GamificaMooc: Challenge #2

AprendeIntef (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Every methodology has its own characteristics and elements that make them unique and different. gamification is not less and so we can highlight dynamics, motivation, and the type of gamers as some of its main aspects. Let's make a quick analysis.

Dynamics are like the mechanics of the game that make participants feel. If players feel they are learning, improving, getting feedback, and better status, they will keep playing the game. Maslow's pyramid of needs has a lot to do with dynamics. Humans move through a series of needs. Some of them have more priority than others, but once the more physiological ones are satisfied, people go for the cognitive ones. Dynamics must be able to fulfill these needs in order to keep the player playing.

Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Motivation is key in the whole process of gamification but gains a lot more importance at the beginning. The player must have a motivation to complete the journey and that's why it is so important to create a good narrative that catches participants' attention. There are different theories about motivation. Keller's ARCS model states 4 elements that together generate students' motivation. Malone and Lepper presented a taxonomy of intrinsic motivations where curiosity catapults students' motivation, and then self-esteem increases with social recognition. Finally, the self-determination theory says that motivation comes from the relation between autonomy, social competence, and social connection.

The type of players that are going to participate in the experience is also crucial to develop a good gamified product. There are different theories to guess what type of players we have in class, but the most common one is Bartle's taxonomy. He discerns between killers, achievers, socializers, and explorers depending on their focus. Players may choose to put their aims in acting, interacting, in other players, or in the world. 

Janaki Kumar (CC BY-ND 3.0)

After having analyzed all these elements, I would like to remind you that any project needs a preparation phase. In this case, with all the information that we have about the different elements that compose the gamification methodology, we should be able to create a SWOT analysis. Then we would identify the content we want to evaluate, we would compare the results and finally, we should make a simulation to check what can we improve. This is a brief SWOT that I prepared for a hypothetical gamified project: