinkmann, 2017), whichI believe is similar to saying: ”learning by play-ing”.

Vygotsky (1967) also connects play to thezone of proximal development, giving some creditto this idea that play can be related to ”learn-ing by doing”. The connection between playand learning, however, should not be taken inthe sense that actions in play are directly trans-lated to reality (as that would be delirium, as hestates) e.g. you learn to shoot robbers in a gameof cops and robbers (that is not really what youlearn from it), but in that morality and meaningis made from it, which is then used in reality.

Apter (2007) relates the paratelic state tothat of playing or gaming, as the focus shifts tothe activity itself and the fun that is derived fromit. The telic state he relates to ”work”. He thengoes on to stating that:

”..., the activities of theparatelic state are turned in-ward on themselves, cut offfrom the rest of life and en-capsulated in their own ”bub-bles”.” - (Apter, 2007, ch. 3)

The paratelic state creates a bubble, frameor safety-zone-frame in which our actions haveno serious consequences (Apter, 2007).

A game sets up a frame (”magic circle” or”safety-zone-frame”) in which we feel intrinsi-cally motivated to explore, experience and learn- while getting pleasure from this activity.

The idea that learning is so essential to thefun gained from playing games, also relates wellto the competence component of motivation sug-gested by R. M. Ryan and Deci (2000).

Csikszentmihalyi (2014) points out that etho-logical psychologists suggest that play is a youngorganism’s method of trying out their skills andknowledge in a nonthreatening environment, sothat it may learn by trial and error. However,

Csikszentmihalyi (2014) puts emphasis on playbeing a fun and enjoyable activity - fun is essen-tial to play.

Vygotsky (1980) points out that the goal(apart from fun) is essential in play, as it is whatmakes play a fun experience. This may con-nect play with what Csikszentmihalyi (2014) callsflow, as having a goal is essential to obtainingflow.

Flow

Flow as defined by Csikszentmihalyi (2014) is astate of mind entered by an actor, when said ac-tor’s perceived skill level matches that of the ac-tor’s perceived challenge level (see figure 3.3) e.g.the actor is playing a game, the game presents achallenge, if the actor perceives that challenge torequire the level of skill that the actor perceivehim- or herself to have, the actor will enter astate of flow, when playing the game. If, on theother hand, the level of challenge is perceived tobe greater than the level of skill, the actor will be-come anxious. If the balance is shifted (greaterlevel of skill than level of challenge), the actorbecomes bored.

Figure 3.3: The flow-model illustrates at whichpoint an actor experiences flow. When the per-ceived skill (x-axis) is equal to the perceived chal-lenge (y-axis), the actor experience flow. If animbalance between perceived skills and perceivedchallenge happens, the actor will either feel anx-ious or bored (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014, p. 147).

According to Apter (2007) the bigger the goalor the challenge of achieving it, the more anxiouswe become, while if it is too easy we becomebored. Being in the paratelic state allow us to

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move up and down between anxiety and bore-dom.

Just to clarify the graph on figure 3.3, asanxiety is present both at ”high challenge / lowskill” and ”high skill / low challenge”, which isoften neglected or ignored when the model is usedin other contexts. Csikszentmihalyi (2014) doesnot give any explanation to anxiety being expe-rienced in the latter scenario. According to En-geser and Schiepe-Tiska (2012) the reason forthis, could be that Csikszentmihaly assumes thathumans need structure, and when no challenges(or opportunities for action) are present, we (hu-mans) may experience chaos and anxiety. They(Engeser & Schiepe-Tiska, 2012) point toward ascenario in which prisoners are kept in isolation,as an example to this state.

Now back to the flow state. The conditionsfor flow are according to Csikszentmihalyi (2014):a clear set of goals; balance between perceivedskills and perceived challenge; and clear and im-mediate feedback. Again, feedback is crucial, inthis case to enter flow. However, feedback is notof much value if it is not received, thus bringingour attention to ”awareness”.

Csikszentmihalyi (2014) points to similaritiesbetween flow and religious activities such as dif-ferent sorts of meditation and the rapture soughtin these activities. Although there are similaritiesbetween these activities, creative activities, playand flow; flow is not strictly bound to or limitedto these (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014).

”Perhaps the clearest sign offlow is the experience of merg-ing action and awareness”- (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014, p.138)

Apter (2007) points out that a telic state ismore often associated with analyzing and plan-ning, while a paratelic state is more spontaneousand focused on the present moment and the cur-rent activity - more awareness of the present mo-ment.

Csikszentmihalyi (2014) considers awarenessof the self as having a negative affect on enjoy-ment and hence flow. Most often awareness ofthe self brings attention to our flaws and inade-quacies, which can interrupt flow and enjoyment

(Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). This can also be seenin some of the examples that Csikszentmihalyi(2014) mentions, where people in flow describeit as them losing awareness of themselves (theself) and their surroundings, time, problems etc.However, in the examples, there is also increasedawareness to sensations (perception) related tothe task (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014) - we may for-get ourselves (our identity) but instead becomemore aware of our own presence in the presentmoment when in flow.

”whether one is in flow or notdepends entirely on one’s per-ception of what the challengesand skills are” - (Csikszentmi-halyi, 2014, p. 147)

Again, it is our perception that is the keyto flow. The same is the case with pleasure asBloom (2011) described it with the wines. Cangames or play somehow aid us by influencing ourperception of things?

When we enter flow, we lose our sense of timeand awareness of everything around us, not re-lated to the task at hand. All our attention (orpsychic energy as Csikszentmihalyi (2014) callsit) is invested in the necessary activities to com-plete the task - our awareness is directed to theactivity we are invested in, in the present mo-ment.

Play, flow and learning

If we consider play as the stage or environmentin which we can explore, prove and improve our-selves, we can start out with little skill, decreaseand then steadily increase the level of challengeto fit our level of skill (somewhat influence ourown perception), thus reaching flow more easilyand keep feeling enjoyment.

According to Schwabe and Wolf (2010),learning is diminished or impaired during or afterstress. Although Csikszentmihalyi (2014) usesthe word anxiety (anxious), it is possible thatstress and anxiety is the same or similar in thissense. In a research of the Depression Anxi-ety Stress Scale (DASS), Lovibond and Lovibond(1995) noted that:

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”The analyses confirmed thatwhile the DASS successfullydiscriminates between threenegative emotional syndromes,these syndromes are still mod-erately highly correlated witheach other, and in particularthe Stress scale is more closelyassociated with Anxiety thanwith Depression” - (Lovibond& Lovibond, 1995, p. 340)

Lovibond and Lovibond (1995) further notesthat both stress and anxiety are associated withthe feeling of nervousness unlike depression whichis associated with low self-esteem and disbeliefin one’s competence. So, linking what Schwabeand Wolf (2010) found about learning to flow.By being in flow, we can create a state in whichwe experience enjoyment and no or little stress,depression or anxiety, thus we can in flow opti-mize our capability of learning.

Further, when we fail in games: we get littleor no consequences - it is not a punishing experi-ence; we do not get anxious by it; we can analyzeour mistakes, learn from them, increase our skilland then increase the challenge to reach a newlevel of flow.

From our early beginning, we have an intrin-sic motivation to explore R. M. Ryan and Deci(2000) and through this exploration possibly learnabout our surroundings (our life). This explo-ration can become imitation of scenarios (play)that gives us meaning of and experience with theworld around us e.g. conflict management byplaying cops and robbers. As we become skilledat this, we can apply rules to our play, to increasethe challenge, so that we may stay in flow, enjoythe activity and thereby continue to optimize ourability to learn - thus play becomes game.

We play or game because it is a pleasurableactivity, and it may be helpful to our developmentas humans.

3.3 Other concepts

With an understanding of what a game is andwhy we play games, we can make more sense of

the distinction that Deterding et al. (2011) makesbetween the concepts ”Gamification”, ”SeriousGames”, ”Toys”, and ”Playful Design” (see fig-ure 3.4).

This distinction should allow us to draw bor-ders between gamification and similar concepts,thus clarifying what gamification is and is not.

Deterding et al. (2011) uses two axes to dis-cern the four concepts mentioned earlier. TheX-axis shows whether the concept is whole gameor play, and the Y-axis shows whether the con-cept is gaming or playing. Thus:

Playful design is to use parts (elements) ofplaying in non-play contexts.

Toy is a concept fully related to playing.

Serious games is the usage of games for other(serious) purposes than entertainment.

Gamification is then the use of parts of gamein non-game contexts.

