The Big Gamification Paradox: Intrinsic Motivation Vs. External Rewards

One of the reasons I am fascinated with gamification is that at its core it touches on a fundamental shift in society. The shift from hierarchical structures to networked structures; from top-down to grassroots. This perspective can help us define where gamification might be helpful and it can help us see where and why gamified processes are not working properly. It is my idea that gamification as a social tool is only viable as far as the social environment in which it is embedded, is a networked (i.e. non-hierarchical) structure. Let me explain why.

The Big Question in my mind when it comes to the durability of gamification processes, is whether we will succeed in designing playfully interactive systems that support intrinsic motivation with external rewards. And when you consider the overjustification effect, I have some doubts about whether we will be entirely successful. The reason that points, badges and leaderboards are so boring (I think they are tiresome, bland and the reason behind gamification’s image as an over-hyped fad) is that by themselves they do nothing to support intrinsic motivation. Any motivation that might be there is quickly and effectively transformed into some worthless need to gain points and climb the leaderboard. Only when the reward system is closely coupled with intrinsic motivation, will the gamified process have an actual chance at being valuable and durable.

This leads us to search for ways to couple these external rewards to intrinsic motivation. To find a solution to this problem we first need to look for these intrinsic motivations. What, in other words, motivates people? Luckily, many psychologists have studied what drives the human mind and guess what they really, really want? Power, autonomy and belonging. Or, in my own words: People are driven by having the power to autonomously contribute value to and change the community in which they live. ‘Community’ here can be interpreted as a company, a village, a school, a political party, or any other organization.

Do you see why this is a problem for hierarchically organized institutions? Information in these structures flows down from the top, right? So, if somewhere at the bottom salesman X. is doing his work within a gamified environment, the rewards this process can hand out to him are limited by the overarching structure of the hierarchical organization. Because power and autonomy are mostly stored in the top layers of any hierarchy. So employee X. can sell all he wants, but he will only stay intrinsically motivated to perform well if real-life power, autonomy and belonging are his bonus. So only as long as he can realistically expect to rise in the hierarchy, will he continue to use the gamified process in a productive way. And let’s face it: many people are stuck in their job and they know it. A funky badge or bonus points will not fool them for a bit. Well, it actually might for a bit, but not much longer than that…

In networked structures, there is also hierarchy, but it normally created ad-hoc. Every process, every workflow, every project or conversation in a network has its own dynamics. Some might be called hierarchical, some are totally flat, some move somewhere on the line between those two. In such environments, external rewards can really dole out power and autonomy, in fact, more or less equal distribution of those is a characteristic of any complex network. Sometimes it is not even clear where in the network something started or where it is going. Allowing such unpredictable processes within an organization asks a lot of courage from a company because companies are taught to like predictability, risk-aversion and compliance. Many networked structures today don’t have to deal with these old, economically driven notions. Nobody there cares about ‘staying on top’. They just want to feel the power to do what they feel like within a larger whole.

That’s why I think social gamification holds a lot of promise for the future. It really comes into its own when applied to complex networks of people and it is exactly this kind of organization that is rapidly taking over the hierarchical organization as the predominant way of ‘doing things’ in the world today.

Do you think so, too? Please let me know your thoughts!

p.s. While writing this article, a thought popped into my mind: what if money is an external reward that has sucked our intrinsic motivation dry? Think about it…