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Designing Gamification for Constructive Competition
Mark Featherstone
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield
Email: m.featherstone@shu.ac.uk
Keywords
Gamification, mobile, education,
constructive competition, video games
Abstract
This paper examines the need for
constructive positive extrinsic motivational
competition within gamification projects.
Gamification takes common game design
principles such as points, leaderboards
and competition, then applies them to non-
gaming activities. Participants often
require extrinsic motivators to engage with
gamification, such as financial reward,
compulsory participation or prizes. This
approach can reduce intrinsic motivation,
creativity and sense of agency. One
powerful extrinsic motivator is competition,
which can be effective even without any
real world prize. Competition can be
divided into constructive and destructive
types. Destructive competition can cause
anxiety and lower self-esteem in
participants. Constructive competition is
motivating without these negative side-
effects. It isn't possible to guarantee that a
competition will be constructive, but there
are broad principles that can be applied to
design for constructive competition. These
principles were investigated using a
purpose built mobile application called
UniCraft. This app was used in a cross-
over study with university students in an
attempt to increase their satisfaction with
one of their subjects and it featured a 3D
video game-like competitive battle mode.
Online analytics recorded a statistically
significant increase in app usage when
this competitive game mode was enabled.
Introduction
To gamify an activity is to take something
that is not game-like and then wrap game
design principles around that activity
(Deterding et al., 2011a), for example
increasing your heart rate beyond a
previous exercise session earns points,
displayed on a leaderboard (Whitson,
2013). When game design principles are
applied to an activity, people have a
tendency to find that activity more
compulsive, which some perceive as
being more fun (Hopson, 2001). Points,
leaderboards and achievements tend to
make it easier for 'players' to judge their
progress and aptitude for a task both
alone and in comparison to others.
Gamification can have the following
positive impacts on any task (Deterding,
2015):
• The task becomes more enjoyable
due to the new sense of
playfulness.
• The task is performed correctly.
• The 'player' increases their
productivity.
• The task is performed to a higher
quality.
However, gamification often reduces
intrinsic motivation, a desirable state
where a participant is engaged fully with a
task, often in a state of flow (Chen, 2007),
it's a condition of optimal learning potential
and creativity. The participant is engaged
with the task for its own sake with no
outside coercion.
Reduced intrinsic motivation can manifest
negatively within the individual in a
number of ways (Fuchs et al., 2014;
Raczkowski, 2013):
• A loss of agency.
• Reduction in creativity.
• A loss of self-worth.
• A loss of interest or engagement
with the activity.
• Feelings of oppression or that the
system is overly prescriptive.
To mitigate against this requires an
understanding of root causes.
Mark Featherstone Page 2 of 6
Gamification requires progress within any
activity to be measured so points can be
awarded or removed. Measuring an
activity means defining it in detail, which
can reduce the creative freedom of
participants. Such measurements are
often made public via a leaderboard to
encourage participants to compete and
compare their progress.
Competition is an extrinsic motivator,
people are generally competitive and it
can provide an extra impetus to progress.
This can cause anxiety, demotivation and
stress (Hanus and Fox, 2015; Lepper and
Malone, 1987; Shafer, 2012).
Rewards provide further extrinsic
motivation when they are of value to
participants. Rewards can be linked into
compulsory participation, for example, a
prize for students achieving a certain
grade. Participants can focus on the
reward instead of the activity, becoming
disillusioned if they don't get the reward or
unhappy with the value of the reward
(Deci and Ryan, 2000).
It's not possible to predict with accuracy
how human participants will respond to
gamification schemes, just as it isn't
possible to guarantee the success of a
video game design (Koster, 2013).
However, like video game design
methodology, there should be a 'best
practice' approach to the design of
gamification (Deterding, 2015). This paper
analyses the design of competition in
gamification. The term, 'constructive
competition' refers to competitions
designed to avoid negative side-effects
which might reduce intrinsic motivation.
Design
What follows is a set of 'best practice'
guidelines that can be applied when
designing for constructive competition.
