Published in · 9 min read · Jul 14, 2023
Will gamification really work for me? Can gamification backfire? Can it incentivize something *too much?* Isn’t this all a bit “Black Mirror?”
Maybe!
Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-game contexts. It’s a form of design that is growing in popularity thanks to apps like DuoLingo, but it’s actually be used by many people and organizations for decades if not centuries. Frequent Flyer Miles and Credit Card Points are common examples, but even military rank systems and medals could be considered a form of gamification.
As a gamification expert, people expect me to be bullish on games and gamification for any task. But nothing could be further from the truth. Although I understand the power of game mechanics well and their ability to promote or change certain behaviors, I’m also acutely aware that gamification can have a dark side. And more than that, it sometimes just plain fails.
There are a few scenarios where this outcome is likely, and several root causes, but for the most part it boils down to one central failing: poor research and design practices.
I’ll lay out some of the most common and problematic scenarios for gamification as well as how to avoid them so you don’t make the same mistakes that others have in the past.
This is a very common problem in gamification, and one that can only be avoided with careful research and testing. It happens when people misunderstand the system they’ve designed and it ends up incentivizing a behavior other than the one it’s intended to. This could be a benign or time wasting behavior, such as constantly refreshing the leader board, or it could be a calamitously dangerous one, as you’ll see in some of the examples I give below. First, one that’s simply bad.
Hold Please, For My Vacation
In this scenario, a customer service center wanted to incentivize their employees to help as many people as efficiently as possible, by keeping conversations short and resolving problems quickly.
The scheme: the company would track how many customers the service agents spoke with each day, and at the end of the month, whoever handled the most calls would receive extra vacation time.
This seems sound in principle, but when one enterprising rep analyzed the rules, she decided to adopt a different strategy. She realized that if she put a customer on hold as soon as the call began, and then transfered them to another agent, she could “service” many more customers in the same amount of time. The customers still received help, and she drastically increased the number of incoming calls she fielded.
The only problem being, she never personally helped resolve any of their cases. This could have been easily avoided by changing what was measured.
The Cobra Effect
This second example of perverse incentives comes from 19th century India, and since it involves deadly snakes, it’s probably the biggest gamification fail in history.
India was under the imperial rule of Great Britain. The governor noticed that in the area he was supervising, there were a lot of cobras, to the point that it had become a public health crisis.
The solution? Incentivize people to kill the snakes by offering a cash reward for each tail turned into the local magistrate.
And it worked! The price was sufficiently high to cause people to go out and kill snakes for the reward. However, since you’re reading about this here, you probably can guess that it didn’t end that way. The reward was too high. Enterprising locals realized that if they bred the cobras themselves, they could make a lot of money. And this is what they did.
When the Brits got wind of what was happening, they immediately ended the program, and the cobra wranglers released all the now-worthless snakes into the wild, making the problem even worse than it was in the first place. This story is so famous that it was used to coin a synonym for perverse incentives: The Cobra Effect.
Have you ever found yourself endlessly scrolling through and refreshing your social media apps? Or discovered you spent more in a month on online shopping than you mean to? Or worse, do you know some one who’s addicted to gambling?
The second way gamification becomes harmful is through so-called “Dark Patterns.” These are also sometimes called “black hat gamification” techniques. They are used to unconsciously manipulate people into taking actions they normally wouldn’t, even if those actions are not in the person’s interest. Unlike a perverse incentives, the harm caused by dark patterns is deliberate.
Back To Refresh
This is one I noticed myself when using the Facebook app on my Android phone. (I’ve subsequently removed the Facebook app from my phone for this reason, among others). If you’ve used the app, maybe you’ve noticed this as well.
On Android, there is a dedicated “back” button that takes you to the previous state of an app. If you are at the start screen of the app, it takes you back to the home screen of your phone.
One day, I was scrolling Facebook, spending too much time on the app as usual. I had reached the end of my feed, or at least there seemed to be nothing new left to see. So, I hit the back button to return to my home screen. What happened next alarmed me.
Instead of taking me out of the app, like every other app on my phone did, Facebook auto-scrolled back up to the very top of my feed, refreshed the screen, and showed me a post that I had not seen before.
This technique is so effective because it takes advantage of several different psychologicalprinciples. First, it’s a slot machine-like effect that employs incremental random feedback. When the feed refreshes, there’s a slight delay to create anticipation… could show you anything! Then it does.
Second, it triggers social FOMO. If you missed something from a friend the last time you scrolled, maybe there is more you’re missing.
