Hey everyone! Welcome back to the series that keeps on giving! Hope you are all enjoying your summer because we sure are.

We're happy to have you in on the ride once again this week because this time we're going to focus on Points! Points form the basis of so many games, whether in terms of video games or grass-touching sports. Point are how we determine winners, losers, and high scores.

Today, we'll go over points, achievements, and how they relate to gaming, engagement, and how you can use all of these things in to improve engagement in app development.

What are points?

Points are one of the oldest and most identifiable mechanics that predates video games and board games: Sports. Keeping track of goals in a hockey game is a way to track points. In this case, goals (points) act as a feedback system for positive performance. In other cases, points can also be a spendable resource for players as this increases the perceived value to the user.

You can boil it down to how points are a way of providing feedback to the user on their actions. It’s just a starting point for gamification by giving a definitive trackable statistic. Relying on users to want to improve their score isn’t good gamification design.

People compete for high scores if they enjoy a game and use it as a way to demonstrate their mastery. However, if you just add points and make them the only aspect that matters, users will quickly devolve into making the choice for the most points.

This leads to a spiral where users will find less and less fulfilment in your system and choose to abandon it.

Effectiveness of achievements

The scale a points system uses can have a significant effect on how the point will have on users. To illustrate this, a tight points system where users earn points to a maximum of 5 has a different effect than a points system providing points with a maximum of 100. With a tight points system, each point is worth more, which can lead to users strategizing to earn more points in a more efficient manner. A high volume point system can provide the user with more autonomy in how they choose to earn their points.

Based on studies about gamification in the wellness space, self-determination theory is frequently used by researchers to analyze the effectiveness of points. Self-determination theory focuses on motivation and how fulfilment of three psychological needs can make an activity something people enjoy doing. From this, we can see that points in gamification fulfill a psychological need for competence.

Competence helps users feel like they can complete and perform tasks that they are assigned to do. Studies show that points which award users for taking correct actions are effective in helping users continue practicing those actions. Depending on the system, users can be driven to mastery of tasks as gamification helps them clearly determine if they have improved at the task.

Case study: Bear in mind – Points in gamification

We used points in our Bear in Mind project, a gamified app for mental wellness built in collaboration with SafeCare BC. Bear in Mind is a digital training app which has scenario-based learning for continuing care workers. For this project, points are an excellent solution as it allows awarding users points for making more positive decisions related to their work.

Responding to a less effective action rewards users a few points, but an better solution would reward users with a greater amount of points. As the goal is to use points for positive feedback, users can improve their scores with better answers. This will slowly (but surely) lead to behavioural change that will lead to better performance in their day-to-day tasks.

If you’d like to learn more about gamification and how it can benefit your company, you've come to the right app development team in Vancouver. Drop us a line at any time and we'll be in touch to answer any questions, or if you have an idea in mind, we can work with you to make it a reality.

We have years of experience building gamified apps for anything from schools to non-profits, meaning you will have peace of mind that your new app idea will be engaging and helpful, no matter what it's used for.

References

Review of several studies about gamification in the wellbeing space. Johnson, Daniel & Deterding, Sebastian & Kuhn, Kerri-Ann & Staneva, Aleksandra & Stoyanov, Stoyan & Hides, Leanne. (2016). Gamification for Health and Wellbeing:A Systematic Review of the Literature. Internet Interventions. 6. 89-106. 10.1016/j.invent.2016.10.002.

Self Determination Resource Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2021). Self Determination Theory. Retrieved March 17, 2021, from https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory/

Examples referenced

Bear in Mind - Case Study https://raccoopack.media/our-works/safecare-bc-bear-in-mind