Non-prescriptive measurement
Any complex activity can be distilled into
measurable sub-tasks, with points
awarded for completion. Sometimes a
sub-task has a very specific methodology,
especially if there are health and safety
implications. Often, sub-tasks can be more
general or fluid in their definition of
methodology and outcome. This supports
the participant's desire for independence
and agency (Deci and Ryan, 2000).
Team based play
When participants compare their progress,
scores can represent the individual or the
group. When participants feel they are
acting together as part of a group, the
impact of success or failure is shared.
Persevering together and even failing
together can foster a feeling of
comradeship and mutual support that
nurtures friendships.
Cohort based play
To compare progress and compete
doesn't mean pitting one group against
another. In video game design this is
known as PvP and can be very stressful.
Another approach, known as PvE, allows
an entire cohort of participants to work
together against a virtual opponent, such
as a fantasy monstrous enemy (Adams,
2013). There is the potential within
competition for participants to become
antagonistic towards each other. If the
participants see the 'opposition' as a
virtual enemy then feelings of antagonism
towards that opponent can be expressed
safely and healthily.
Multiple measures of progress
When sub-tasks within an activity have to
be completed in sequence, there is the
potential for a participant that is struggling
with the task to feel there is no path
forwards or no obvious way to increase
their scores as they fall to the bottom of
the leaderboard. In video games this issue
is addressed by including multiple
measures of success with multiple paths
to achieve them. This approach enhances
participant agency allowing them to delay
or bypass or navigate around challenging
tasks, while remaining competitive.
Fun - the power of video games
Gamification is based on techniques within
game design and it can be presented
using video game imagery, phrases and
concepts, even when used with a non-
gaming related activity. This can help
people recognise the competition as fun
and playful as well as encouraging
participation. Tools like Unity3D and
Mark Featherstone Page 3 of 6
Unreal allow developers to deliver
gamification projects that more closely
resemble popular modern 3D video game
aesthetics on small budgets (Axon, 2016).
Asynchronous play
Maintaining a sense of agency in
participants can include allowing them to
decide when, how and where they take
part. One way to enable flexible
participation is using personal mobile
devices to interact with the gamification
system. In terms of games design,
asynchronous multiplayer competition
allows players to participate in a shared
world together, but without having to be
present concurrently (Zagal et al., 2000).
Virtual rewards
Gamification's extrinsic motivators (points,
leaderboards, competition, etc.) require an
extra driver which is often some kind of
reward (Whitson, 2013). As previously
discussed, valuable rewards can create
negative associations, for example,
becoming overly reliant on financial
reward. Video games often use virtual
rewards, without real-world importance.
Usually these are associated with a player
avatar, for example, clothing, pets,
housing, vehicles, etc. Virtual rewards can
form part of an economy, for example, a
stallion or sports car that is expensive and
rare within the virtual economy of the
game. Players transfer value onto virtual
items, yet they don't have any real-world
importance.
Avatars
People care about how they are perceived
by their peers. Within a competition, where
progress is displayed on a public
leaderboard, this can be motivating,
however there are risks, as previously
discussed. Avatars are anonymous virtual
representations of participants and work
optimally when the user can customise the
avatar to better represent their idealised
image (usually using virtual reward items).
People care about their virtual avatars
(Behm-Morawitz, 2013), but it provides a
degree of separation between them and
the potential tension and embarrassment
of being identified via competition.
Elective participation
When any activity becomes compulsory,
participants lose agency and
independence. However, if a competition
is not compulsory then participants may
drop out at any point. Within video games
participation in multi-player competition is
a well know problem. This can be
addressed by allowing people to take part
asynchronously at a convenient time. The
competition event can be split into multiple
shorter competition events creating
multiple smaller prizes. This allows
participants to take part in a more ad-hoc
fashion, maintaining their independence.
Player matching
People respond positively to a well-played
game, even if they lose (DeKoven, 2002).
Video games often use algorithms to
match players of similar ability or rank for
competition, increasing the likelihood of a
well-played game (Jennings, 2014).