This is a great way to create a distinctionbetween the four concepts, however, it does notclarify at exactly what point a concept crossesthe Y-axis from parts to whole, or the X-axisfrom entertainment to playing. If one begins todesign a game by putting together game designelements, yet stops mid process, will it then begamification? And where do games fit in, as seri-ous games are games with a purpose, but gamesare still whole gaming constructs, but does thatmean there is a purposeful adaption to Toys aswell? And can gamification or playful design notbe used for learning or motivating employees? Asthis will give it a purpose much like that of seriousgames.

Kapp (2012) states that gamification is notgames, as it only uses parts of games (similar toDeterding’s distinction), and unlike games haveno beginning or end. To this I will refer to thedefinition of games used in this project, whichdoes not require a definitive end, as it is some-times up to the player, to decide when to stop thegame - both games and the tools created throughgamification can have an end, but is not requiredto have and end.

Further, the word gamification literally meansto make something else into a game, or give at-tributes of a game to something else. This ofcourse in itself differs games from gamification

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Figure 3.4: A diagram showing a distinction between gamification, Serious Games, Toys, and PlayfulDesign from Deterding et al. (2011). The Y-axis shows how the concept relates to paidia (top) orludus (bottom); the X-axis shows if the concept is in parts or is whole e.g. gamification uses parts(elements) of games, while Serious Games are whole games.

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but not really from game design, as both gam-ification and game design then means to makesomething into games (or at least something sim-ilar to games).

Bohyun (2015) states that gamification dif-fers from games, as gami-fy-ing something (anon-game context) means to use some of thegood characteristics of games to make the non-game context fun and engaging - is engaging thensimilar to trying to motivate the player?

Zicherman and Cunningham (2011) consid-ers gamification as more of an umbrella termthat covers such concepts as serious games, ad-vergaming and games-for-change. It is not nec-essary to know what these concepts are, to un-derstand what gamification is, it will suffice toknow, that they are a use of games for other pur-poses than to entertain - although they may be

entertaining. They (Zicherman & Cunningham,2011) also include (in their definition) a purposeof gamification - to engage users and solve prob-lems:

”The process of game-thinkingand game mechanics to en-gage users and solve prob-lems.” - (Zicherman & Cun-ningham, 2011, p. XIV (14)).

Thus, gamification is not game design (com-bining game design elements to create games),but is a process similar to game design, but comeswith a purpose (at least in the definition made byZicherman and Cunningham (2011)).

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Chapter 4

Problem Formulation: A New Prescription

We now know that gamification has beenaround for more than a decade, but began itspopularity approximately eight years ago. Also,it is only a few years off from being a commonlyused practice, according to the Hype Cycle.

If this is the case, we should begin to see moreactivities being gamified in the coming years forthe sake of captivating, engaging, and motivat-ing people to work, learn, buy, and other activitiesthat may benefit from increased intrinsic motiva-tion.

We started from the surface, being gamifica-tion, and dug into its ocean, to reveal what liesunderneath it. Now, we will turn around and takethe observations from the bottom and up towardsthe surface to try and make some sense of it.

Play is a natural concept to us (humans) andanimals. It is a concept that allows us to explore,learn, socialize, prove, and improve ourselves inan environment where there are no real conse-quences to our actions.

This environment we can call ”the magic cir-cle” or ”the frame of the game”. Inside thismagic circle, we safely explore things that areunknown to us. The magic circle allows us toenter the zone of proximal development.

If we imagine the zone of proximal develop-ment as an area outside of our current under-standing (or development), as I have tried to il-lustrate on figure 4.1, the magic circle overlapswith the green area (the zone of proximal de-velopment), allowing us to explore the unknown,so that we may learn and become familiar withit without risking critical failure because of ourlack of knowledge and experience, with what liesin the green area.

Figure 4.1: An illustration of the ”zone of prox-imal development”: The black inner circle il-lustrates our ”current development”; the outergreen circle illustrates the ”zone of proximal de-velopment”; and the dashed line illustrates the”magic circle”.

Inside the magic circle we are in full control,and we can as such alter the challenges that weface therein by e.g. applying rules (and additionalrules if needed). This control makes the magiccircle (created in play), a perfect environment tosetup the right conditions for reaching flow.

Flow is a state we enter, when our perceivedskills matches our perception of the challenge weface. In this state we are neither bored nor anx-ious, thus flow acts as a perfect condition for

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learning, as our learning capabilities are not hin-dered due to anxiety, and our attention is 100%invested in the stimuli necessary to accomplishthe challenge we phase - we are fully aware ofthe present moment and the task, so much thatwe may even forget ourselves and time. It is apleasant state to be in: as our attention is notoverwhelmed, as may be the case, when we areanxious; nor is it drifting about, as may be thecase, when we are bored.

As we acquire new knowledge and skills: that,which was before within the zone of proximal de-velopment, moves in to the zone of current de-velopment - it becomes known to us. In thissense our zone of current development expands(see figure 4.2). This movement continues as welearn more. This movement can also correlateto the development of the concept of play intothe concept of games (see figure 4.3): we firstexplore our world; then we play with our world;and as we become more familiar with it, we addrules to our play, and start gaming our world.

Figure 4.2: An illustration of the expanse of thezone of development (our current development:starting in the black circle; expanding to thegreen; the blue; the yellow; and the red as ourskill and knowledge (development) increases.

As attention is crucial for flow - in flow ourattention is 100% occupied by the activity - therules applied to play, may be a good way to con-

tinue to increase the challenge and thus occupyour attention e.g. if we are too skilled (relative tothe challenge of the activity), applying rules mayserve as added elements to be attentive of. Thisis not to say that gaming is more difficult thanplay or exploration, nor that it is the human de-velopment, but rather that exploration may turninto play, and play may turn into game, however,we do not stop exploring or playing - the activityof play and exploration just evolves. Adding rulesmay just be one way of increasing the challengeto create the right condition for flow.

Just to give an example. When trying to over-come a big task - this could be writing a masterthesis, arranging a big event, practicing for animportant play - the tasks may seem overwhelm-ing (the challenge is too high). This conditionis not right for flow to happen, so we divide thetask into smaller bits. The bits are less challeng-ing to overcome, so flow may be entered. Asthis becomes familiar to us, the challenge of thebits become less challenging and the conditionfor flow ceases. To recreate the right conditionfor flow, we can apply rules or constraints to thetask like less time, higher quality, more work etc.

However, just applying rules or constraints toactivities, do not make the activity into play orgame. Play is voluntary and it is artificial as well,the same is true for game. Both play and gameare joyful activities, which we are intrinsically mo-tivated to do. As such we enter a paratelic state,when we play and game, as we do the activitiesfor the activities sake and less so for the goal ofthe activity. This differs play and game from thetelic state, in which it is the goal that drives usto do the activity.

The telic state is often associated with work(as Apter (2007) does), which is often associ-ated with being driven by external factors suchas payment or a specific outcome (or goal). Theexternal factors may motivate us, but may alsoimpair our intrinsic motivation, which can ”killcreativity” (as Amabile (1998) puts it) and de-crease performance. However, external factors(or extrinsic motivation) is not necessarily bad,if they are linked to components of our intrinsicmotivation. These components are relatedness,autonomy, and competence.

In short relatedness is our relation to others(social value) and our environment. If these are

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Figure 4.3: An illustration showing how the concept of play evolves (x-axis) through exploration(green. observation of the world), to play (blue. imitation of the world); and to game (yellow.simulation of the world). As our skills and knowledge (development) expands, the zone of proximaldevelopment (the circles above the graph) expands as well.

connected to who we are (our intrinsic values),they can be factors of motivation. Autonomy isour feeling of control and responsibility - we feelresponsible for our actions and the outcome ofthem. Competence is our feeling of being ca-pable of doing certain actions - in a sense it isour perception of our skills, as is important forreaching a state of flow.

On figure 4.4 I have tried to illustrate intrin-sic motivation: the three components of it; anddifferent factors that may connect to one or moreof them. These factors are not necessarily extrin-sic factors, although they are illustrated outsideof the circle, but may in some cases be extrinsic.The point of the figure is to illustrate how in-trinsic motivation branches out and connects todifferent factors, that may influence the very coreof our motivation (the intrinsic motivation).

The green factors are from Amabile’s sixdrives, and the blue are from Chou’s Octalysismodel.

Connected to relatedness is work-group fea-tures, organizational support, supervisory encour-agement and social influence, as these are all con-nected to our relation to our peers (supervisor,teacher, friends, family etc.) and environment(organization, work space, school etc.).

Connected to autonomy is ownership andfreedom, as these both relate to our feelingof control (freedom) and sense of responsibility(ownership).

Connected to competence is then scarcity andchallenge. Challenge is again related to flow andour perception of difficulty of the task at hand.

Scarcity is connected to competence in the sensethat to acquire something that is scarce requiresa certain level of skill and knowledge thus com-petence.

