The game layer on top of the world

Check out this fantastic TED talk by Seth Priebatsch, self-described Chief Ninja of geosocial smartphone app SCVNGR.

Briefly, Seth says that last decade was all about social, with Facebook’s Open Graph taking precedence as the preferred framework. But this decade will be the time when a gaming layer is built onto the world we inhabit. And he’s helping to build it, with care to ensure that it will be open and that the potential for it to influence our behaviour for good will be inherent.

Seth shares four game dynamics that are crucial in terms of influencing human behaviour (and making successful gaming systems):

1. The Appointment Dynamic

This just means that to succeed, players must perform a particular action in a particular place. Happy hour is a real life example – and look at how this has influenced behaviour as well as our culture. FarmVille also uses this dynamic when it dictates that players must return to water their crops at certain times to prevent them wilting. And they do return – all 70 million of them. Seth says that this game feature could be used in a range of beneficial ways, reminding people to take their medicines at the right times, to name one.

2. Influence and Status

This is a well-known human motivator. We would all prefer that black AmEx card, and not because it would match our wallets but because of what it will make people think of us when we pull it out. The game Modern Warfare uses this dynamic well. Players all desire to get to the top level so they can wear the red badge that comes with the achievement. Princeton University is also weaving this gaming hallmark into the way it educates, offering underperforming students the chance to sit more tests and gain ‘experience points’ in order to ‘level up,’ rather than just fail.

3. Progression Dynamic

LinkedIn uses this well to encourage users to fully enter their profile information. Until you have completed every component, you remain ‘XX% complete’  and you are reminded of this bothersome fraction every time you log in, motivating you to get to 100% despite the effort required and negligible gain other than attaining profile completion. World of Warcraft also uses this game trope, with players motivated to progress up levels and attain more impressive features. And it appears to be working incredibly well on WOW’s millions of players, playing an average of six hours a day. SCVNGR is also using the progression dynamic to drive traffic to local businesses and encourage spending.

4. Communal Discovery

This just means that people must work together to achieve a goal. Social bookmarking site Digg did this a little too well. To encourage users to find the best stories for the site they introduced a leaderboard and points for each digg a submission received. Unfortunately prestige associated with placement on the leaderbpard became so intoxicating that a cabal of top users formed and they upvoted each other’s stories to maintain dominance. Eventually the leaderboard had to be done away with as Digg acknowledged that the game had become more important than the goal it was meant to facilitate.