by Yu-kai Chou
Often, one would defeat a level with one strategy, just to replay it again to test out another new strategic idea that the player conceived. The process of being able to select many options, each with its unique strengths and weaknesses, and resulting in a variety of style and creativity-based strategies, is the core essence of the Plant Picker technique.
Unfortunately, when Plants vs Zombies 2 was first launched, it completely forgot about its original design roots and turned Plant Pickers into Poison Pickers, with some plants being overpowered, while having others being completely useless in the early phases.
Farmville Art
I believe that Farmville is actually not a “fun” game to play, because it does not use many intrinsic motivators, though it still creates a compelling and mind-numbing machine that brilliantly utilizes all the black hat game mechanics to bring out our Core Drives.
Generally, during the Endgame Phase, carrying out your daily grind is not fun. However, some players have created their own endgame in Farmville that I think is positive and fun for the right reasons – it allows everyone to creatively express themselves through their Farms.
After Farmville players have participated in the game long enough, having unlocked all sorts of plants and colors, some of them even become Farmville Artists to express their creativity . Many create amazingly beautiful pieces of art through the digital pixels of Farmville. Of course, using an actual drawing technology like Microsoft Paint might still be more efficient, but hey, the canvas is your farm!
Because there are so many things you can do with your crops, this element of Farmville can be considered an Evergreen Mechanic. Users can continuously stay engaged without adding any additional content, just like paint and a paintbrush can be Evergreen material. The tricky thing here is that players must quickly plant the art and then take a screenshot, for within a few hours the plants will all wither and die.
Here are some pretty noteworthy pieces of art:
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Basic Components; Infinite Combos
Meaningful Choices make games like Lego, Chess, or even Minecraft99 fun. Your choices create a tangible difference in your gameplay, and it shapes how the experience evolves over time. Often, there are only a few building blocks to select from, but based on the context, challenges, and constraints, these building blocks come into play in varying ways for different scenarios.
In the book A Theory of Fun for Game Design, game designer Raph Koster introduces a hypothetical game with a single hammer that can only do one thing, which likely results in a dull experience. Koster compares it to the game of Tic-Tac-Toe, which also does not require a meaningful range of abilities and strategy. In comparison, checkers players can start to learn the importance of forcing other players into disadvantageous jumps. “Most games unfold abilities over time, until at a high level you have many possible stratagems to choose from.”100
Game designer Jesse Schell points out that one of the most exciting and interesting ways to add Meaningful Choices is to allow players to choose between playing it safe, and go for a small reward, or take a big risk, and try for a big reward. This type of dynamic, which he coins triangularity, is seen in many successful and engaging games.
Ultimately, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions to implementing Meaningful Choices in your experience. If there were, it would be a paradox. You have to decide and carefully design which challenges the user must resolve, what plants the users can pick, and how different plants options will reshape the user experience into new inspiring lush forests.
Core Drive 3: The Bigger Picture
Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback is a great Core Drive on many different levels. It taps into our innate desire to create, by providing us the tools and power to direct our own gameplay and giving us the ability to affect the environment around us through our own imaginations.
Unfortunately, Core Drive 3 is often the most difficult to implement into a product design, primarily because it requires so much attention from an already attention-deficit society. In an age of information overload, people have shorter attention spans in order to filter out all the worthless content they are bombarded with on a daily basis. So unless you design your experience with finesse, people will likely shy away from committing the time and energy needed to invest their creativity into something. That is why Core Drive 3 is more commonly seen effective in the Scaffolding and Endgame Phases, as opposed to the Discovery and Onboarding Phases.
Once you are able to unlock the power of Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback, it often creates a rush of other Core Drives, such as Development & Accomplishment, Social Influence & Relatedness through collaborative play, as well as Unpredictability & Curiosity. When effectively implemented, this Core Drive becomes a key evergreen engine that can be the difference between a short-lived flower and a timeless Redwood.
To get the most out of the book, Choose only ONE of the below options to do right now:
Easy: Think of an example where Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity motivated you or others to take certain actions. Did it keep people engaged for longer?
Medium: Think of the last time you were engaged in an activity that really drew you in. Did it involve a lot of creativity, strategy, or meaningful choices? If yes, describe the process in which these elements were brought out. If not, think of ways to add these components into the experience. Would that make the activity even more engaging?
Medium: For your own project, think of ways you can implement Milestone Unlocks into the experience, while rewarding the users with Boosters once they hit the milestone. Are the Boosters something that users will see in a favorable light because it allows them to do what they desire to do, but more efficiently? Or is it something that users will perceive as a controlling tool to make what you want more efficient without caring about their own interests?
Share what you come up with on Twitter or your preferred social network with the hashtag #OctalysisBook and see what ideas other people have.