Then there are some factors between thecomponents of intrinsic motivation. Between re-latedness and autonomy is meaning, as it can giveus a sense of purpose, connect us to the course,and make us feel chosen for the task, thus givingus a sense of responsibility towards it.

Between autonomy and competence, we findempowerment. Empowerment, in the way Chou(2016) describes it, is when we are allowed to ex-press ourselves and witness progress of our owncreations, thus giving us a sense of responsibility(autonomy) for the things we create, and throughthat a sense of competence as we witness theprogress of it (our own improvement through ourcreations).

Between competence and relatedness is ac-complishment, unpredictability, and resources.Accomplishment is both a direct proof of ourcompetence, but is also affected by our relationsto others, when external evaluation becomes afactor. Unpredictability is connected to relat-edness, when it is our relation to something orsomeone to which or whom we can not predictactions of or consequences for (in this sense itmay also connect to ownership of things), whilein other situations it connects to our feeling ofbeing able to gain control of the unpredictableto manage risk and reward. Resources can bothbe the abilities of colleagues, friends and teammates as well as our own abilities, time, money,

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Figure 4.4: An illustration of intrinsic motivation: the three core components of it; and differentfactors from Amabile’s six drives and Chou’s Ocatalysis model that are related to these.

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tools etc., thus connects to both competence andrelatedness.

Now, avoidance is not connected to any ofthe components of intrinsic motivation, as it isrelated to external regulation and introjected reg-ulation, as it is not a drive towards, but a driveaway from, and in that sense, could be placed be-hind the circle of intrinsic motivation (on figure4.4). It can be avoidance of disappointment ofour peers; avoidance of being imprisoned, beingstripped from freedom, control, and responsibil-ity; or it can be avoidance of failure and feelingincompetent.

With the digital age, and play and game’sadaption to it, the intrinsic motivation that drivesus to play and game, and factors that influenceit, have become clearer, thus possibly giving in-spiration to try and use some of these factors(game design elements) to support intrinsic mo-tivation. This is where gamification comes from- an attempt to create a bridge between a telicstate and a paratelic state, to support creativityand performance by making non-game contextsinto game-like contexts (or simply games).

4.1 Defining gamificationonce again

As gamification is a heavily contested term andthere are many great and well thought throughdefinitions of it (from Deterding et al. (2011),Zicherman and Cunningham (2011), Stieglitz etal. (2017) and others), a (perhaps) new definitionis made once again - for the sake of understand-ing the scope of this study:

Gamification is the process ofusing game design elements ina non-game context to designa game or a game-like con-text that can elicit and nur-ture intrinsic motivation to-wards non-artificial feats.

This makes gamification a process similar togame design, but can be applied without mak-ing a whole game (although it can also make awhole game), and is done for the purpose (other

than entertainment) of eliciting and nurturingintrinsic motivation towards non-artificial feats.Thus, designing a game or game-like context thathelps motivate us intrinsically towards doing featssuch as learning or working that have value out-side of the artificial construct - the magic circlethat games create. It is therefore not enoughto just use points, badges and achievements (orother game design elements) as extrinsic factorsto motivate us, we must, in gamification, designa game (or game-like context) that we voluntarilywish to engage in, and which will give us somesort of pleasure while doing it. In a sense, gam-ification (by this definition and others) attemptsto create a magic circle outside of the artificialconstruct of games and into real life (expandingthe magic circle into a new zone of proximal de-velopment that is real life) - making real life asengaging, motivating and pleasurable as gamesare, while having an impact on real life. We couldsay that gamification creates tools for motivationrather than games for entertainment.

”..., it is not too much to claimthat one of the central issues ofpsychology is learning how tocombine intrinsic rewards withactivities that are useful in thelong run. To achieve this aim,however, we must first under-stand the dynamics of intrin-sic motivation.” - (Csikszent-mihalyi, 2014, p. 182)

I am not a student of psychology but a stu-dent of interactive digital media (InDiMedia),and in this field gamification has emerged assomething that can be used in InDiMedias aswell as grow from it, in a symbiotic relationship- the InDiMedias make gamification easier to im-plement and use, and gamification makes InDi-Medias easier to use and more useful. For thisreason, this master thesis borders between thesetwo fields in a quest to understand gamificationand attempt to find a way to use gamification asthe bridge required between intrinsic motivationand activities that are useful (productive) such aswork and learning.

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With this in mind, gamification should beconsidered a bridge between the extrinsic factorsand the intrinsic factors that will allow us (asmentioned before) to work hard but with morecreativity, performance and enjoyment.

Gamification may be the method (process) inwhich we transform ”work” into ”play” (or game)to make the process of ”work” an enjoyable expe-rience that holds its own reward, thus diminishingor entirely removing the extrinsic rewards of thework as a factor for our motivation. If this ispossible, gamification can (but should not makeextrinsic rewards redundant, but) make ”work”be driven primarily by intrinsic motivation, andthereby increase our enjoyment, performance andcreativity in the process.

’Find something you love to doand you’ll never have to worka day in your life.’

The saying is apparently not attributed toConfucius, as seems to be a popular assumption(Garson, 2018), but is nonetheless very true inthis regard. If intrinsic motivation comes fromenjoyment of the work itself, then being drivenprimarily by intrinsic motivation is more similarto playing than working (in the sense that workis something we do solely to make a living).

4.2 Problem formulation

As carefully designed games can captivate us, en-gage us and motivate us to work hard on achiev-ing things of artificial value, using game designelements in other contexts can potentially helpengage and motivate us to work hard on achiev-ing things of real value. However, just givingus artificial values (e.g. points and achievementbadges) may not be sufficient, as it may act asextrinsic motivation, thus impairing our intrinsicmotivation, especially if we feel pushed or forcedto do the work. The intrinsic motivation must bebigger than the extrinsic motivation if we are toincrease creativity and performance - but a goodbalance between the two types of motivation isrecommended.

Although Amabile’s focus is on the effect ofintrinsic motivation on creativity, the same effectgoes for performance in general.

I suggest that the undermin-ing of creativity under ex-ternal constraint is mediatednot only by cognitive pro-cesses (task judgments, self-judgments, and attention), butalso by affective processes(feelings of displeasure with atask approached as ”work”).Likewise, the conducive effectof intrinsic motivation on cre-ativity may be mediated byfeelings of pleasure in a taskapproached as ”play”. - (Am-abile, 1996, p. 155)

Basically, Amabile (1996) is saying that”work” should be more enjoyable like play, if weare to support creativity (and thus performanceas well).

Gamification is a means to use game de-sign elements to make ”work” into ”play” (or”game”): allowing us to change our telic stateto a paratelic state; regulate challenge to ourperceived skill level to enter flow; enhance andsupport our intrinsic motivation towards non-artificial (productive) feats such as work or learn-ing; and do so with higher creativity and betterperformance.

Gamification is not entirely the same as gamedesign, as, in gamification, game design elementsare being added to a non-game context (as isthe case in game design, but) for a specific pur-pose, other than just motivation, which is usuallyto help motivate us, thus the non-game contextdoes not become a game but a tool similar to agame - when we gamify (apply gamification to)it.

However, gamification has its pitfalls, as ex-trinsic rewards are often used in games (and thusin gamification), which, as discussed earlier, mayimpair intrinsic motivation (Hamari et al., 2014).As it has also been discussed, extrinsic rewardsare not to be discounted, and may be imple-mented in such a way that creates balance be-tween extrinsic and intrinsic values, thus extrinsic

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rewards may instead act as a catalyst for intrinsicmotivation rather than impair it.

Apart from my own interest in gamification(see appendix A Auto Ethnography of MikkelLund) being primarily based on the correlationbetween playing games, motivation and produc-tivity, this also seems like a really good time(based on the current trends (Gamification -Google Trends, 2017) and the Hype Cycle (HypeCycle for the Digital Workplace, 2017 , 2017-11-28)) to analyze gamification: understand theuses and applications of it; understand the coremechanisms of it; and make an attempt at de-scribing it in a way that can help support thepotential of it, as well as avoid misuse of it.

”Anyone who is technicallyproficient can solve a problemthat is already formulated: butit takes true originality to for-mulate a problem in the firstplace” - reference to Einsteinand Infeld (1938) (Csikszent-mihalyi, 2001, p. 14)

And with this said, I state the following ques-tion that must be answered, or problem to whicha solution must be found:

Problem formulation:

How can gamification be used in a way that elicits and nurture intrinsicmotivation?

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Chapter 5

Case: A Sample of Gamification

Before the beginning of this master thesis, Ihave been designing and using a game with thepurpose of motivating me to do the tasks on myToDo list.

This game has already gone through manyversions (see figure 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 respec-tively), especially during the course of thisproject, and is far from finished (if it will evertruly be).

