Level Up Your Product: Innovation with Game Mechanics

Michael Hyzy & Bret Wardl

kHUB post date: September 8, 2023
Read time: 10 minutes

Games have a magical way of drawing us in, captivating our attention, and compelling us to spend countless hours immersed in their worlds. Now, smart product developers are catching on to game design secrets, borrowing proven engagement techniques to make their products 'irresistible'.

In this in-depth guide, we'll explore the psychological triggers and game mechanics that games use to "hook" players, and how to ethically apply these strategies to make your product more engaging and habit-forming.

The Psychology of Fun

Why are games so good at commanding our attention and activating our compulsive tendencies? The key is they are meticulously designed to tap into innate human drives and needs:

• Reward-Seeking - Games utilize variable ratio reward schedules. By providing rewards at unpredictable intervals, they trigger the release of dopamine and create compulsive behaviors as we chase the next reward.
• Sense of Progression - Games allow us to fulfill our desire for growth and achievement through clear progress tracking and staged goals. Visible accumulation of points, levels etc. gives us a constant sense of progress.
• Mastery - Games provide environments to gain competence, gradually honing our skills. As skills improve, games increase challenges to stay in the flow channel between boredom and frustration.
• Social Drives - Through multiplayer interactions, leaderboards, and communities, games allow us to satisfy social needs for status, competition, collaboration and belonging.
• Curiosity - Games pique our curiosity and desire to explore through mystery, discovery of new levels, and incremental revelation of narratives. Unlocking new parts of the game world engages our explorer instinct.
• Loss Aversion - Games exploit our tendency to avoid losing what we have by using tools like lives, energy bars, and progress meters that deplete. We become more motivated to take action to avoid such losses.

By catering to these fundamental human drives, games can gain unrivaled capacity to captivate our attention and motivate habit formation. Wise product designers should seek to ethically leverage these same drives.

Game Mechanics that Engage

Beyond psychology, games also employ a diverse array of game mechanics that interact with our mental biases and needs to keep us engaged. These game mechanics provide a toolkit product designers can draw from:

• Points - Tracking points allows players to measure success in the game and provides a variable reward system as point gains occur unpredictably. Products can incorporate points to incentivize usage.
• Levels - Level systems cater to our need for progression by providing staged mastery. Reaching new levels grants positive emotions, while unlocking new content. Products can structure journeys into levels.
• Leaderboards - By displaying player rank, leaderboards tap into competitive instincts. Comparing our performance against others motivates us to keep playing. Products can leverage social competition and recognition.
• Virtual Economies - Resources to collect, currencies to earn, items to purchase - these game economies engage players through ownership and achievement. Products can build their own internal economies.
• Quests - Quests provide short-term goals and challenges that grant rewards upon completion. They break up the experience into achievable wins. Products can incorporate quests to encourage specific behaviors.
• Multiplayer - Social engagement enhances enjoyment through collaboration, competition, and community. Allowing multiplayer interactions satisfies our social needs and makes the experience more compelling.
• Customization - Players enjoy expressing their identity through custom avatars, loadouts, skins, etc. Providing personalization allows deeper social engagement and psychological ownership. Products can enable users to customize experiences.
• Narrative - Games situate mechanics within storytelling and lore, creating strong emotional engagement and meaning. Compelling narratives satisfy our need to make sense of experiences. Products should wrap features within storytelling.

Implementing the right game mechanics for a product's target audience and behaviors can profoundly increase engagement.

Gameful Design Best Practices

Of course, we don't want products to be addictive slot machines crafted only for mindless compulsion. Game techniques should ultimately serve user needs and enhance lives. Here are some best practices for gameful design:

• Fulfill genuine user needs - Start by understanding real user struggles and desires, and leverage game mechanics carefully to better serve those needs. Don't use gamification techniques for their own sake.
• Make primary actions intrinsically rewarding - The core activity you want to encourage should be fun and satisfying independent of extrinsic rewards like points. Don't rely on superficial game layers only.
• Consider all user motivations - People have diverse reasons to engage with products - achievement, self-expression, socializing, relaxation, mastery, creativity. Appeal to multiple motivations.
• Enable mastery and growth - Design experiences that let users grow in expertise over time, providing engaging challenges matched to skill level. Support genuine capability gain.
• Use storytelling to add meaning - Situate game mechanics and progression within compelling narratives and themes that resonate emotionally with users.
• Make rewards variable but not too random - Variable ratio reward schedules sustain interest best, but too much randomness frustrates. Strike the right balance.
• Design ethically - Avoid manipulative design. Never coerce destructive behavior. Empower users with insight into how game techniques impact them.

