Study Games to be a Better Designer
I am a gamification designer and consultant. I teach gamification, I read about gamification, I talk about gamification, and right now I’m writing about gamification. But, despite all my work in the realm of gamification, it’s no substitute for playing games and engaging in new experiences. If you want more exposure to good game design or good gamification, my best advice is to get out there and partake in the extremely rich landscape of games and immersive experiences we have at our fingertips. Literally at your fingertips. Go play a mobile game.
Why should you study games?
This may seem like a silly question to ask when reading about gamification. However, I cannot tell you how many meetings I have been to where the primary stakeholder and designers don’t play games. All they know is that gamification is supposed to help with engagement, thus improve metrics which will equal more $$$. They aren’t wrong. But any design team diving into the world of gamification should invest some time exploring and researching relevant material.
Games are purely meant for entertainment. We don’t have to play them. Therefore, studying games that hook people for hours, days, months, or even years are highly relevant case studies for designers to draw upon. Games live and die by how well their design engages users. For example, if the tutorial doesn’t hit on the right elements at the right time the player will become frustrated, disengage and leave the game. Games must also hit the right state of flow - not too easy, but not too hard. It must be in that Goldilocks zone of “just right.”
I recommend thinking about what mechanisms or game elements you think you might want to use in your software, write them down. Then go find several successful games that use similar mechanics, or have the same flavor that you are going for. Take note of the design. Think about what you like, what you don’t like, and how it could be better. Also notice the actions that the game drives you toward and if you are happy to take those desired actions. I like to mentally step away while playing a game to peek behind the curtain and really try to understand what actions the designers want me to take and how they are orchestrating every moment in the experience to help me achieve those. I can then take away the bits and pieces I like the most, iterate, and add them to my design.
Gamification takes all the best parts of games and layers them into non-game scenarios with the intent that the activity will become more engaging. I find that the more games I play the more creative ideas I have. This gives me a huge knowledge base of how different elements and environments interact with one another in multiple scenarios. Note that video games are not the end-all-be-all of gaming experiences. Board games and other gamified experiences are all invaluable source material.
Gateway Games - Games I recommend to get someone started
Minecraft Open World
Civilization
Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone
Settlers of Catan
Keep Talking and No One Blows up
The Last of Us
The Witcher Series
World of Warcraft
Candy Crush
More than the sum of the parts
There is a simple reason I am so passionate about this area of study for designers. You are taking an activity that is not particularly engaging and trying to breath life into it via gamification. Games have evolved over the past 40 years to a point that sets a high bar for what people expect from a game-like environment or interaction. This is the standard by which your experience will be judged. Gamification is not just mechanics and game elements. Environment matters. Aesthetics matter. Visual affordance matters. Timing matters. Narrative matters. Avatars matter. The entire experience matters. Games are more than the sum of their parts. Games are mechanics, elements, story, friendship, competition, virtual environments, exploring the unknown, and so much more interwoven into an experience.
You cannot simply take mechanics or elements from one context and jam them into another context and expect it to work, without understanding why it worked in the first place. Gamification requires synthesis of many elements to create an unforgettable experience. This is why studying games matters.
Go play a game.