The game will serve as an example of whatgamification is. To answer the problem formu-lation, a guide, based on the theories covered inthis report, will be made on how to gamify (usegamification) to elicit and nurture intrinsic mo-tivation. ToDoALot will be the primary exampleto which they guide will be applied.

5.1 Case: ToDoALot

The essence of the game is a strategy game inwhich the player (the actor doing the tasks), mustbuy soldiers of different types and move themaround on a grid to defend against demonic unitsand eventually defeat the Demon Lord. The De-mon Lord generates points (power) on each turnwhich he (also done by the player, because it iscurrently a single player game) uses to summondemons. The demons are then sent off to destroythe human castle.

To defend the humans and ultimately beatthe Demon Lord, the player can: buy units; up-grade units; buy farms to generate income; buyroads to connect buildings and expanding his orher territory; buy towers to shoot demons withAoE (Area of Effect) damage; buy arrows forarchers; and upgrade walls.

To generate income the player must completetasks on his or her ToDo list, each completed taskthen generates gold times the amount of farmsowned (and connected to a road) - in figure 5.3the player generated five gold per task completed.Apart from tasks on the player’s ToDo list, heor she also has a habit tracker (the three verti-cal bars on top of the field) which tracks threehabits at a time. Each bar has 21 fields whichdivides into three areas. One bar could be ”runonce a week” and be assigned to soldiers, if theplayer then succeeds in running that week, heor she moves the marker seven steps on the bar(one for each day in the week, if it was a dailytask/habit it would move one step each time),thus the 21 steps corresponds to 21 days (threeweeks). Depending on which area (or week) themarker is in, the unit (in this case the soldier)gets certain new abilities e.g. more movementpoints or a new ability.

To motivate the player, both the Demon Lordand the habit tracker is associated with a reward.If the Demon Lord is slain (a certain amount oftimes decided by the player) the reward may begained. Likewise, if all three bars of the habittracker reach step 21, a reward is gained, andthe habit tracker is reset.

The game was first made as a paper prototypewith the use of post-its, then made in a GoogleDraw document, as is currently the case, thus allelements are simply pictures and text that mustbe moved around manually.

The game (or tool) is, as mentioned before,not really finished. It is playable if one knows therules and has access to the files. Although it hashelped me get motivated at times, I have alsoexperienced periods in which it did not matter to

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Figure 5.1: Early version called ToDo Battlefield. There were three types of units: archers, soldiersand knights. Enemy units were simply tasks, and the player’s units would have to occupy eachof the enemy tasks in order to be able to complete them. The enemy tasks had to be completed(removed) in order to attack the Demon Lord. Player units were also created by doing tasks.

Figure 5.2: The next big upgrade was called ToDoALot. The fields was much bigger allowing formore strategic plays; a wall divided the map; archers could stand on the walls; towers could be buildwhich could do damage on more cells at once (often referred to as AoE (Area of Effect) damage);the demons got new types of units; abilities were introduced to the units; a cannon was the onlything the player could use to attack the Demon Lord, thus it had to be defended, and points hadto be spend on projectiles for it; a habit tracker was introduced which could increase the earning ofpoints the more it increased.

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Figure 5.3: The latest version of ToDoALot: fewer units; units can be upgraded with the habittracker; walls are now buildable and can be upgraded; the canon is removed and the Demon Lordcan walk the field and must be attacked by player units; farms must be built to generate income;roads must be built to make certain buildings buildable and functional.

me.

5.2 Upgrading to the digitalage

At the beginning of the course of this project,the game was played every day, however at thestart of May (the final month before the hand-in), the game was ”paused”. It was not becauseit had lost its effect on my intrinsic motivation,but rather because it takes much time to update:allocate points, move units, buy units and build-ings etc.

Instead I kept to just updating my ToDo listand saving it, so that I can later use it for thegame - the work is still done after all, and thepoints are earned. In that sense I have notstopped playing the game, as I am still collect-ing points (saving them), but I am not using thepoints yet, as that requires more time.

Further, I created a calendar (also usingGoogle Draw) in which I would write mile stones(see figure 5.4). I added one rule, being that a

day could have a maximum of three milestones,and then it would serve me as an easier, minor,gamified tool to give me feedback and keep meon track. More about the tool can be found inappendix B.3 Plan of May.

Figure 5.4: The Plan of May calendar as it lookedon the 1st of May 2018 (one month before thehand-in deadline of this master thesis). The redcross indicates that the day is in the past. Thegreen color (three shades of green) indicate howmany of the milestones of that day is currentlyreached. A bigger picture can be found in ap-pendix B.3 Plan of May.

To make ToDoALot work in circumstances

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with higher pressure (less time to play the game),the game could benefit much from being digital-ized. This could be done using HTML5 - pro-gramming it as a webapplication. The webappli-cation could: keep track of turns, points, damagecounters, unit upgrades, the habit tracker etc.; itcould also govern the rules of the game; showthe player where he or she can move units to;utilize graphical user interfaces (GUI) to makeit easier for the player to upgrade walls, buyand place units and buildings, illustrate possiblemovements, attacks (in case of ranged attacksfrom archers or towers), and whether buildings

are connected by roads or not.

Such an improvement would require muchless time of the player, require less knowledge ofthe rules and mechanics of the game, and evenallow for more frequent and immediate feedbackwhich can aid in supporting intrinsic motivation.

There are possibly more things that could beupgraded, especially when the current version ofthe game is subjected to the mechanics of gam-ification that are covered in this report e.g. re-latedness as there is currently no social relationincluded.

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Chapter 6

Gamify

How can we gamify something so that it elic-its and nurtures intrinsic motivation? With thedefinition made earlier of gamification:

Gamification is the process ofusing game design elements ina non-game context to designa game or a game-like con-text that can elicit and nur-ture intrinsic motivation to-wards non-artificial feats.

There are many ways to use gamification - de-signing and developing a game such as ToDoALotis just one way of doing it, as it does not haveto be an entire game, but just use game designelements.

What are game design elements? And howcan they be used to gamify non-game contextsinto game or game-like contexts that supportintrinsic motivation towards feats that are non-artificial?

6.1 Game design and gamifi-cation

To answer this, I will describe some of the basicconcepts of game design. To do this, I will pri-marily use ”The Art of Game Design: A Bookof Lenses” by Schell (2015), as he covers gamedesign very broadly including both digital games,board games, and other games. In the book he(Schell, 2015) creates a list of ”lenses”, as he

calls them, which are different aspects to con-sider in game design (not necessarily game de-sign elements). I will not go through all of them,as there are more than 100 lenses, but insteadattempt to cover the basics of game design thatI find important in understanding the applicationof game design elements when gamifying.

I will also include game design elements foundin a literature review by Nah, Zeng, Telaprolu,Ayyappa, and Eschenbrenner (2014). In the re-view they (Nah et al., 2014) studied the use of”game design elements” used to gamify educa-tional contexts (the same elements can be usedin designing games for other contexts than edu-cational ones).

Nah et al. (2014) collected and arranged allthe design elements that they found used in gam-ification. The design elements that were usedwere: experience points, levels, leaderboards,challenges, badges, progress bars, points, im-mediate feedback, peer interaction, collabora-tion, choice of difficulty level, prizes, in-gamerewards, onboarding, replay, unlockable content,customization, achievements, storytelling, feed-back, stages, storyline, visual elements, goals,frequent feedback, scoreboard, peer motivation,character upgrades, and avatars.

Some of these elements are similar to eachother (or the same, depending on the use anddefinition). However, I will not go into detailswith all of them, as Nah et al. (2014) found eightgame design elements that were more frequentlyused than the others and covers most (if not all)of the elements previously mentioned. These el-ements were:

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Points may serve as both indication of progress(e.g. experience points or scores) as wellas currencies that can be spend on both in-game or external items (Nah et al., 2014).

Levels/stages are systems used to indicateplayer progress. Lower levels may presenteasier challenges compared to higher levelsor stages (Nah et al., 2014).

Badges are marks of accomplishment orachievement, and are given to the playeras evidence of their accomplishments (Nahet al., 2014).

Leaderboards are ranked lists of scores, com-paring the players’ scores and illustratinghow well they are doing (ranked) comparedto each other. This element strongly sup-ports competition. To avoid demotivation,it is suggested that only the top five or tenplayers are listed (Nah et al., 2014).

Prizes/rewards should rather be multiple smallrewards given often rather than one big re-ward given rarely. The rewards should alsobe evenly distributed over time (Nah et al.,2014) much like a payout schedule usedin slot machines (Schull, 2012). Rewardscan be something like character upgrades(requires a character/avatar) given to theplayer (Nah et al., 2014).

