Game Mechanics and Psychology

We have discussed gamification history, methodologies, and understanding your users, but what about the actual gamification mechanics? What things can you, as a product development professional, implement to make your product more engaging? The short answer is a lot!

We will discuss several popular ways game mechanics are used outside of games in this chapter, but this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. The best way to understand how to create fun is simply to get out and try some things. This chapter will give a lot of examples of where that exploration may start.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Reward systems
• Progress tracking
• Narrative and storytelling
• Social engagement
• Game psychology

Reward systems

Reward systems can be a powerful motivator. By rewarding your users, you can drive several valuable KPIs, including daily/weekly/monthly average users, retention rate, transaction values, and referrals, to name just a few. There are several ways to reward users, but the most successful rely on having meaningful and attainable rewards. You can accomplish that by using one or more of the tactics discussed in this subsection.

A product such as our hypothetical Product Manager Media product would rely on many of these features. The goal of any social platform is to motivate others to spread it to their friends and family. Providing the users with rewards for continued use can encourage them to log in daily and see what’s new.

Point redemption

These systems rely on users earning points or credits for activities. This can be a transaction, filling out a profile, answering questions to better tailor ads, or any number of things. Point systems work particularly...

Progress tracking

Users like to know where they stand within a system or product. This takes place on both a macro and micro level and can be a comparative rank against others, or simply knowing where they stand in a process or cue. By informing users of their progress or giving them updates for key events along the way, you can encourage continuation and avoid frustration. Rewarding long-term usage in this way can also help users feel appreciated and continue to push that progression to become an even more loyal user. Progress can be tracked in several ways. This can be visual, such as badges, numerical, such as completion percentages, or in even more creative ways.

Points

Unlike the point redemption mechanic discussed earlier, sometimes users simply earn points to show their status within a system. In this iteration, points are not earned to be spent but used to show your acumen within the system. Using a point system like this can add small rewards to all the little tasks...

Narrative and storytelling

Humans love great stories. Games are successful because of these stories, and, more specifically, because of the role the player has in how these stories unfold. The interaction between the player and the game world makes a story told via a game much more powerful than other mediums such as movies or books. Your product has the advantage of having that same opportunity. Many of the mechanics here would be perfect for an application such as Hi-Z Fitness. This app would rely on motivating the user by telling their story of progress. Giving the user updates on how their day, week, month, or year is progressing can act as motivation and potential continued use.

Let your users make the product their own and tell their own story using your platform. This can create a strong sense of loyalty, increase engagement, and make your product one that users do not want to leave. Storytelling may not seem like something most software does, but you would be surprised what...

Social engagement

Allowing your product to be shared between friends, family, colleagues, and even rivals can be an incredibly powerful thing. When users hear about a great product from someone they trust, they want to try it for themselves. Allowing for interaction between two or more people within your product can directly add value to the product. Metcalfe's law states that the financial value or influence of a system of users is proportional to the number of users connected to that system. Building these types of social interactions can positively impact things such as daily/monthly average users, new sign-ups, retention rate, and time using the product.

Both of our hypothetical products could focus on a number of these systems. Product Manager Media is all about social engagement and relies on users interacting with each other to have any product at all. These systems can be used to drive those interactions and motivate users to become more prominent on the platform. For...

Game psychology

Many of the previous examples are specific features you could implement in your product, but games, like products, are more than just features. There is a complex set of psychological principles and concepts that help users learn, understand, recall, and master a product. Games only have about 5-10 minutes to capture the user’s attention, so they rely a bit more on these principles. There are several design psychology principles that both games and product UX already employ regularly that are not worth reiterating here since most product leaders are experienced with them. But if you have not learned any of the following, they are also worth understanding:

• Gestalt Design Psychology
• Dieter Rams' Ten Principles for Good Design
• Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics for Interaction Design
• Don Norman’s Principles of Interaction Design

Between these design philosophies and the game psychology mechanics mentioned here, you can have...

Summary

Although more than 40 mechanics and features were described here, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. There are countless ways that games engage and create fun for their players. Hopefully, at least a few of the mechanics here apply to your products. But it is important to continue learning. The best way to learn about what makes games fun is to simply play more games. There are limitless experiences out there, and countless ways to divide them up. Find your favorite genre and preferred art style, try online versus offline gameplay, competitive or cooperative, and more. In the same way that you as a product leader likely evaluate any product as you use it, do the same with any game you play. What makes it fun? What kept you playing? Would you recommend it to friends, and why? Discovering the things that make games great for yourself is the best way to learn, and if you are curious about where to start, try any of the examples we cite throughout this book. Once you can...

Further reading

• Koster, Raph, Theory of Fun for Game Design, O'Reilly Media, 2013
• Tekinbas, Katie Salen; Zimmerman, Eric, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, The MIT Press, 2003
• Rogers, Scott, Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, Wiley, 2014