Level Up with Game Thinking

Games have perfected techniques over decades to motivate and engage users. By taking inspiration from game design, while keeping ethical principles in mind, we can make products that people love using. Gameful design leverages psychology and game mechanics to craft experiences that fulfill wants and needs. Design for mastery. Design for meaning. Most importantly, design to bring out the best in your users.

Getting Granular: Specific Game Techniques to Boost Engagement

Now that we've covered the high-level psychology and mechanics behind gameful design, let's get more concrete. Here are some specific game techniques that can be woven into product experiences:

• Onboarding as a Tutorial - Guide new users by breaking initial onboarding into a series of clear, low-stakes challenges that teach core functionality. Provide coaching tips and celebrate milestone achievements.
• Lifetime Learning Loops - Structure growth paths that encourage users to continuously expand expertise. Set learning quests, offer advanced tutorials, and reward skill milestones to foster a culture of lifetime learning.
• Challenges & Quests - Issue daily/weekly challenges and quests that encourage usage and accomplish business goals. For example, social media apps may issue "share 5 stories" daily quests to drive engagement.
• Easter Eggs - Hide unexpected surprises, levels, and animations that delight users when discovered accidentally. Leverage our love of serendipity.
• Progress Bars - Visually display progress toward goals and completion percentages to deliver clear feedback on advancement. Progress bars also take advantage of loss aversion as users will be reluctant to abandon progress made.
• Collectibles - Allow users to collect unique items, characters or badges that unlock as achievements are made. Creating a collection satisfies ownership desires and provides measurable progress.
• Pointsification - Incorporate points systems into mundane activities to inject engagement. Even professional tools like project management apps can incentivize use by awarding points for completing tasks.
• Social Comparison - Leaderboards aren't always appropriate, but social feedback features like "X% of people have completed this" can nudge users to stay active by comparing themselves to others.
• Teams & Guilds - Facilitate collaboration and friendly competition between user groups. Teams allow users to socialize within smaller communities while working together.
• Personalization - Provide ample options for avatar customization, color schemes, layouts, and theming. Personal touches tailored to user preferences boost engagement by allowing self-expression.

Skillful application of these game techniques can dramatically boost product stickiness and habit formation.

Pitfalls to Avoid When Gamifying

• While gameful design is powerful, incorporating gaming elements into products can backfire when done carelessly. Here are common pitfalls to avoid:
• Manipulative over Ethical - As warned earlier, avoid overly addictive and manipulative mechanics (like infinite scroll) that primarily exploit psychological weaknesses rather than satisfy genuine needs.
• All Extrinsic, No Intrinsic - Relying entirely on superficial rewards like points and badges often backfires. The core user activity itself should be satisfying. Gamification should enhance, not replace.
• Obstruction not Progression - Requiring excessive grinding to unlock basic features quickly frustrates users. Progression should feel smooth and well-paced.
• Life Disruption - Gameful experiences should fit into users' lives harmoniously, not become destructive obsessions. If your product is causing harm, re-evaluate design ethics.
• Appealing to Few User Types - While competition and achievement work for some personalities, others are driven by creativity, exploration, and collaboration. Appeal to diverse motivations.
• Lack of Storytelling - Failing to situate gamified elements within compelling narrative context causes the experience to feel hollow and pointless. Game mechanics should tie meaningfully into story and themes.

Avoiding these pitfalls comes back to the golden rule - know your users deeply, and craft gameful experiences tailored to satisfy their authentic needs and motivations.

Gamification Isn't Everything

While game techniques provide a toolkit, not every product needs to utilize them. Games serve very specific motivations like achievement, mastery and competition. Many products fulfill different emotional needs like relaxation, creativity or connection. Don't force gamification when it doesn't align with your product's purpose.