Progress bars are bars that track the progressof the player, thus serving as an indicationof how close to the goal the player is (Nahet al., 2014).

Storyline is a story that the player may follow.This may also help connect the learning el-ements of the gamified context to real life(Nah et al., 2014). It may also relate tounpredictability mentioned in the Octalysismodel, as the player may identify with char-acters of the story (relatedness), and wishto uncover what happens to them later inthe story (unpredictability).

Feedback both as frequent and immediate isimportant for motivation and reaching theflow state (Nah et al., 2014).

Before I go into more details with how to ap-ply and use these elements, I will cover the funda-mentals of game design. Game design is primarilywhat we do, when we gamify. The main differ-ence is that we have a goal outside of the game(the magic circle).

As I cover different aspects of game de-sign, I will link these to gamification, and useToDoALot as an example of how it can be im-plemented. Note that not all aspects are coveredin ToDoALot, instead I will give examples of howthey could be implemented in ToDoALot, andwhat difference this could have.

The fundamentals

To cover the fundamental aspects of game de-sign, Schell (2015) uses a model, he calls ”TheElemental Tetrad” (see figure 6.1), which showsthe four basic elements of a game: aesthetics,story, technology, and mechanics. The elementsare all connected (as seen on the figure), andshould as such be considered in connection witheach other e.g. the aesthetics should complementthe story and vice versa.

Figure 6.1: The Elemental Tetrad (remake):shows the four basic elements of a game: aes-thetics, story, technology, and mechanics (Schell,2015, p. 51).

Aesthetics is essentially how the player per-ceives the game: look, feel, sound etc.

Story is the sequence in which the game unfolds.Unlike most books and films, the story doesnot have to be linear, in the sense that eachevent falls in a predetermined order, butcan e.g. be determined by the player.

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Technology can be considered as the platform(or media) on which the game operates e.g.if it is a board game it probably has a board,some tokens, maybe cards, a die etc. whichbefore game mechanics determines what ispossible within the game e.g. in the boardgame you can not draw cards, if cards arenot part of the game.

Mechanics. Although this has been coveredearlier in section 2.3 System, rules and me-chanics, here it includes rules as well (rulesare mechanics according to Schell (2015)).So, it is what creates the boundaries of thegame, and determines what the player cando within the game.

In regard to ToDoALot, the technology is aGoogle Draw file, which limits the functionalitycompared to e.g. a webapplication or a digitalgame running on a game engine (e.g. Unity3D,Unreal, Cry Engine etc.). Google Draw allows im-ages, tables, text and some geometric figures tobe placed, scaled, rotated, aligned, moved etc.In comparison to a board game, it allows foralmost endless amounts of tokens, as each ele-ment can be copied as many times as needed anddeleted again (only limited by the computers ca-pacity, as too many elements will slow down theGoogle Drawing). In comparison to most otherdigital games like those found on consoles, mo-bile phones and PCs, the game can not managerules, calculations, AIs or any other automationof mechanics.

The mechanics of ToDoALot are all the ruleswritten down in a separate file. These rules deter-mine what the player can do (apart from cheat-ing, as the player can basically ignore the rulesas he or she sees fit). The player (when follow-ing the rules) can move units and place buildings;buy, upgrade, and build buildings and units; andattack opponent units. The player also controlsthe opponent in the current version, and there-fore can buy and move units for the opponent.

The story is very simple: the humans are de-fending their castle against a Demon Lord whospawns his minions through portals that he cre-ates. The demons are trying to break throughthe humans’ defenses and demolish the humans’castle.

For aesthetics, there is a lot that can be im-proved, as the only feel the player gets is fromthe haptic feedback of the mouse and keyboardof the computer he or she is using to play thegame, the rest is visual feedback, which is just im-ages, tables, text, figures and colors. The imagesare taken from various places, using Google’s ex-tended search tools, so would also need to bereplaced, if the game is to be shared with others.

When designing a game, it is (almost) im-possible not to have these four elements cov-ered, whether the designer is aware of them ornot (some may argue that games like Tetris, TicTac Toe and others do not have the story ele-ment, but I will not go into that debate here).So, for gamification it may help to be aware ofthese elements and especially that they shouldbe connected e.g. in ToDoALot the pictures fea-ture demons and humans, which connects to thestory; the mechanics allow for turn-based attacks,which again connects with the story of a battle,and also to the technology (Google Draw) whichwould make a real-time strategy game difficult (ifnot impossible) to manage, as the player mustmove all units on the ”board” (the digital gridmade with a table).

There is not a specific order in which theseelements should be taken into consideration.Sometimes the technology may be determinedbefore story, mechanics, and aesthetics are set.Other times it may be that the mechanics are de-termined first. Keep this in mind when gamifyingthat all four elements should be considered, andnot necessarily in the order that I present themin here. I present them in an order that reflectshow ToDoALot was designed.

Goal and skills

With the fundamentals covered, we can begin tolook into gamifying non-game contexts. As thegoal of gamification is to elicit and nurture in-trinsic motivation towards non-artificial feats, Irecommend that we start by determining whatour non-game context is and which non-artificialfeat we wish to elicit intrinsic motivation towards.

In regard to intrinsic motivation, the compo-nents of intrinsic motivation, as well as avoid-ance, will be covered at the end. These shouldbe considered through most of the processes, but

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is used in this guide as a means to evaluate thegame created - does the game actually connectthe game design elements with intrinsic motiva-tion.

To design a good game or gamify a non-gamecontext, it is important to know the goal of thegame, and also why the goal is important to theplayer (Schell, 2015).

We can consider it this ways: we have a goalin real life - a ”non-artificial goal” (NAG); andwe have an ”artificial goal” (AG); to completethe NAG, we must possess certain non-artificialskills; to complete the AG, we must likewise pos-sess certain artificial skills (see figure 6.2).

Figure 6.2: Illustration of the artificial and non-artificial goals and skills.

If we can connect these two goals (AG andNAG) and/or skills, so that accomplishing onegoal leads to accomplishing the other, we can usethe artificial construct of the game (the magiccircle) to drive intrinsic motivation, towards ac-complishing the AG, which should also (if theNAG and AG are connected properly) lead to ac-complishing the NAG.

In ToDoALot the NAG is very simple to find.The game is designed to elicit intrinsic motiva-tion towards doing chores on a ToDo list (that isthe NAG). What I really want is for the game tomotivate the player towards doing as many tasksas possible. The NAG is therefore: ”to do alot of chores”, and this also determines the non-artificial feat (skill), which in this case ought tobe productivity or discipline, if we want ”to do alot” (get it? It is the name of the game, also itsounds a bit like Camelot, which is also a castle).

Schell (2015) links ”games” to ”problem solv-ing”: the solution becomes the goal; we deter-mine what methods and resources we have tosolve the problem - we set up the rules; we set

up an artificial construct of reality in our mind,in which we can analyze the problem and possi-ble solutions - we visualize the problem and itspossible solutions; if we care about the problem,it engages us in trying to find a solution - intrin-sic motivation; as we engage in the problem weforget about the real world and our attention isdirected towards the problem (or solving it) - weenter flow; eventually we win or lose the game -I mean we find a solution or we do not.

In my definition of game, goal is not men-tioned as an important factor, but conflict is.The conflict is the problem (Schell (2015) is talk-ing about) that needs solving, and thus it con-nects to the goal of the game. Keep in mind thatin both play and game (and therefore in gamifi-cation as well) it is the activity that is in focus- it is a paratelic state - but even in a paratelicstate there is a goal.

Schell (2015) goes on to stating that themagic circle is our internal problem-solving sys-tem. This fits well, with what I have statedearlier: that gamification is a way to create themagic circle inside real-life.

So, when gamifying, it makes sense to lookfor the problem that the non-artificial feat solves,and try and merge that in some way with the goalof the game (the AG).

A goal must also be concrete, so that theplayer can understand it, achievable, and reward-ing (Schell, 2015).

In ToDoALot the goal is to defeat the De-mon Lord. The main reason this is important,is because of the reward that is rewarded to theplayer, once he or she defeats the Demon Lord.By not doing so, the player risks defeat which willjust prolong the process of acquiring the reward.The reward is chosen by the player, so it shouldfrom the beginning be something that the playerhas intrinsic motivation towards receiving. Thenon-artificial ”problem” that should be solved is,however, to do as many chores as possible. Thisdoes not relate to the AG. The way ToDoALotconnects the AG to the NAG, is by connectingit to the ”skill” required to reach the NAG. Thenon-artificial skill is productivity or discipline -how many tasks can the player push him- or her-self to complete in as short an amount of timeas possible? Each task finished gives gold in thegame, which is an essential resource for winning

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the game and reaching the AG.

