Conclusion

The 3x3 Gamification Matrix is not a set of guidelines. I tried my best to steer the conversation away from a "model" and towards practical examples that highlight why game mechanics, applied to digital product, succeed, or fail, and why.

Measuring the impact of gamification tactics is difficult because testers cannot gleam, on the surface, the direct exposure of their audience to video game mechanics. This is why copy-and-pasting is, generally, a bad strategy. Someone might understand why a leaderboard exist, but fail at grasping how to utilize it to better their goals, or end up questioning why it was put there in the first place.

To successfully build a game-inspired tactic that's not off-putting, owners should consider their product's position in the user's journey. The next step is to generate ideas based on value state transitions. This is specific to each product, and it's impossible to give a solid roadmap. With game mechanics, you can accomplish one thing in fintech, and a different thing with social media.

A 2-to-3-hour-long workshop can uncover a lot. If you think you have gamification ideas, but:

• are unsure if they will backfire, or,
• believe you can improve their effectiveness at getting users to stick around, or,
• would like a second opinion from someone who spent a bit too much time thinking about the topic, then,

I encourage you to sign up for an introduction call. Game design is one of the purest forms of design; emotion is its raw material, and if one is not careful, they can end up with too many interpretations. The 3x3 Gamification Matrix is a starting point, but not the whole story.

So let's talk about your project.

Resources

• Designing Games, Tynan Sylvester
• Hooked, Nir Eyal
• Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being, Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci
• Gamification: Toward a Definition, Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, Lennart E. Nacke
• Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Cass Robert Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, and Olivier Sibony
• Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, Natasha D. Schull
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (take this book with a grain of salt)
• Pavel Samsonov's Medium articles and Product Picnic blog
• Doc Burford's Medium articles
• GDC talks on YouTube
• Joshua Sawyer on YouTube
• SupperBunnyHop on YouTube
• MatthewMatosis on YouTube