Holistic approach
The effect of each of these design axioms
is amplified when they are combined. For
example, without compulsory participation,
why engage with a competition? By using
video game themes, avatars, virtual
rewards, etc. the competition begins to
regain the motivational levers necessary
to maintain engagement with a lower
probability of reducing intrinsic motivation.
Mark Featherstone Page 4 of 6
UniCraft battles
The author has investigated these ideas
within a gamification project with second
year computing higher education students
(Featherstone and Habgood, 2018).
UniCraft is a mobile gamification platform
with cloud hosted database and built in
analytics to record the time and type of
every interaction with the application, see
Figure 1.
Students in the second year of their
course were separated into two tutorial
groups by surname. These two groups
were offered the chance to participate in a
cross-over study and became groups A
and B totalling 26 students, see Table 2.
The organisation of the study is shown in
Table 1.
Students earn credits for attendance,
asking questions, completing tutorials,
handing in work, etc. Credits buy virtual
items to customise their virtual avatars,
see Figure 2. Participants compete within
a fantasy battle competition. Outcomes of
battles are randomised, but those with
more expensive virtual items are more
likely to survive longer, therefore
encouraging students to earn as many
achievements as possible.
These competitive battles can themselves
be used to earn more credits, proportional
to how long the player survives. They can
be played non-interactively, while the
student is working or interactively with the
player gaining a small advantage by
'catching' hearts from fallen enemies. It is
based on the popular one-click game
design mechanic seen in many mobile
games (Unger and Novak, 2012).
Avatars can compete alone or in small
teams (see Figure 3) against a computer
controlled enemy (PvE).
Figure 1. UniCraft mobile app
Figure 2. UniCraft virtual avatars
Figure 3. Three student avatars team up
for a battle
Table 1. Organisation and schedule of study
Mark Featherstone Page 5 of 6
When in non-interactive mode, a
competition event can be displayed on a
projector, with the avatars of the entire
cohort taking part in a 'battle royale'. This
example of constructive competition
showed an increase in engagement with
the gamification app of 217% compared to
using the system without the competitive
battles, see Table 2.
Within the student group it was noted that
people interacted with the system on
different days of the week, at different
times of the day, using the app to differing
degrees, interacting with some aspects
more than others, both in and outside
class. This technologically enabled and
designed-for flexibility helped maximise
engagement.
During interviews, the students reported
that they had enjoyed the competitive
battle game and did not find it stressful.
They claimed this was because it was
seen as a light-hearted fun activity
allowing them to compete with their peers
without pressure and it helped motivate
them to engage with the gamification
project.
After the study a comparison of student
attainment was made to see if there had
been any impact. Student assessment
results were compared to the previous
cohorts over three years. A 17% increase
in attainment was measured, compared to
the three previous years (single factor
ANOVA F(3,162)=3.45, P=0.018,η2=0.06),
see Figure 4.
Conclusion
Gamification has repeatedly demonstrated
its efficacy when applied to a range of
activities (Deterding et al., 2011b; Laird,
2017; Rigsby, 2012) and competition plays
a key part in engaging participants.
However, it isn't possible to accurately
predict how people will react to such
systems. The likelihood of competition
having a positive and constructive impact
can be increased if a theory of best
practice can be developed, promoting a
holistic design approach. Constructive
competition is one example of a powerful
extrinsic motivator that is compatible with
maintaining intrinsic motivation, which is
vital in supporting an individual's sense of
self-determination.
Gamification works, but participants must
be motivated to stay engaged with the
gamification process. Constructive
competition can provide that motivation
while limiting the chance of any negative
impact that competition might have on the
intrinsic enjoyment or satisfaction in the
task being gamified.
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Author Biography
Mark Featherstone is a PhD student and
lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University
within its Applied Gaming Technology
research group.
PhD Supervisor
Dr. Jacob Habgood is the principal
investigator of the Horizon 2020 REVEAL
project and manages Sheffield Hallam
University's PlayStation teaching facility
and Steel Minions Game Studio.
