Dark Side of Gamification at PAX East 2020
Dark Side of Gamification at PAX East 2020
Dark Side of Gamification at PAX East 2020
Sunday March 1, 2020 1pm-2pm @ Bumblebee Theatre
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, 415 Summer St, Boston, MA 02210
PAX East - Boston, MA - Feb 27 - Mar 1, 2020
Gamification is supposed to be fun. That’s why businesses, organizations and individuals use it on a daily basis. Why else would someone play games? But what are the ethics of gamification? What stops one business or organization from doing something nefarious? Is there a limit to gamification? Should it be up to academics, the government, or individuals to police how gamification is used? Can you imagine a world dominated by the Black Mirror episode Nosedive? Join four gamers, designers, educators, and academics as they discuss a world where everyone you interact with is rated on a five star scale.
Presenters:
-Dave Eng, Clinical Professor, Educational Technologist, Game Designer, @davengdesign
-Naomi Pariseault, Brown University Instructional Designer, @elearngeekette
-Jim Egan, Brown University Professor of English
-Brian Eng, Game Designer, eng.team
Transcript
Dave Eng:
All right, welcome everyone. Hey, how you doing? Happy PAX, happy Sunday. Thanks for coming today. This presentation is going to be called the dark side of gamification. Who here, just by a show of hands, as heard of the concept of gamification before? Okay, unanimous, awesome. We do not have to go into the nitty-gritty, but I thank you. Before we can do it, I'm just one of the presenters today. I'd like to got through the row of professionals that are up here. I'll start with myself. Hey, everyone. My name is Dave Eng. I am a clinical professor and also educational technologist and game designer from New York University.
Naomi Pariseault:
I'm Naomi Pariseault. I'm an instructional designer at Brown University, and what that means is I work with faculty to design their courses.
Jim Egan:
Jim Egan. I'm a professor of English at Brown University, and I don't really know what that mean, myself.
Dave Eng:
All right. Today's presentation is about the dark side of gamification, but this was based specifically on one television show. Who here, by a show of hands, has seen Black Mirror? All right. Who here, by a show of hands, has seen this episode of Black Mirror? Nosedive, okay. For those of you, I'm going to guess about 25%, who has not seen this particular episode of Black Mirror, I'll catch you up very quickly. Bryce Dallas Howard, up here on the screen, she lives in a world where all interactions, so everything you do with other people, whether you buy a coffee from someone, you bring in cupcakes to someone to work, you go to school with them, you work with them, all interactions, you rate on a one to five scale.
Dave Eng:
Basically, everyone's like your Uber driver, so everything you do with someone, you rate them on a one to five scale, and then after you make that rating, that person's average then changes. That person's average then gives them access to special groceries, maybe a place to live, special privileges, abilities to book flights and everything else.
Dave Eng:
This rating system is a gamification element, and that was kind of the inspiration for today's presentation on the dark side of gamification. I won't spoil the episode for you. You should go out and check it out, but here's the overview. Here are the different topics we're going to cover. We think that the feedback from the community, so people like you, is very important, so what we want to do is provide this really, really broad overview on what we see with gamification and how it could be used for nefarious purposes, and then we'll do the Q&A, and the Q&A's going to be based right there over on this side of the room where you can see that microphone standing up.
Dave Eng:
With gamification we're going to talk about information and privacy, basic needs, when it comes to individuals and how that's used in gamification, this concept, quote, unquote, of "big brother", the science behind psychology and motivation, which has a lot to do with games and specifically a lot to do with gamification. We're going to talk specifically about gambling and loot boxes, because that's a big thing in games right now. We'll talk about reinforcing stereotypes, unfolding examples, and then lastly and most importantly, what can you do about how gamification can be used for nefarious purposes and how you can mitigate some of that.
Dave Eng:
All right. The first thing I want to talk about is information and privacy. This is something I talk about with a lot of my students in the past, because what they don't realize and often what a lot of people don't realize is that whenever you pay for something, you gain that service or product or something else. Like, you could buy a board game, you could buy a game on Steam, you cold buy groceries, you could by an Uber ride or something else.
Dave Eng:
You're exchanging money for goods or service, or something else, but if something is free, oftentimes you are the product. You are the good, you are the service. Some good examples here, think about social media. For the most part, these platforms are free to use but that is because your activity on those platforms becomes data that is then used for marketers or for online advertising or for any other reason. That's one of the big things I like to tell people at the very beginning.
Dave Eng:
If you're paying for something, you're getting something in exchange. You're getting a service, you're getting a product, but if you're not, if it's free, it's often because you are the service, you are the product. Now that we've covered information and privacy, I'm going to go onto basic needs. I'm going to toss it over to my co-presenter, Naomi.
Naomi Pariseault:
Hi, everyone. What's really interesting about the basic needs is you have to think about the unintended implications and unintended consequences. We are all vastly different people. We're vastly motivated by different things, and so sometimes when you're designing a game, for example, and a particular mechanic, you might add something in later that wasn't in the original game and that has a cascading, unintended effect throughout the rest of the game.
Naomi Pariseault:
I'm thinking about deck combos in Magic: The Gathering, for example, when decks were banned because they were too powerful. That wasn't intended, but people figure things out because they're motivated by different ways and motivated to often game the system. Sometimes people end up focusing on the wrong thing, like, they're interested in earning rewards versus the reason that they are playing. That's the balance between the extrinsic motivation, like the trophies and points and things, and the intrinsic motivation, like, just the joy of playing, like, doing well and that.
Naomi Pariseault:
What's really, really interesting is we design games or gamified things with a specific intention. All of a sudden, whoa, things are not what we thought they might be and totally different things are happening. A really, really great example is what happened at Disneyland. They wanted to motivate their employees to process the tons and tons of laundry that they had there quickly and efficiently, so they designed this gamified system to reward people.
Naomi Pariseault:
What happened? Some people were so motivated by the system that they weren't taking care of themselves. They were skipping bathroom breaks, they were trying to work as hard as possible, not eating. That was not what they intended, but people were so motivated by the reward system and the gamified system they had put in place with the idea of efficiency in mind, that is not a nefarious thing. That's not a bad thing, but people took it a little bit too far because they were so into it, so you just want to think very carefully about those unintended consequences. When we're thinking about games and gamification, both as creators and players, we want to ask, what are players giving up so they can use our system? What is their attention? Is it their time, their social safety? And what is the cost for playing?
Dave Eng:
All right. We've covered information and privacy so far. Naomi talked about those basic needs. If you haven't read, there's an article published about that whole scenario at Disney World and I think it's going to be in the references for these slides but it's definitely one that you should read because I think it really speaks to those unintended consequences whenever you come up with a gamified system.
Dave Eng:
Now I want to talk about quote, unquote, "big brother" if we were going to get into some George Orwell type of universe. Big Brother is often one of those phrases that gets thrown around whenever we think about big data, really, because with big brother, we imagine that there's this large, nefarious organization, maybe Hydra-like, that has our information that's going to do something with it.
Dave Eng:
Some of those big examples that I brought up before, social media, so, there's the Facebook controversy, Instagram is a platform, Twitter, really any other major social media platform is using this data. Everything that you do, all of your activities, all your actions, then becomes information that those platforms could use for their purposes.
Dave Eng:
Another one is Google Maps, and, I guess, by extension, Waze. I'm going to guess most of you here are Redditors, so has anyone seen that post where the dude walking around with the wheelbarrow with all the phones in it? Yeah, yeah. He was able to create a traffic jam on the map, that's because the way that these apps use your information is that they make educated guesses on it based on the speed at which it's moving and that's all data. That's all information that you are offering up as a user of Google Maps as a user of Waze. And then an example that hits really close to home is PAX XP. Who here by show of hands has been tagging their tags on the buzzers around there? Yeah, you know what? I don't even remember doing it. I'm just like, Oh, I'm walking up to it, I'm walking up to it and then I tag it. All of a sudden Penny Arcade or Reed Pop has my information.
Dave Eng:
I mean, that's something that I am choosing to do. I mean, at least it feels like I'm choosing to do it. But at the end, you have to remember that that is information that when you take those actions, whenever you do these things, you're offering up that information to a third party. Usually this larger organization. All right, so we covered information privacy, those basic needs, Big Brother, and how that's being used right now. Here's a really, really great example, and I think we should talk about it, is psychology and motivation, and both Jim and Naomi are going to take this slide.
Jim Egan:
Thank you, Dave. The part of the reason that when it's doing gamification, one of the things one often does, and I come at this because from the perspective of Naomi and I have gamified several courses, several online courses at Brown, and one of the things one does when one does that is create personas as a kind of marketing strategy. But more to figure out, well, what are these students? What motivates them to do assignments? What motivates them to take this class? What motivates somebody to an unknowingly in some ways walk up to a device and scan their identification on it? What are the things that are driving people to do that?
