Monday Morning Gamification: 10 Rules to Gamification

Another good post from gamesbrief.com – this one is about how to get gamifaction right in via 10 rules.  Well worth a read.  Here’s no.7:

7. No, games are not just about competition

The first thing I hear when talking to people about “gamification” is “We’ll just add some points, and a leaderboard, and the natural desire for people to be at the top of the leaderboard will do the rest.”

No, it won’t.

Humans are complex beasts. Professor Richard Bartle has classified humans as gamers into four types. Everyone is a combination of all these types, and the explanations below are mine. (Check out Wikipedia on the Bartle Test if you want to find out more)

• Killers want to beat other people
• Achievers want to beat themselves
• Explorers want to go places and find out stuff
• Socialisers don’t care what they do as long as they are doing it with their friends.

Bartle estimates that only 25% of online gamers have Killer as their dominant trait. If you gamify for Killers, you are only appealing to 25% of your customers.

More damagingly, you may be creating a worse experience for 75% of your customers.