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Gamification is a hot topic and all the cool kids are doing it. There are even companies that exclusively design and implement game mechanics for websites. But there is evidence that gamification tactics can do more harm than good in an online community. Here’s a summary of the case against gamification:
- Gamification can lead to resentment between those who have a lot of points or badges and those who don’t. The number of users appearing on a leaderboard is minuscule compared to those who don’t make the list, so the benefit is only felt by a tiny minority of members. This creates a “we/they” environment, tearing down sense of community for the advancement of a fraction of 1% of users.
- Gamification shifts a user’s incentive to participate from intrinsic to extrinsic — in other words, they’re participating to get an explicit reward, rather than participating for the good of the order.
- Gamification tends to value the quantity of responses over the quality of responses. Eventually this can dilute the community’s value, as users post increasingly short and unhelpful replies in an attempt to game the system for more points.
- Gamification usually doesn’t pay off until the online community reaches an advanced phase, after a sense of community has been established.
A much more reliable way to use the real estate on your home page to increase engagement is to display the most recent discussions, the most popular discussions, and discussions that still haven’t received a reply.Gamification can add value, but approach it carefully and introduce it only after your community reaches a mature phase.
These are some great points. The resentment you mention is so true. I call that “motivation’ 😉 Sad, but true, we often don’t act or get involved in something until we sense we’re falling behind or that others are doing it, so we should. If a leaderboard can motivate participation, I think that’s a good thing. I do see that broadening the leaderboard concept would be great – perhaps by showing “top participation % increases” or something to reinforce more activity.
In terms of the incentive comment, it’s true. But I wonder if we sometimes imbue our values on others. Participation for its own sake is certainly more beneficial, but perhaps some need more extrinsic rewards to reinforce behavior change over time? Maybe it’s the candy “crush” before the fruit 😉
I completely agree with your point on quality/quantity. Gaming experiences that only encourage collecting points for meaningless actions seems like a Pavlov’s dog thing. It’s interesting that some forums provide prestige points based on user’s point scales on quality of response, similar to eBay ratings system. While not game-based, I wonder if this is an adaptation that would be useful.
Gamification – one of my favorite topics!
While I completely agree with the maturity comment (this is not something you want to launch a brand new community with), gamification appeals to our innate sense of competition and desire for recognition.
The points you bring up about leaderboards are valid but if that is the community’s only form of game mechanics, they’re not doing gamification very well. For those who are afraid of hurting people’s feelings or having the same people on the leaderboards over and over again, leaderboards are about public recognition of laudable activities. Unlike the name, it doesn’t have to be structured around leaders or those with the most points. You can base them on recent member activity, such as leveling up or earning a badge. It doesn’t have to showcase the top performers.
As Maslow pointed out in his Hierarchy or Needs, there are base needs and more advanced ones involving being part of something larger than oneself. Gamification appeals to our sense of competition but also to our need to be commended and a part of the greater good. If the gamified community is structured in a way that the leader is both lauded and expected to serve from a knowledge perspective, it will be much more successful and rewarding for all.
Just as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts use badges to award mastery of an activity (or set of activities), gamification does the same. It doesn’t have to reward quantity. Every organization/community considering gamification should first flesh out what activities are important to it and what activities it wants to drive. Without this structure you are just throwing points at people.
If the community gives thought to the actions they want to award badges/points for, it can be structured so to appeal to a broader group. For instance, the community can give a badge for a member’s first five content shares (received after sharing) or one for writing a blog post.
Gamification encourages desired behavior and does so effectively. I would hate to write it off because leaderboards cause resentment. Like Jack said, that should be motivating not discouraging.