Monday, January 20, 2014

Pub Crawl Gamification



This is a great example to illustrate many of the motivators that you can implement in a gamification layer.

A group of pubs in Ireland wanted to drum up some business so they created a short term event called the 12 Pubs of Christmas.  Since this is short term, it is OK to have extrinsic rewards.  But they have a combination of all types.  And I added a few of my own to round it out for some player profiles that seemed left out.


Mastery

  • Getting through all 12 Pubs alive (epic achievement motivation)
Relatedness

  • Singing songs together (collaboration motivation)
  • Wearing the same sweater (uniform) (in-group identity motivation)
  • You could do the pub crawl with any set of friends you wanted (one to one bonding motivation)
  • You could meet people as you went along (expand your network motivation).
Autonomy

  • You could go to any pub, at any time during the window, in any order, and still be part of it (freedom of time motivation)
  • If you weren’t interested in the special prizes, you could skip any of the pubs and any of the drinks on the list (freedom of action motivation)

Collection of sets

  • There were specific drink types allowed at each Pub.  There was a special reward if you drank one of each.
  • There were 12 pubs and you got a special reward if you went to them all.
Meaningful Purpose

  • It was a Christmas-themed pub crawl (Is Christmas still meaningful?  If so . . . )
Mystery

  • They could have had a few mystery drinks at one or two of the pubs.  Perhaps in addition to the official collection set or maybe as part of the set.
Disruption

  • The bawdiness of the songs.
  • The tackiness of the sweater.
  • Acting obnoxious with a good excuse.
  • Have safe times at each pub so that someone not interested in obnoxious and bawdy can also participate. 
Supplemental mechanics

  • There was a set time window for the crawl (time pressure mechanic)
  • They could have special rewards for being at a certain pub at a certain time (appointment mechanic)
Any others to add . . . . ???