Gamification Mechanics — Intrinsic Motivation

Where extrinsic motivation is about external factors driving engagement, intrinsic motivation is about internal factors.

By its nature intrinsic motivation can be more difficult to tap into. When it is though it is often far more effective than extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic mechanics in gamification are more prevalent since they very much work on the numbers of people, trying to capture more with the widest possible attractive elements.

Intrinsic motivation is often about personal motivations and how they’re made up.

Finding commonalities among more users is where similar approaches to extrinsic methods come in.

This usually works best with some kind of feedback system in development to adjust as needed. Tapping into personal motivations even when it works may not always be obvious why, since we’re really interested in using it effectively the why it works may only be important when it comes to applying to other systems and new designs. The most important is the what and how.

Ideally we’d want a system that automatically adapted and personalised to the user.

Replicating that in the first instance is to look at what does motivate many, if not all people.

A sense of personal achievement is a large motivator. This isn’t about receiving rewards but overcoming a challenge or solving a puzzle. The end goal is the reward. The best way to do this without alienating is going back to the feedback and achieving balance.

This is how it’s used in games by not having consistent difficulty but introducing players and then scaling difficulty (while not making it too easy) with the player’s experience and previous achievements.

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