Get Your Feet Wet
Now that you are diving into the fascinating world of Octalysis Gamification and motivation, try out the Octalysis Tool on my website. Play with the Core Drive sliders, add short notes on each Core Drive to help understand each better, and read the automatically generated Octalysis Insights to better understand the strength and weaknesses of the design. Use this as a creative process and see the insights as feedback for your analysis. The Octalysis Tool can be accessed for free at YukaiChou.com/octalysis-tool.
Chapter 8: The Fourth Core Drive - Ownership & Possession
Ownership & Possession is the fourth Core Drive in Octalysis Gamification. It represents the motivation that is driven by our feelings of owning something, and consequently the desire to improve, protect, and obtain more of it.
This Core Drive involves many elements such as virtual goods and virtual currencies, but it is also the primary drive that compels us to collect stamps or accumulate wealth. On a more abstract level, Core Drive 4 is connected to our investment of time or resources into customizing something to our own liking. This can also be found in a system that constantly learns about your preferences in order to mold an experience that uniquely fits you.
Ownership & Possession is positioned to the far left of the Octalysis Framework, and therefore represents the Core Drive that exhibits the strongest influence on the Left Brain (again, this is not scientifically geographical but more symbolic) relating to analytical thinking. Here, decisions are mostly based on logic and analysis, reinforced by the desire for possession as the primary motivating factor.
For example, in Farmville, you are constantly striving to increase the value of your assets by developing your land, establishing higher crop yields, and improving the quantity and quality of your livestock. You can further develop your property’s infrastructure and dwellings – establishing that country manor on your dream estate.
Because of this, you find yo
urself constantly investing more time and energy in expanding your farm. Accumulating more cows, plants, and fruits as well as purchasing stables to house your horses or grooming services to make them look “prettier.”
Wait, it’s mine? Hold on, I do care then!
Our brains form a natural association with the things that we own. Pretend for a moment that you generally prefer most drinks to beer (for many readers, this exercise would be a very difficult one). If we were at a party and I gave you a bottle of beer, you may respond, “Oh that’s okay. I’m not a big fan of beer.” I then respond with, “Nah, just take it! I’ll put it here next to you.”
At this point, you may still not care about this bottle of beer. You may even abandon it when you stand up and leave. But at that moment, if someone walks by, picks up the beer and begins to drink it, you will likely feel the urge to say, “Hey! What are you doing?” They may respond with, “What’s the big deal? You’re not drinking it anyway!” There’s a good chance you would still be unhappy. “Still, you should have asked before taking it.”
Once you feel a sense of ownership over something, its status elevates and it begins to motivate your behavior differently. If a beer you didn’t care about could provoke your displeasure towards someone, imagine how much more you would be influenced if it was something you deeply cared about.
A friend of mine named Chris Robino once explained to me that he was never any good at math until he started running his own business and added a dollar sign to the numbers. The math suddenly became very engaging, and he quickly mastered everything he needed to know.
With his new sense of mastery over money, he quickly built his business into a successful and lucrative consulting firm. Chris jokingly said, “Once the numbers started to represent my own money, I instantly became a genius.”
Similar to the beer example, the nature of the motivation and engagement completely shifted when his mind realized that these boring numbers were now a representation of what he owned and cared about.
Stamps of Sanity
One of the most common manifestations of the Ownership & Possession Core Drive is the desire to collect things, such as stamps or baseball cards. Many of us have had the experience of collecting certain items, where the items themselves have relatively low practical functionality but are only meaningful because they represented a piece in a larger set.
Initially, some readers might feel that Core Drive 4 only entails the actions of accumulating more possessions, but it also provides emotional comfort to those who simply dwell upon those possessions. This is like the owners of expensive cars or paintings who spend hours admiring and enjoying their prized possessions without needing to do anything with them. Some people even hide their paintings so no one can steal them, while still enjoying the utility by just knowing that the paintings are in the safe.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath, Gladwell describes a physician at a children’s hospital in the 1950’s who was treating young patients that were very ill from childhood leukemia and were bleeding constantly. Gladwell writes:
The kids bled from everywhere - through their stool, urine - that’s the worst part. They paint the ceiling. They bleed from out of their ears, from their skin. There was blood on everything. The nurses would come to work in the morning in their white uniforms and go home covered in blood. […] The Children would bleed internally, into their livers and spleens, putting them in extraordinary pain. They would turn over in their beds and get terrible bruises. Even a nosebleed was a potential fatal event.”101
In those day, there was a ninety percent fatality rate where the children would bleed to death within six weeks. Working in such demoralizing environments, you could imagine that most doctors didn’t last very long. Gladwell describes how, after returning from a emotionally crushing day at work, all this particular physician wanted to do was to quietly sit in front of his stamp collection each night.