Jim Egan:
Now, of course, we're all unique and so we're all collection of those motives, desires, fears, et cetera. So there are a lot of different, if you go online as many of you probably have, there are all kinds of now motivational profiles that you can use to identify different motivating factors for people.
Jim Egan:
And then in the case of the class that Naomi and I were doing, or the classes, we were trying to figure out, well, what are the kind of likely students and what are the motivating factors that they would use to take these? What kind of assignments would reward them? What kind of quests would they be more likely to do and get what we want educationally out of it? Because the goal here is of course it's how you can use that, those motivating factors, to get them to, in the case of this, these courses, to get them to learn more, to get them to learn not only the content but in order to master the skills of these courses.
Jim Egan:
But, of course, you can also see that knowing, or at least thinking you know, and design a range of people's motivating factors and then designing a course or designing a platforms at a convention that people will tag to give you their information. Those can be used for quite benign or even potentially helpful purposes as I hope the classes we were teaching were. Or they can be used for more nefarious purposes. Naomi, do you want to take over from there?
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah. I mean, it's really amazing when I'm thinking about gamification design. There's so much psychology embedded in this. We're uniquely gearing the gamified experience, the course and the example that Jim gave, to be fine tuned to the students that are going to enroll in the course. And so, in that way, with that very, very specific fine tuning, that can be a little uncomfortable and there's a very fine line between motivation and manipulation, right?
Naomi Pariseault:
And you could even argue both ways. And so, one has a very positive connotation and one has a negative connotation, but it could be that we're essentially designing the course in a particular way to motivate students and manipulate them into enjoying the system and being part of the system, being motivated by the system. I like to say that we're motivating them because we're thinking about the positive aspect of it. We're asking them to tap into challenges and we're really driving on their intrinsic motivation. But sometimes when I read these behavioral economics things, I get really angry, right? And I'm like, Oh my gosh, they've fine tuned the font on signs to get me to buy stuff and that drives me bonkers.
Naomi Pariseault:
And so, when I'm designing gamified experiences, I'm trying to think very, very carefully, very thoughtfully about what we're doing here because we are leveraging psychology and how people work, what they're motivated by, and people can take things too far. And so I'm trying to make sure that I'm protecting folks in my design well and making sure that I'm motivating them in a positive manner. And so, when I'm thinking about gamification design, I never want it to be addicting. I would never design for that. I know that sometimes mobile games or other things that's an aim, right? And that's really, really frustrating for me as someone working in this sphere. I don't aim for that.
Naomi Pariseault:
I also would say that players see through your design, right? They're going to figure that out and then we'll talk about loot boxes a little bit later. But yeah, people see through that. So just be aware of that. Even with all this psychology and motivation and these things that are shrouded in the design, people still through see through it.
Naomi Pariseault:
We do a lot of playtesting, right? We got to playtest one of Dave's game designs, which was really, really fun here at PAX. But playtesting is so critically important getting it in front of so many people, especially people in your target audience. So if you're designing games, playing games, if you've been a playtester here, that's incredibly useful for the gamification or game designers here, so thank you for doing that because it's so, so important to get it in front of as many people as possible.
Dave Eng:
So, Naomi, I know you brought up gambling and loot boxes before and that's one of those things that come up in the game designs now and is being used in other platforms. Can you tell us more about gambling and loot boxes overall?
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah, yeah. I'd like to. The time is right. Is anyone here not familiar with loot boxes?
Dave Eng:
Couple of people.
Naomi Pariseault:
Or, I guess, who's here is familiar with loot boxes? Let's start there. All right.
Dave Eng:
There we go.
Naomi Pariseault:
So a lot of people are. Okay. That's a better question to ask.
Dave Eng:
Our Redditors.
Naomi Pariseault:
All right. For anyone who doesn't, it's an in-game reward system that's often has a randomized selection of items and players can either buy or earn them. And there's often a very pleasurable experience with getting a loot box and opening it. So there's obviously visual effects and sounds and it's a really big deal to get them and open them. Right? And so there's the psychology with that. It feels great to get them.
Naomi Pariseault:
What's really, really interesting is when things have gone sideways with loot boxes. So I want to first talk about the psychology behind gambling and the tie-in to loot boxes, and then talk a little bit about how things have gone sideways with them because in and of themselves, loot boxes are not bad. It's just the way they've been implemented in design has given them a bad rap, which I think is really unfortunate.
