Gamification Minitrack

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During the last decade games have become an established vein of entertainment, and consumer culture, and essentially, a common part of people’s daily lives [19]. In the United States alone 59% of the population plays computer games while revenues of the computer games industry exceed US $15 billion (ESA, 2014). However, in addition to the increased penetration of games, also the ways in which people play and employ games have become more varied. The long-tail is getting longer: there are more different kinds of games available for a multitude of different platforms that cater for differing gaming needs for widening audiences and which use a wide variety of business models.

Perhaps the most prominent advancement stemming from these developments is “gamification” which generally refers to the increased convergence of games and everyday life. More particularly and practically, gamification commonly refers to the process of enhancing services and systems so that they increase enjoyable and intrinsically motivated use as well as support further behavioral change by employing elements characteristic of games - “Transforming Homo Economicus into Homo Ludens.”

The Gamification-minitrack was established to address this growing junction of interests of both scholars and practitioners where games, services and information systems meet and merge. We encourage a wide range of submissions: empirical and conceptual research papers, case studies, reviews as well as practitioner reports related to gamification, games, information systems, commerce and users/players as well as the area between them.

Relevant topics for this minitrack include (but not limited to):

  • Impact of games and gamification:
    • Individual impact (behavior, psychological states, well-being)
    • Organizational impacts
    • Business benefits
    • Societal impacts
  • Conceptual improvements
    • Definitions
    • Frameworks
    • Affordances/mechanics
  • Game business
    • Free-to-play
    • Virtual goods
    • Player retention
    • Game design as marketing
  • Motivations and players
    • Player typologies
    • Player motivations
    • What needs games satisfy
    • Demographic differences
    • Adoption and continued use
  • Technology and design
    • Mobile and web applications
    • Gamification in enterprise
    • Health applications
    • Education technology (serious)
    • Design philosophies
    • User modelling
    • (Action) Design research

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Juho Hamari (Primary Contact)
University of Tampere, Finland
Email: juho.hamari@uta.fi

Petri Parvinen
Aalto University School of Science, Finland
Tel: +358 50 312 0905
Email: petri.parvinen@aalto.fi

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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Twotype Multiagent Game for Egress Congestion
    ( 2017-01-04) von Schantz, Anton ; Ehtamo, Harri ; Pärnänen, Ilmari
    Our starting point is a recently introduced spatial multiagent game for egress congestion. We present a twotype extension of the game. In the game, the agent chooses its strategy by observing its neighbors’ strategies. The agent’s reward structure depends on its distance to the exit and available safe egress time (TASET ). Although TASET is a well-defined physical quantity, it is assumed that the agents interpret it subjectively: it is assumed that there are high TASET and low TASET agent types. Also, we apply the game to a cellular automaton (CA) evacuation model. We show that high TASET agents are on average able to overtake low TASET agents. However, the more there are high TASET agents in the crowd, the more the evacuation \ becomes inefficient for the whole crowd.
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    Identifying Motivational Styles in Educational Gamification
    ( 2017-01-04) Chapman, Jared ; Rich, Peter
    Little work has been done to understand the motivational impact of specific game elements and how they combine to form student motivational styles in educational gamification. In this exploratory study we evaluate the level of motivation reported for a variety of game elements by 184 students. Using this data we generated a principle components analysis to identify the underlying factor structure that govern students’ motivational styles. Four motivational styles were identified: (1) Personal Progress – being motivated by gamified elements that show one’s individual progress in a course; (2) Competition and Praise – being motivated by game elements that show one’s progress compared to their peers and provide social reinforcing feedback; (3) Individual Assignments – being motivated by completing traditional assignments and exams; and (4) Group Work – being motivated by social assignments like group work and peer review.
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    Impact of Gamification on User’s Knowledge-Sharing Practices: Relationships between Work Motivation, Performance Expectancy and Work Engagement
    ( 2017-01-04) Silic, Mario ; Back, Andrea
    How to engage and motivate employees to share their knowledge has become one of the main organizational strategic goals. This study, supported by the Flow theory and Kahn’s theory of engagement, investigated how the impact of gamification on user’s knowledge-sharing practices. We ran an online survey of 147 participants from a large organization that implemented social engagement and motivational systems to leverage internal knowledge-sharing practices. Our study revealed important drivers of job motivation (enjoyment, reciprocal benefit and recognition), which led to higher degree of job engagement and performance expectancy. From this study we derive important insights for practice and theory.
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    How to Gamify? A Method For Designing Gamification
    ( 2017-01-04) Morschheuser, Benedikt ; Hamari, Juho ; Werder, Karl ; Abe, Julian
    During recent years, gamification has become a popular method of enriching information technologies. Popular business analysts have made promising predictions about penetration of gamification, however, it has also been estimated that most gamification efforts will fail due to poor understanding of how gamification should be designed and implemented. Therefore, in this paper we seek to advance the understanding of best practices related to the gamification design process. We approach this research problem via a design science research approach; firstly, by synthesizing the current body of literature on gamification design methods and interviewing 25 gamification experts. Secondly, we develop a method for gamification design, based on the gathered knowledge. Finally, we conduct an evaluation of the method via interviews of 10 gamification experts. The results indicate that the developed method is comprehensive, complete and provides practical utility. We deliver a comprehensive overview of gamification guidelines and shed novel insights into the overall nature of the gamification development and design discourse.
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    Gamification in Proprietary Innovation: Identifying a Technical Framework Based on Patent Data.
    ( 2017-01-04) Hoeflinger, Patrick J.
    This paper reveals dominant patterns of gamification in proprietary innovation and develops a technical framework. In recent years, a rash increase in securitizing gamification-related inventions has taken place. By analyzing the content of 134 unique patents from USPTO and EPO with an in-depth raw data text analysis, the technical background is explored holistically. To discover meaningful patterns and thus to derive implications from the patent data they are visually summarized. Especially predominant are the topics of device, data, user and game. Based on the nature of the data, being evidence-based and future directed, our technical framework integrates these patterns and sets it into relation. An additional analysis provides further insights into fundamental game elements. As patents serve as a decisive indicator of future product introductions, the information gathered in this paper represents essential strategic information to guide practitioners and researchers in the area of gamification.
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    Continuous Feedback as a Key Component of Employee Motivation Improvement - A Railway Case Study based on the Placebo Effect
    ( 2017-01-04) Bartnik, Witold ; Ćwil, Małgorzata
    The objective of this paper is to present and analyse results from a placebo-based case study concerning the importance of feedback in achieving continuous improvement of train driver motivation. The specifics of the train driver job, which affect motivation are presented, along with motivation theory. The case study, conducted using the placebo effect for three months in a medium-sized Eastern-European railway operator is then presented along with the results. These results show that informing the employees that their efficiency was being monitored and that the best drivers would be rewarded improved efficiency. However, the lack of feedback and stimulation of only extrinsic motivation, caused the employees to lose motivation to improve and further consumed energy reduction could not be observed. These results are analysed and used to validate a proposed gamification system aimed at achieving continuous improvement of employee motivation via a set of gamified techniques and continuous feedback targeting the four basic human needs of competence, relatedness, autonomy and purpose. \
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    Introduction to Gamification Minitrack
    ( 2017-01-04) Hamari, Juho ; Parvinen, Petri