This struck me as very odd. This man is watching children die in his hands on a daily basis, and the one thing that makes him feel better is a set of stamps? Also, it seems that he would simply sit in front of the stamps for a nontrivial period of time each evening. What was he actually thinking as he sat there? Was he just looking at them, as if he had forgotten which stamps he owned, or just feeling good about them?
This is the power of Ownership & Possession - it not only has the ability to engage, it has the ability to comfort and instill a sense of well-being. You see the same phenomenon with baseball cards, pens, and even impressive looking books that no one reads neatly placed on a shelf (hopefully my book doesn’t become one of those). People just like to display them and marvel at the collection for hours, while seemingly “having fun” in the process.
How Stoned Can You Be
A fascinating example on the feeling of ownership is seen on Yap, a small island in the Caroline Islands of the Western Pacific Ocean. Besides sounding cheerful and carefree, the “Yapese” are known for using a currency called Rai.102
Rai functions like most currencies, except they are often large, circular stone disks carved out of limestone from aragonite and calcite crystals. The issue with some Rai being very large, is that it is almost impossible to carry them around, let alone pass them on to others. In fact, some Rai are so large that it is generally impractical to move them at all and are therefore left in the wild. As a result, when the Yapese buy something with Rai, they simply leave an oral history that the ownership of the Rai is now transferred to another person.
Image of a Rai Stone by Eric Guinther
In the most extreme case, there was a famous Rai stone that fell off a ship during transportation and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Even though no one has seen it for over a century, the Yapese assume it is still there, so the rightful owner of the Rai stone in the ocean could still exchange that ownership for other goods. That’s pretty wild, with some pun intended.
What if I told you that a large piece of stone somewhere in the world is in my possession, and I will trade it to you for a million dollars. However, you won’t be able to move it and it will have to be left in its original place, just like the owner before me did. what would you think of the arrangement?
You may think I’m stoned or crazy, and elect your preferred method of interacting with such people. (Popular options include: laughing at me, yelling at me, looking at me strangely, pretending to take me seriously just to entertain yourself, pretending to take me seriously just to be polite - all reactions I’ve received when I talked about gamification between 2003 - 2008).
However, that’s what we actually see in modern, developed societies regularly. If a businessman told you that he owns a famous building or monument in Chicago, and will pass the ownership rights to you if you paid him $100 million, suddenly it’s not as crazy - beyond the fact that you may not have the money handy.
You may not have even seen the property - it’s not strictly required for the purchase, especially if it is already well known - nor will you be able to move it anywhere, but now it is considered a legitimate business transaction that anyone will take seriously. Of course, in order to make sure you can prove the transfer of ownership, you in this case would prefer to have this agreement on paper instead of memorized orally. Such is the strange nature of ownership.
Ownership is often a feeling or agreement, but it can also take the form of an idea. I own the Octalysis Framework, and many people who want to borrow or license it ask for permission because they recognize and respect this ownership. My ownership of Octalysis will stay intact until I agree that the ownership should be transferred to someone else. Once I agree and sign it over to someone else, poof, my ownership of the idea or methodology instantly disappears.
The Perfect Pet
Another interesting example of the unique aspect of Core Drive 4: Ownership and Possession is the Pet Rock.103 The Pet Rock was a strange and popular product executed by Californian advertising freelancer Gary Dahl in 1975. Upon hearing his friends complain
about their pets, he conceptualized the perfect pet that would not need to be fed, bathed, groomed, toilet-trained, walked, and would not become disobedient, get sick, or even die. The perfect pet was the rock.
For a short period, the Pet Rock became a popular sensation. It came in a box with holes (just in case it needed to breathe), and provided some with soft straw for its comfort. There was also an owner’s manual with instructions on how to give commands such as “sit” and “stay,” as well as proper hand gestures to get the Pet Rock to “roll over,” “jump,” and “attack.”
Finally, there was something that people could love, hold, and cherish, without dealing with all the physical hassles and emotional difficulties of a biological pet.
To write this book, I purchased an original 1975 Pet Rock on eBay for $14.75 plus taxes and shipping.
Though the craze was short-lived, between 1975 and 1976, over 1.5 million Pet Rocks were sold. As of today, many of them are still playing “sit, stay” on a daily basis, though I imagine most are strays by now. The love didn’t last.
Of course, Gary Dahl was less concerned about whether the Pet Rocks were loved, because he walked away with millions of dollars. His only regret may be that the Internet wasn’t around during the 70s to make the Pet Rocks even more viral.
When people feel like they have ownership of something, they naturally want to care for and protect it. Unfortunately, the Pet Rock provided no Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback. As a result, people moved on to other conceptual pets that actually could provide some feedback mechanics.