Naomi Pariseault:
All right. The psychology here is super, super interesting. There are four different kinds of reinforcement schedules. So, how and action and the timing of that influences our behavior and our motivation. I actually had to write these downs that I didn't mix them up because I think it's important.
Naomi Pariseault:
So fixed interval. A fixed interval is where something is going to come at a particular time and you always know it. It's consistent. You're going to get a paycheck at the end of every week, right? And so that's a given. Every Friday you're going to get paid, or every two weeks, so you know that that's going to happen. That gives a moderate response, insignificant pause after it happens. So after you get, like you're really excited about your paycheck, oh, my gosh, like you've planned the things you're going to buy on Friday or Saturday, right? On the weekend, right? Ooh, payday happened this past Friday, right? Great for PAX. But then after it happens, there's a lull, right? And you're not going to be overly excited about it until Thursday or Friday when the next paycheck is coming. So that is very predictable.
Dave Eng:
So a gamified example would be your character. Once you reach a threshold of experience points, you will level up. So that's another example of a fixed interval reinforcement.
Naomi Pariseault:
Thanks, Dave.
Dave Eng:
Yep.
Naomi Pariseault:
All right. So with variable interval, that would be checking Instagram, right? Or maybe logging into a game like Wizards Unite to check out, see what's going on with the Foundables in that area, right? So it's got a moderate and steady response, but it's not fixed. It can happen randomly anytime you're getting those hits of dopamine as you're going through it. But it's kind of tapered off and you're kind of... It's not like you've got it open chronically all the time.
Naomi Pariseault:
All right. So here's where things get a little bit interesting with fixed ratio. So this is where after every five sales, a salesperson gets a bonus. Or after every five levels, you get a bonus in a game. So here's where there's a really high response rate and a really, really high amount of motivation to get to that goal, right? Because it's only five. But when you hit four, you're really excited. And then afterward, there's pauses for reinforcement. But then if you know that, then 10 sales, you've hit 5, now 10 sales or 10 levels, you get another bonus. And then maybe it goes up to 20, but you're still really motivated to get to that, especially as the closer you get. So that one is a little bit more powerful for motivation. And then the final one, which is variable ratio, is the most gets the most powerful response.
Naomi Pariseault:
And this is gambling. So gambling is... Okay. I put in my quarter on the slot machine and I play. And then I'm putting in another one and another one. Or all of a sudden, I'm putting in $20 and I'm almost at the end and I'm about to leave and I win 10. And it's always, "What if that next turn, that next pull is going to get me that?" I'm getting reinforcement, that positive dopamine hit, but it's completely random and you're always wondering what if. What if it's the next one? And you're incredibly motivated by that because it's random. But that positive reinforcement is just something that has such pull for you. So with loot boxes, huge, huge problem. Originally was collection sets, right? So you get an extra bonus reward for getting five of something, right?
Naomi Pariseault:
So you get the four and they're pretty easy to get, and that fifth one is really, really rare until you keep spending money or keep playing the game with the motivation to get that set. And so it was actually Japan that banned those type of loot boxes originally first. That was one of the original issues with loot boxes, so that was really, really interesting. And sets are highly problematic because not only you having that gambling motivation piece, but you also have the people who are motivated by collecting and saving, right? I bought both sets of pin sets with the planets here because I wanted them both when I was here. Right? So I think that collection set, I wanted to make sure I left with that. So I would be more susceptibly prone to collection as a mechanic in something because I want that.
Naomi Pariseault:
So that was, I think, especially tricky for that one. And so I also think that with loot boxes, another thing that is highly problematic is the time it takes to earn to play or pay to play. Right? And I think that loot boxes are totally fine, but all of a sudden, loot boxes are only associated with the items that are most rare in the game or you can't get them at all. It inhibits you from being able to move forward and that is highly problematic. So it's the way that they've been structured in the game, that's the problem, not the loot boxes themselves. And lots of countries now are looking at it. Belgium recently banned loot boxes from games and games have had been pulled. So lots of people are looking at, "Is this actually gambling right now?" And I think it's really, really important as players and game designers to speak up about these things with loot boxes because I would like to see them used in a way that's balanced, right?