The AG is both achievable and rewarding (theplayer chooses the reward), but in terms of un-derstanding the AG, only the rules of the gameexplicitly states what it is. If the game is digi-talized, the goal may have to be stated explicitlyto the player, or it could be designed in a cleverway that implicitly guides the player towards thegoal. In most Zelda games the levels are lockede.g. a road is blocked off by something, and tomove on towards the goal, the player must finda way to unblock the road - the game gives theplayer a controlled amount of freedom, as he orshe may roam around in the level they are cur-rently in, but in reality, has to do certain thingsto move on, and is in this way guided towards thegoal of the game.

Freedom is important in games, but does nothave to mean that the game should be open-world (the player can go wherever and do what-ever he or she wants), but can present the playerwith a select set of choices (Schell, 2015). Thisensures that the game designer have some con-trol over the player’s behaviors, but also that theplayer has some freedom.

In ToDoALot there is not much else to do,than to defend against the demons, which couldeventually lead the player to attempt an attackon the Demon Lord, which (if the player doesnot know the AG and the rules of the game) willreveal the AG to the player, as the Demon Lordwill eventually be defeated and the game be won.

The next step is to consider the skills requiredof the player. Is the point of the gamification tohone a particular set of skills? Then the gameshould be designed towards using those skills insome way. If the point of the gamification is toaccomplish a certain NAG, then the game shouldbe designed so that finishing the steps in thegame leads to accomplishing the NAG.

In regard to ToDoALot, the non-artificialskills required vary from each chore, but havingdiscipline and being productive should at leastpush the player to accomplish the NAG, thusToDoALot attempts to connect those skills withthe AG.

Story and theme

When the NAG, AG and skills required are iden-tified, it makes sense to find a story and themefor the game.

A theme is what ties a game together (Schell,2015). Schell (2015) recommends letting thetheme emerge, as the game is being designed.Once a theme is set, stick to it, and let thetheme determine what goes into the game andwhat does not.

An example of this could be, if the NAG isto clean a house, it would make sense to choosea theme that supports activities required in do-ing so - something that can relate to vacuumingand cleaning the floor. The theme could be analien invasion: each room must be secured by the”special alien defense force”. The story could bethat aliens have invaded Earth, and the houseis one of the last remaining human strongholds.The special alien defense force patrols each roomfor any alien activity (vacuum the floor), and thensets up defense mechanisms (washing the floor).This of course might just be play, but we couldof course add some rules to make it a bit morechallenging and perhaps fun depending on theplayer’s skill level in ”defending against aliens”(cleaning a house) - making it into a game. Arule could be that we must finish each room in aspecific amount of time, as the aliens would oth-erwise have time to break through our defenses,or it could be that we must stay clear of any ar-eas already covered as we would otherwise set offour own defense system (and leave dirt on alreadycleaned areas).

Schell (2015) points out, in an example aboutcreating a pirate experience in a game, it wasnot enough to conclude that the theme was ”pi-rates”, as it had to be more concrete. Eventuallythe theme in his example ended up being ”thefantasy of being a pirate”. This new theme couldset some guidelines as to what should be includedand what should not be included.

Nah et al. (2014) also lists ”storyline” as oneof the eight game design elements they found intheir review. As stated earlier, a story can be cre-ated by the player or be predetermined to varyingdegrees. A story may also help create relatednessand uncertainty in the game, which can help mo-tivate the player.

When deciding on a theme and a story, it is

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also very important to include the player and hisor her values and interests in the consideration.

The game should be designed towards theplayer, and when there a more players with differ-ent values, designing a good experience for themall becomes tricky (Schell, 2015). However, it ispossible to include all players and design a goodexperience for them all, as is also the case inan example given by Schell (2015). The game,used in the example, was for an entire family toplay, and featured a ship that needed to be sailed,cannons that needed to be manned, possibly alsosails that needed to be hoisted etc. What hap-pened in the example, was that the game had awide range of roles, enough so that each mem-ber of the family could find a role to fit in e.g.the mother of the family being expected to bea non-experienced gamer, found her role as thecaptain, steering the ship, so that the rest of thefamily could have a good time (Schell, 2015).

so be considerate of the player when choos-ing a theme (Schell, 2015) or a story, as playersmay have different preferences - not all playersare into shooting bad guys.

Time and space

With the story and theme set, we can begin toconsider the time and space of the game.

When designing a game, it is important toconsider the time and space that the game worksin. Is it a two-dimensional like e.g. Ludo is,as there is no up and down but just the lengthand width of the board, or is it three-dimensionallike e.g. Counter Strike where it is also possibleto move up and down as well as jump? Evenif the game is a quiz, consider the mind of theplayer and the question giver as spaces in thegame (Schell, 2015).

In regard to time, is it real time where a playercan interact whenever or is it turn-based so thatthe play can only interact on their turn? Whenwill the game start? And when will it end? Doyou need something to count or measure time(Schell, 2015)?

In ToDoALot the space is mostly a two-dimensional one, with the only exception ofarchers being able to stand on top of walls, as theonly unit that can be placed inside a field with awall. The choice of making it two-dimensional is

also a constraint set by the choice of technology,as Google Draw does not feature more dimen-sions apart from being able to place picture ontop or behind each other.

The time is also affected by the choice oftechnology: the game is turn-based, meaningthat time progresses in turns, as having the gamerun in real time would put a strain on the player,as it is the player that must move each unit, andin real time all units could move simultaneously.However, both the time and space fits well withthe theme of the game, being a battle betweenhumans and demons, as they may move acrossthe field, block paths, and take cover, which canalso happen on a battlefield.

If cleaning the house is the game, then thetime may be real-time and the space may be theentire house.

Digital games may give huge advantages totime and space, as the computer can simu-late both real time and three-dimensional spaces,without putting any strain on the player, as thecomputer makes all the necessary calculations.

Rules and mechanics

Now we know the goal of the game, we knowthe theme and story of the game, and we knowhow time and space works in the game, so wecan begin to setup rules and mechanics definingthe system and frame of the game.

As the rules and mechanics of the game arewhat creates challenge - what you must, mustnot, can, and can not do inside the game. Itis important to design rules and mechanics thatfit the player’s skill level. Additionally, the gamecan be designed to gradually increase the chal-lenge of the game e.g. through levels and stages(mentioned by Nah et al. (2014)). The balancebetween challenge and skill is also what createsflow and keeps the player from being either anx-ious or bored, but rather fully immersed in theactivity of the game.

To cover the basics of rules and mechanicsas they can be quite expansive depending on thegame, I will cover some different concepts, men-tioned by Schell (2015), and include some of thegame design elements mentioned in the literaturereview by Nah et al. (2014).

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Actions

First off let us consider what sorts of actions theplayer should be able to do in the game. InToDoALot the player should be able to: moveunits, build buildings, buy and upgrade units andbuildings, and attack enemies in order to accom-plish the goal.

How will the player be able to do these ac-tions? And what restrictions are necessary toconstraint the actions to what is possible in thegame? The rules governing actions and mechan-ics should give the player some freedom whilealso adding some challenge to the game e.g. youcan only have three units placed in the samecell in ToDoALot, this puts a constraint on theplayer and requires the player to be considerate,of where he or she moves his or her units, addinga slight challenge to the game. The constraintcan e.g. mean that only certain units can reacha specific cell in the next turn, if they are ableto be placed within movement range of that cell,while others can not get close enough.

State

Another concept to consider is state. Can ob-jects in the game be in different states changingthe rules that apply to them. In ToDoALot thesoldier unit can use an ability called ”Defend”which increases the soldier’s health and enablesit to counter attack enemy attacks. This is a dif-ferent state the unit is in, as it would normally notgive damage to units that attack it, but only ifthe soldier attacks other units. The state makesthe soldier a less preferable target to attack, as itmakes it tougher to kill (destroy) and also costsdamage to the attacking unit. This makes thesoldier useful as a moving, defensive blockade.

Objects and attributes

Both with actions and states it is important toconsider the objects of the game: what can theplayer interact with? How can the player interactwith the objects? And what attributes does theobjects have?

In ToDoALot there are different types of unitsand buildings, and they all have different at-tributes and even abilities. A wall can be placed,and can not be passed through once placed. The

wall also has a high amount of hit points (HP),making it a tough object to destroy. Apart fromthat it can be upgraded to be even more difficultto destroy. A unit such as the lesser demon canmove further than most units, is cheap, give littledamage, can take little damage, but is also ableto attack diagonally, giving it added strength ifit can surround opponent units or buildings - theattributes of the unit have great importance toits role in the game. However, surrounding op-ponent units is difficult, as it must all be donein turns, meaning the opponent may realize theintention and withdraw his or her unit (if it ispossible) from the oncoming attack.

