GAMASUTRA-2

Putting it together visually
All of this can be represented in a sort of ’3D’ / TriDimensional version of our two Acting On diagrams from earlier.

How do you create a balanced system for all types of users?
It becomes complex to handle so many user types when compared to five types like Player and then Philanthropists, Socializers, Achievers and Free Spirits.

One should create a system that appeals to the four basic intrinsic motivations and user types. Also, one should make it social, meaningful and give people some freedom before integrating a well thought out reward system (points, badges etc.). Through this, we are not creating a system that relies on the rewards to run but getting intrinsically motivated people. It is important to keep in mind that you want more of the intrinsically motivated users if possible because they will keep coming back, keep producing content. Also, these eight types of users can help us decide how to balance the system.

But, if the system is flooded with Self Seekers and Exploiters then you stand the chance of devaluing everything. Self Seekers run the risk of generating lots of meaningless content whilst exploiters will reduce the value of things like up votes and likes if the rewards are badly implemented.

Philanthropists and Achievers can both help a system thrive. Philanthropists want to help everyone. They want to answer questions and guide users. Achievers, depending on the type of system, may also wish to do the same. They are interested in being the best – at mastering things. They will want to give the best answer to a question, not so much to help the user, but to know they were the best. However, as their main aim is self-enrichment, they can also give very little back to as system aimed at teaching!

Free Spirits and Consumers tend to give very little back to the people, consumers especially. Too many of either of them and the social aspect of your system stands a good chance of not working. It is possible that consumers are all you want (with a loyalty scheme), but it is worth considering you can get greater value from engaging everyone else.

Socialisers are great for evangelizing a system and bringing more people to it, however, they don’t add content to systems as much as other types. Networkers are similar, whatever their motivations may be. However, networkers will bring in anyone, not just relevant people. Too many of them and the social aspect of the system can become diluted. Look at users on twitter with 30,000 “friends” then look at what content these friends actually generate. The likelihood is that of these 30,000 people, they only interact with a tiny fraction – so will other users.

Also, exploiters are the most likely to “cheat”. They are the ones who will “exploit” loopholes in the rules to gain – even if it is at the expense of others within the system.

Final Sutras
Below is an overall view on how to support different user types.

Although these are to give conceptual insights,, real life is not as black and white. Users will most likely display traits from multiple user types. But, they will usually have one that guides them more than the others. They are also likely to change user types as they get to know the system.  In systems where rewards are used in the onboarding process, but are phased out as the user becomes more capable, you will see them going from extrinsically “motivated” user types to intrinsically motivated types. This is when they realize that there is more to be gained from the system than just the points and badges.