Third, it takes advantage of our inherent inertia. We tend not to take an action unless prompted. So we act on the prompt of the refresh to begin scrolling again, and then won’t stop scrolling until something else prompts us to stop. And guess what? Facebook is never going to prompt you to stop, at least not intentionally. This same technique has subsequently been adopted by virtually every social media app that features a feed.
Casino Rewards Cards
One other quick example of dark patterns is the Casino Reward Card. Casinos are exceedingly skilled at controlling the behavior of their "guests.” One way they do this is by hiding the fact that you’re losing money. They’ve been making patrons turn their money into chips basically forever, because the psychological effect of losing one isn’t the same as losing cash, and because it’s harder to walk away from the table because you have to turn your chips into cash at a poorly located booth.
But this all went to another level with the introduction of the loyalty card. These cards further abstract your money into some kind of point system so it’s very hard to track what you’re losing. Since there is no physical object to lose, it’s much less painful. And the systems at play are carefully calibrated to get you to stay longer than you meant to by offering bonus points or other incentives like free rooms or meals as you lose.
You may be thinking, “Yes, of course casinos use these dark patterns. They’re dens of iniquity.” Maybe they are, but have you visited Disney World recently? The Happiest Place On Earth now employs similar dark patterns, making it easier than ever to spend money with the exact same design technique. Guests of the park are now given wrist bands called “MagicBands” that they can tap to instantly gain access to areas or make purchases. These brightly colored watch-like devices feature Micky Mouse and seem oh-so friendly. They’re included for all members of your family, even young children.
A lack of buy-in is less harmful than the examples above, but it’s also far more common. Gamification systems cannot work unless the participants understand them and buy into them, entering the so-called “magic circle.”
In a given population (say, your office), people are motivated by different things. So without carefully researching and designing your gamification system, whatever you introduce will inherently appeal to some folks and not others.
You may say, OK, that’s not the end of the world. For the people who like it, it helps. For those that don’t buy in, they can keep doing what they’re doing, no harm done.
This ignores a few things. First, introducing gamification is a considerable investment, so if most people aren’t motivated by it, it can be a massive waste of resources. Second, gamification systems are supposed to solve problems. So by introducing a flawed solution, you allow the problem to fester and get worse. Third, gamification features usually take more time to use than the same feature sans gamification, so you can be making the work less efficient for everyone by including them.
Last, poorly designed gamification actually has the opposite effect on people who do not buy into it. They become *less* engaged, *less* motivated, and instead become alienated. In a best case scenario, this is balanced out by the people who do buy into the system, but more often than not this leads to a decrease in performance.
Tossing A Brick
In “How To Change,” Katy Milkman highlights an example of failed gamification on a sales floor, designed by one of her research colleagues. The designers introduced a point system modeled after basketball, where workers received points for every sale they made. A sale from a warm lead was called a “layup.” A cold call was a “jump shot.” And at the end of the week, the points leader would win a bottle of champagne. Some people really liked this game, but many others were put off by it. Why?
- Not everyone likes basketball or sports. Imagine all of your colleagues celebrating their “jump shots” while you don’t even know what that means. It’s like the March Madness water cooler talk that you can’t escape. At best it’s annoying, and at worst it’s bro-y and fosters toxic masculinity in the workplace.
- Mandatory fun. A lot of people don’t like being forced into participating in “fruity little games.” It can be infantilizing, especially to serious professionals. And besides, people already have their own ways to have fun, and like to keep work and play separate. Make sure you understand exactly who is in your target group before doing something like this.
- It’s complicated. Even if you know what a jump shot and a layup is, what does it mean to score one in this game? In basketball, they’re both worth the same, so why track them separately?
- Extrinsically motivating. Yes, we all like to be celebrated by our colleagues, but there is evidence that extrinsic motivators (in this case the champagne) can actually demotivate people, especially if they at some point stop. What was once done because of a social obligation is now done only for the reward.
- Not inclusive. What’s worse is… the reward was alcohol, something not everyone likes (or even can consume). Imagine a muslim or a sales person who struggles with alcoholism being asked to participate in this program, and how alienating that would be.
This isn’t to say that gamifying a sales floor is doomed to fail every time, just that careful research needs to be done to make sure the proposed system isn’t alienating your team.
Make sure that it thematically appeals to as many people as possible, that it’s easy to understand, and that you’re using the right rewards before trying anything like this.
Gamification can be a powerful (sometimes too powerful) tool for change, but it can easily do more harm than good. Thankfully, all of these problems can be avoided by doing the right qualitative research early in the design process.
Sam Liberty is a gamification and serious games designer focusing on health, enterprise, and sustainable global development. He teaches game design at Northeastern University.