Modes

This leads to the concept of modes. Modes aresimilar to states, but are on a more global scaleof the game. In ToDoALot the turns are notjust shifting between two opponents, but goesthrough different stages with different modes. Inone stage the game is in ”movement and at-tack” mode, and in the next it is in ”buy andbuild” mode. This means that the player can notmove and attack units that he or she has justbought in their turn, as the units are bought afterthe ”movement and attack” mode was disabledagain, so movement and attack is no longer anoption to the player until his or her next turn.

Chance and unpredictability

According to Schell (2015), surprise is a crucialelement to creating entertainment. Surprise canbe made in different ways, and can be both goodor bad, but adding chance to the game, is oneway to do it. Chance should, however, be welldesigned, as too much chance may take the feel-ing of control away from the player, while justenough chance can prompt the player to try andassess the probabilities and attempt to optimizehis or her chances. The chance also gives anelement of surprise.

Schell (2015) gives an example, where par-ticipants were sprayed in the mouth with eitherwater or sugar-water. The participants that weresprayed randomly with both sprays found it tobe a more pleasurable experience. This also con-nects to what Schull (2012) describes, as one ofthe driving factors for gamblers, being that the

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outcome of each pull on the lever is randomized- the outcome is a surprise.

When implementing chance, the designershould consider the expected value of the prob-abilities, thus what the average outcome will be(Schell, 2015).

However, surprise can of course also be cre-ated simply by hiding information from the playere.g. by utilizing ”fog of war” which covers theplayer’s environment in ”fog” that limits or pre-vents the player from seeing what is in the ”fog”.Such a mechanic is however easier to implementin digital games, as the computer can act as anenforcer.

Enforcer

An enforcer is someone e.g. a gamemaster, orsomething e.g. a computer that enforces andgoverns the rules of the game. The enforcer canhide information from the player; act on behalf ofopponents; change the environment and rules ofthe game if necessary; and also limit or preventcheating.

Cheatability

Cheating is when a player breaks the rules ofthe game, to increase his or her chances of win-ning the game. Even if cheating is not actuallypresent, the very notion of it being possible, canaffect the entertainment value of the game Schell(2015).

In gamified contexts cheating takes on aslightly different impact, as gamified contextshave consequences in real-life.

In ToDoALot there are no enforcers, as theplayer controls everything including the oppo-nent. However, if the player decides to cheatin ToDoALot, he or she may win the game withlittle or no effort, but this destroys the entire pur-pose of the game, as the game will lose its abilityto motivate the player to do chores - cheating inToDoALot breaks the connection between the AGand the NAG. ”When you cheat, it is only yourselfthat you are cheating”, I have heard many teach-ers of mine say, and it is very true in ToDoALot,as the intention of playing the game, is to mo-tivate to do chores, and cheating disables thisbenefit of the game.

Implementing ToDoALot as a webapplicationcould significantly impact the possibility of cheat-ing, as it can be programmed to enforce the rules,act as the opponent, and even allow other playersto act as the opponents.

Feedback

Feedback is the final part I will cover of rules andmechanics. Feedback is crucial when trying tomotivate the player, and is connected both withtechnology and aesthetics. The technology maydetermine how the feedback can be given e.g.on a screen, a card, a token etc. The aestheticsmay influence how the feedback is perceived e.g.sound, a colorful display, vibrations etc. However,the rules and mechanics should determine whatis given as feedback, when, how, and to whom.

First off, feedback can help give the playera sense of progress, which is important for theplayer to feel competent in the game and thusallowing the player to enter and stay in flow.

Progress can be shown through changes inthe environment that the player interacts with;with progress bars that expands as the playerprogresses; points that accumulate as the playerearns them; badges that prove the player haveachieved certain things; leaderboards that illus-trate to the player how he or she is doing in com-parison to other players.

Schell (2015) states that value should be con-sidered especially in terms of points and other in-game values. If they are not considered in termsof what value they hold to the player, the playermay very well ignore them. One way to deal withthis, is to connect the value to the goal (or thedrive beneath the goal).

Further, as have been mentioned before in3.1 Feedback, feedback should allow the playerto evaluate him- or herself, and not be given asan external evaluation. If the game states thatthe player has lost, the message should connectto the player’s actions and make him or her feelthat it is his or her actions that lead to it - theplayer must feel responsible for the evaluationmade from the feedback.

Feedback can improve intrinsic motivation,when it is positive, frequent, and immediate, butshould not e.g. in case of prizes and rewards begiven for too little effort, as this may backfire and

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instead demotivate the player.

Technology

In terms of feedback and technology, digitaliza-tion of games can have a huge advantage, as hasbeen previously mentioned in 2.1 Digital Games.Computers can make it easier to give frequentand immediate feedback in games, however, thecomputer is just one technology that can be usedfor designing games.

Before ToDoALot was implemented in GoogleDraw, it was made by using post-its that wereplaced on a wall in a five-by-three grid (the gridwas much smaller in the first version, similar tothe one that can be seen on figure 5.1). The ruleswere also much simpler, and there were fewerunits on the board. As the game required moreand more post-its as well as physically movingtiny paper pieces (the units) around on the board,the game was digitalized to save paper and time.

The upgrade also made it easier to use a big-ger board and more units without increasing theworkload much, so the game was updated withmore features.

Although the digital medias present manygreat opportunities for games, and I do recom-mend using it when possible, technology of thegame should be taken into consideration e.g.cleaning the house might not really need to bedigitalized, although an application on a mobilephone, utilizing augmented reality, could add alittle more to the game, like a timer, a list ofmission objectives, or little green men runningaround in the house.

Consider the time, space, rules and mechan-ics, and what kind of technology would best sup-port the game.

Aesthetics

Knowing the theme, story, mechanics, and tech-nology of the game may give some inspiration asto how the game should and could be presentedto the player. Consider what the board shouldlook like to fit the theme and story? How shouldthe tokens of the game feel? What kind of soundsshould there be? Should there be music?

ToDoALot mostly features ”look” with theimages presented of the different units and build-

ings. These all share the same theme of a me-dieval fantasy battle. However, considering theupgrade to a webapplication, it could benefitfrom sounds, music, and even animations as well.Loud rumbling when buildings are hit; screamswhen units are killed; and dramatic backgroundmusic, perhaps changing to music depending onwhether the player is close to losing or winning.

Gamifying cleaning the house might not re-quire much effort into aesthetics, but in that case,consider whether, a map of the house could bedrawn, place some tokens to indicate a possiblealien threat in different sectors of the house.

Motivation

Motivation may be the last part to be includedhere, but should be considered during the entiredesign process.

Relatedness

To use relatedness to motivate the player, com-petition or cooperation with other players can beused, this in particular affects how the rules andmechanics, as they should be designed with mul-tiplayer capabilities in mind. Further, a story anduniverse with characters that the player can re-late to, can also help greatly in using relatednessas a motivational factor.

So, for game design elements, consider usingstory, leaderboards, and mechanics that allow orrequire multiple players to compete, cooperate orjust interact with each other in the game.

In ToDoALot this is not yet a feature, butcould be implemented by allowing other playersto act on behalf of the opponent or perhaps al-low for trading resources among players. Theidea of one player being so good at doing his orher chores that he or she can share their wealthwith others could be one way to motivate players.Schell (2015) also points out that the possibilityof helping others can often be a great motiva-tional factor for player.

Even cleaning the house as a game can bene-fit from relatedness, if e.g. more players play thegame, one can have the role of clearing (vacu-uming) the sectors (rooms) of the house, whilethe other player is in charge of setting up de-fenses (washing the floor). Both players must

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work together and update each other on the sit-uation, thus creating relatedness between themas a team. It could also be that one player arethe aliens, spotting gaps in the humans’ defenses(pointing out dirt on the floor).

Autonomy

Autonomy may be simple to find suggestions for,but may be more difficult implementing. Thesimple suggestion is: make sure the player hasfreedom to make choices, and that there are nottoo much chance involved, so that the player mayfeel that their chance of winning is out of theircontrol. However, ensuring freedom to the playermay be as simple as giving them the choice tomove, pick colors or other things, and the choicescan even be presented by the game, thus allow-ing the designer to choose what is possible, andwhat is not.

Chance should be something the player canhave an impact on e.g. spend some resources onupgrading your armor, to decrease the chance ofit breaking during battles. Stock up on health po-tions in case you are unlucky in battle, and needto heal your character - the player can managethe risks of the game at a cost. This allows forsurprises, but also gives the player some control(autonomy).

Further, the player can be given possessionsthat he or she will feel responsible for, and evenmight get some relatedness towards e.g. anavatar which was mentioned by Nah et al. (2014)but not included in their eight game design ele-ments.

