Gamification 101: The Psychology of Motivation

Hello Vince,

Thank you for commenting. Great question.

In fact there are quite are quite a bit of research as well as resources on how to gamify work. Reward frequent in small steps, use lack of reward instead of punishment, count up rather than count down, compare only with similar peers, etc. There are probably too much for me to summarize here.

I recommend you checking out a book by Prof. Byron Reeves, another academic friend and game researcher at Stanford. Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete.

Finally, keep in mind that motivation, which is the subject of this post, is just one element of the Fogg's Behavior Model. You need all three factors: Motivation, Ability, and Trigger. Moreover, you need all of them at the same time. The next post of this series, which is on the 2nd factor of FBM: ability, has just been posted. Feel free to check it out at your leisure.

Thank you for asking your question. Now that you asked, I think it might be worthwhile for me to summarize some of the best practices I know in a later post. I'll think about it. Maybe I'll do that when I write about the application of gamification after I finish all the science and theory. See you again next time.