G-Motiv project— CRISP Magazine # 1

Designing motivation. Changing human behaviour using game-elements. Achieving lasting change is difficult; people are often poorly motivated to change their status quo.

Transfer— Effect of user experienced game world on forming, altering, or reinforcing usercompliance,-behaviour, or – attitude, in the real world.

Game World

Persuasive Game Design Model

In his article, Gijs Ockeloen concludes with an example of how the effective use of information can influence or even shape the behaviour of, in his case, drivers. The G-Motiv project has a similar goal: changing people’ s behaviour by using elements of game design.

In the last decade, we have seen a surge of interest in theory of games, in how they are designed, how they are used, and for what purpose. Although this has resulted in some interesting overviews of the theoretical aspects of games, we have yet to see a unified model of persuasive game design— that is, the design of games aimed at behavioural change. At G-Motiv we proposed a first model integrating the process of game design with the design of behavioural transfer effects.

Playful persuasion

Games and play can be used to persuade people to change their behavior. In the I-PE project gaming is used to lure children away from their TV’ s and video games to become physically active.

When people think of games, they often think of the attributes required to play a game. Consider baseball: using the baseball bat as it should be used is likely to generate a game experience. But a baseball bat can also be used for other purposes, for instance as a weapon. Using it in a different manner will therefore generate a non-game experience.

For this reason, we think that instead of asking“ what is a game”, the question to ask is“ when is a game”. When users experience games, they are typically immersed in a game world that is, to some extent, separate from the real world( c. f. Huizinga’ s Magic Circle). Game worlds differ from real worlds with regard to their behavioural consequences. For instance, unlike the real world, a game world often rewards winning at the expense of a fellow player. Game elements, such as competition, rewards, fantasy, challenge, physical interaction, are symptomatic for game worlds and motivate the user to behaviourally engage with the game world and make the game world experience enjoyable and immersive.

Game designers use these game elements as tools to elicit this game world experience in its users. Persuasive game designers take this approach even further: they not only aim to elicit a game world experience but also seek to use this game world experience to achieve a transfer effect of a user’ s changed behaviour into the real world.

In the G-Motiv project, we aim to generate knowledge and prototypes for persuasive game design specifically aimed at social, physical, and mental healthcare. The Persuasive Game Design model( Visch, Vegt, Anderiesen & vdKooij, 2013) generalises the knowledge we have gathered in our projects. In the next phase of G-Motiv, we will not only use the model for inspiration to design our prototypes, but also to refine the model theoretically and turn it into an application manual for persuasive game designers. On the right hand page, we give an example of how we can use the model to change behaviour within the context of mental healthcare.

Valentijn Visch— 1971 v. t. visch @ tudelft. nl

. Assistant Professor at Delft

University of Technology, Industrial Design, Design Aesthetics. Project leader CRISP project G-Motiv