ToDoALot neither features chance nor hid-den information at the time, but was upgradedafter being digitalized, with more rules, new unitswith more abilities etc. for the purpose of givingthe player more options and hence choices. Thisallows for more ways (than previously available)that the player can play the game, giving him orher more control of the game.

In regard to chance, ToDoALot could havethe units attack with an interval of damage, sothat e.g. a knight could hit and give damage be-tween two and four, thus keeping the expectedvalue of damage, but allowing for surprises.

Competence

Games are not all about competition or skills, butit is a major factor, and games offer many waysof using competence as a motivational factor.

As previously mentioned: feedback is very im-portant here (as well as in other cases), as itis needed to give the player, an idea of how heor she is doing. Whether it is the environmentof the game that changes, showing the playertheir progress, or it is messages, points, badges,leaderboards, levels, story progression, progressbars etc. all gives the player a feeling of compe-tence - when doing good of course.

In ToDoALot enemy units are removed fromthe game when defeated showing the player thathe or she is making progress in defeating the de-mon army; more human units and buildings areplaced on the map (if the player chooses to doso), also giving indication that the player is pro-gressing. Further, each time the Demon Lordis defeated, one of his hearts (that are normallyred) are turned blue, to indicate that he has beendefeated. The more times he is defeated, themore blue hearts and less red hearts are shown.When the last red heart turns blue, the reward isgained, thus the hearts shows the players progresstowards reaching the goal of the game.

Levels and stages may also be used, not onlyto indicate progress, but also to increase the chal-lenge, allowing the player to continuously stay inflow.

Avoidance

The final motivational factor, which is not anintrinsic one, in fact, when motivated to avoidsomething compared to being intrinsically moti-vated to obtain something, two different parts ofthe human brain is activated (Schell, 2015), in-dicating that it is two very different types of mo-tivation. However, just as extrinsic motivation,avoidance should not be completely disregardedbut used with caution.

Schell (2015) mentions the use of punishmentas a motivational factor in games. This links to”avoidance”, ”external” and ”introjected motiva-tion”. As mentioned before, and as Schell (2015)also points out, such factors are useful in combi-nation with ”intrinsic motivation”. Schell (2015)also gives examples where games push (motivate)

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the player to come back to the game, in order tonot lose valuable points or items. He goes on tostating, how in some cases the player even has to”divorce” the game, as it has become more of a”have to do” than a ”want to do” activity.

Without going into different types of pun-ishment, I suggest using such factors sparingly,and rather let the theme determine the punish-ment e.g. if the player in ToDoALot does notplay well, the game will punish the player indi-rectly, but giving the opponent time to grow abigger army, which prolongs the game, and inworst case results in the player being defeated bythe demon army. In this case the punishment isdirectly linked to the players own choices (andautonomy), and is not an external source decid-ing that the player should be punished for makingbad choices.

6.2 Gamification protocol

When we have a context that could benefit fromincreased performance and creativity, we can use

the following gamification protocol.The protocol is a shorter version of the steps

explained above in 6.1 Game design and gamifi-cation.

The protocol gives a step-by-step guide ofwhat to consider when gamifying a non-gamecontext, in order to use game design to connectgame design elements to components of intrinsicmotivation. By taking all steps into considerationin accordance to the protocol, the gamifyer (theone gamifying) should be able to, with the game,elicit and nurture the intrinsic motivation of theplayer, towards doing non-artificial feats such asworking, learning, and other activities with conse-quences outside of the magic circle of the game.

It should be noted, since motivation is thefinal step, that it will make sense to use the pro-tocol in iterations, as Schell (2015) also suggestsin the process of designing games - create thefirst concept of the game, evaluate it and startover. During the evaluation, consider if each stepproperly connects the game design elements tothe components of intrinsic motivation.

The protocol is featured on the next page.

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Gamification Protocol

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The protocol is based on the process used todesign the game ToDoALot, but with additionalsteps, as ToDoALot was designed previous to thecreation of this report. As such, there are someparts of the protocol that have not been appliedto ToDoALot, even if ToDoALot features someof the parts covered in the steps.

It has also been mentioned earlier in this re-port that the steps may not necessarily be ad-vantageous to take in the shown order, as thiscan vary from game to game. However, whengamifying it is crucial to understand what non-artificial feats the game is designed to elicit andnurture intrinsic motivation towards, as such itmakes sense to start with the goal of the gameand connect it to the goal of the non-artificialcontext.

Had technology been considered earlier in theprocess of designing ToDoALot, the game couldvery well have been much different than it cur-rently is e.g. the advantage that digital gameshave in managing multiplayer functionality, couldmean that the game would have been designedas a multiplayer game instead.

As gamifying, like game design, may benefitfrom being iterated, the order becomes less crit-ical, as each iteration may utilize the protocol indifferent orders. The protocol does not featureany numbers or arrows either, indicating whichorder it should be used, so even though there isthe risk of the gamifyer consequently using theprotocol in the order it is listed, the protocol it-self does not suggest any particular order, exceptfor the reading convention used (left to right, topto bottom).

To further diminish the possibility of the or-der, in which the protocol is used, to create con-fusion, the protocol could be cut out and usedlike a deck of cards - shuffle the deck and takewhatever step comes first. This can also be donewith the ”lenses” featured in ”The Art of GameDesign: A Book of Lenses by Schell (2015), buteven his lenses have numbers. However, even us-ing the steps as cards features some risks, as adeck of card gives no indication of each card hav-ing to be turned or used. Avoiding the risk of theprotocol being used in a specific order, seems dif-ficult to escape, compared to the probability of ithappening and the consequences it could have.

The protocol only touches the ”tip of the ice-berg” in regard to game design. The reason forthis, is that the protocol should be easy to use,and be useful in gamifying many different typesof contexts. Going deeper into game design andgame design elements e.g. the list found by Nahet al. (2014) in their literature review (not justthe eight they present), could mean that the pro-tocol will feature too much redundant informa-tion in different contexts.

To give an example of this, the protocol doesnot mention any suggestion of using a replay fea-ture, as it may not be a useful game design ele-ment in many contexts (like cleaning the house).

The protocol should be useful in gamifying alltypes of contexts, and if a replay feature makessense in that context, it is up to the gamifyerto understand enough about game design, to beable to recognize this, while the protocol worksas a check list of basic aspects to consider whengamifying - the protocol helps the gamifyer incovering the basic aspects of gamification to en-sure that the game can elicit and nurture intrinsicmotivation.

The protocol does not either go into detailswith how intrinsic motivation can be used whileavoiding making the player addicted. As Schell(2015) also points out, it is unfair to ask thegame designer (or in this case the gamifyer) toavoid making the player addicted, by making thegame less attractive or engaging. The gamifyershould design a game that is engaging, attractive,and elicit intrinsic components. This can leadto addiction in some players but not all (Schell,2015). It is in many cases the extrinsic rewardsof games that may lead some players to becomeaddicted (Schell, 2015). Even though the samerewards are given to all players, it is not all play-ers that become addicted. The protocol suggestsconsideration of the use of extrinsic rewards, butthat may not even be enough to completely avoidaddiction. The problem of addiction may lie else-where, and not be a factor that a game designeror gamifyer can control.

Again, the protocol is designed to work as acheck list that can be used in gamifying all con-texts that could benefit from increased intrinsicmotivation.

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Chapter 7

Conclusion

How can gamification be used in a way that elicits and nurture intrinsicmotivation?

The gamification protocol mentioned in 6.2Gamification protocol is an attempt to answerthis question.

It covers some of the basic elements of gamedesign, and gives examples to how game designelements can be used to elicit the components ofintrinsic motivation - relatedness, autonomy, andcompetence - as well as how external factors canbe connected to these to nurture intrinsic moti-vation.

Further, the protocol includes avoidance,which can not entirely be avoided when failureis a possibility in games. However, the protocolgives suggestions to how avoidance can be bal-

anced to prevent ’death of intrinsic motivation’and disengagement of the game.

The protocol does answer the final problemformulation, as a possible way to use gamificationto elicit and nurture intrinsic motivation. But,whether the protocol can be used to gamify allcontexts that could benefit from increased intrin-sic motivation, and gives adequate advice on howto elicit and nurture intrinsic motivation, still re-mains to be tested and proven.

Further, the protocol does not cover to whatextent extrinsic and intrinsic motivation shouldbe connected and balanced, and what effect thiscould have on the player.

As games can create addiction in players, can gamification (utilizing gamedesign elements) designed to elicit and nuture intrinsic motivation, doneusing the protocol featured in this report (6.2 Gamification protocol), alsorisk creating addiction in players? And what would be the consequencesof addiction towards doing non-artificial feats be?

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Chapter 8

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