That said, even apps for meditation or journaling can thoughtfully work in some game mechanics to engage certain user segments. Elements like social groups, personalized progression tracking and creative challenges could make sense.

At the end of the day, game thinking is about serving users' holistic needs and desires. Use these powerful techniques wisely, ethically, and don't let them overshadow your product's core value.

Game Techniques for Different Product Stages

The gamification techniques we've covered provide a flexible toolkit that can be applied across the user journey to drive engagement:

• Onboarding
• Tutorials - Teach new users via step-by-step challenges.
• Early wins - Provide quick gratifying successes to build habit early.
• Personality quiz - Tailor onboarding path based on user motivations.
• Habit Building
• Daily/weekly quests - Issue routine challenges to encourage regular usage.
• Progress bars - Display ongoing advancement toward goals.
• Variable rewards - Give small unpredictable prizes for routine actions.
• Retention
• Social groups - Facilitate bonds between like-minded users.
• Limited events - Create FOMO with special time-limited occurrences.
• Seasonal themes - Keep experience feeling fresh by integrating seasonal motifs.
• Re-engagement
• Email drip campaigns - Send occasional emails to re-engage lapsed users.
• Return bonuses - Offer special rewards for returning after inactivity.
• Evergreen challenges - Provide new challenges independent from past progression.
• Virality
• Social sharing - Incentivize sharing content on social networks.
• Referral programs - Encourage users to invite others for mutual rewards.
• Guild competitions - Enable teams to compete for dominance on leaderboards.

Game techniques can transform each stage of the user lifecycle. Carefully identify pain points in your customer journey, and apply appropriate game mechanics to smooth and optimize experiences.

Gamification Ethics: Where to Draw the Line

Implementing gameful design elements poses ethical considerations regarding exploitation. Here are some principles to avoid crossing the line:

• Avoid addiction - Don't deliberately make your product addictive. While variable rewards sustain engagement, addiction sabotages user autonomy.
• Ensure genuine value - Gamification should optimize enjoyment of your product's core value, not disguise lack of substance. Don't rely on pointsification alone.
• Consider all motivations - Some personalities are driven by achievement, others by freedom or socializing. Ethical gamification accommodates diverse motivations.
• Empower don't coerce - Structuring challenges and quests is fine, but aggressively manipulating users with loss aversion or other techniques quickly becomes unethical.
• Transparency matters - Ensure users understand how game techniques like variable rewards work. Ethical gamification depends on informed consent from users.
• Watch for harm signs - If gamification causes lying, social isolation, loss of control, or other disruptions in someone's life, you've gone too far.
• Provide frequent reality checks - Tactics like streaks should be paired with occasional reminders about healthy usage limits, avoiding over-immersion.

With conscientious design and respect for diverse motivations, gamification can profoundly enrich user experience and promote flourishing.

Conclusion: Level Up with Gameful Design

In closing, today's users expect and deserve products that are a joy to engage with. By learning from the compelling experiences games have perfected, product designers gain access to proven engagement techniques. Yet gamification's true power comes from elevating, not replacing, the inherent value provided to users. With mindful and ethical application, gameful design enables us to build products that users love, trust, and can't let go of. The principles in this guide provide a practical toolkit for taking your product's engagement to the next level. Let the games begin!

About the Authors:

Mike Hyzy is a highly experienced product strategist and principal consultant with a proven track record of delivering results. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills, guiding cross-functional teams to successful product launches and driving growth for his clients. With a deep understanding of the product development landscape, Mike is known for his ability to develop and execute effective product strategies, bringing innovative products to market. Mike holds key certifications, including a NPDP certification from the Product Development and Management Association, a CSPO certification from the Scrum Alliance, and a Foresight Practitioner certification from the Institute for the Future.

Bret Wardle is a Game/Software professional, currently residing in Salt Lake City. He has spent over 15 years designing and building games and software. In that time he has had a number of roles, and worked on various sized teams. Ultimately, he is an advocate for the convergence of design psychology in games and software. This includes things like understanding similarities between professional e-sport players and software power users, or understanding the social response invoked by using “hi-scores” in e-commerce platforms. He finds joy in implementing these findings to make products and experiences people love to use!

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