Naomi Pariseault:
It shouldn't be the top tier reward that'll inhibit me for moving forward. Or I can just, rather than playing the 250 hours it would take to finish the game and earn everything, it's only 50 hours for me to play the game and buy my way through it. Right? That's an incredible disparity. There was a game example and I don't remember which one it was, but that was the disparity. 50 hours versus 250 hours, which is insane. And so I just think it's really, really important to just be conscientious of how loot boxes are being used. And I think that people have spoken out to the most down voted comment on Reddit, right? I mean, yes. I mean, let's round of applause for all of us. Right? I mean, the most down voted comment on Reddit was against EA games for their retort on why they set up Star Wars Battlefront to be the way that it was. Shame on them, right?
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You maybe weren't intending it to be so powerful, but people have already paid for your game and now you have to pay to be able to get the things that we wanted to be able to have been earned. Right? That's just unfair. So shame on them. And that's all I have to say about that. So think about the implications of the designs. EA games, I think, learned their lesson. But...
Dave Eng:
So that's not one of the only negative consequence now. I mean, there's also the aspect of reinforcing stereotypes whenever gamification is used. So can you and Jim talk a little bit more about that?
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah, we'd love to.
Jim Egan:
Sure. I think I'll start. One of the things, I come at this from the aspect of storyteller. And one of the things Naomi and I were doing as we were gamifying these courses was coming up with stories, a story to unify the course. And what we wanted to try to avoid were characters and situations that would reward stereotypes and predominant assumptions that we wanted to try to, that we didn't want to reward. And part of the reason we wanted to do that is because we understood the power of stories, right? There's a magic to stories that's really always been quite remarkable to me, that is even a story that tries as faithfully as possible to reflect everything in the world because it is a story, because it is not the world itself, creates its own world that you live in, that can reinforce especially if you play it over and over again, or especially if you read it over and over again, can reinforce and solidify those stereotypes and assumptions that we want to try to avoid.
Jim Egan:
So as a storyteller, when I say that, what I mean is that as with the psychology, characters are, as we are, unique, distinct. We wanted to make these characters have some distinctive personality, distinctive characteristics that would make them feel like they were real characters and not reward the kind of stereotypical thinking or set of assumptions that we wanted to try to avoid. So we came up with a character for the first iteration of one of our gamified courses of character, Layla, who is from another planet.
Jim Egan:
She's a humanoid. The whole course of this core, the whole focus of the course and the game is, what does it mean to be human? Layla is neither human, is not human, but she seems a little human. Her gender roles in her society are not, don't exactly translate to ours. So she became the focus of the story as students tried to teach her what it meant to be human. And we found that the students were really engaged with this character in part because they had various qualities that were unexpected, that did not reward those kinds of assumptions. So that was one example of what we felt was a case where we were trying to work against assumed or assumptions, stereotypes, etc. And I think, Naomi, you have a few more examples of problematic or unproductive…
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah, I do.
Jim Egan:
Yeah.
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah. I think one of the most powerful things about Layla too was the fact that her planet didn't assign gender in the same way. And that was really powerful for our students and students initially on the gate were able to share their preferred pronouns in a really warm way. And that's obviously encouraged in the culture and community at Brown. But we just were really blown away by how the students were able to do that.
Naomi Pariseault:
And I think through Layla's identification, we also knew that Jim being a player character/non-player character in our gamified course. Right? Cause he's interacting with the students as a professor. But we also baked him into the narrative that actually was unfolding in the course. Him as a male, we wanted to make sure that there was balance of representation. That's something that's really important.
Naomi Pariseault:
I think in games, it's really frustrating for me as a woman to play something that I don't see identification nor at least some likeability to see myself in that game. So I always appreciate that, which is actually a really great segue into a couple of the other examples I have.
Naomi Pariseault:
So I worked with students this past summer in high school actually who could come to Brown to take a summer course with us. And what was interesting is they were designing games to help solve real world problems. And so we have them play testing and prototyping a bunch of different games before they did their final game project. And what was really interesting was how they were thinking about these game systems and how they were designing the mechanics in a particular way. So one example for the popularity was I had a group of students who wanted to create a game to help middle schoolers prepare for high school.
Naomi Pariseault:
Great. Perfect. One of their game mechanics was geared towards popularity and I asked them, "Do you want to do that? Is that something you should be rewarding in this game that mirrors this real world system?" Or should you tweak it and think about what matters? If you're preparing these middle schoolers for high school, obviously this popularity thing exists. But do you really want to reward that to that degree and even have that highlighted in the games?
Naomi Pariseault:
We talked about that. Right? Because you're creating a world that mirrors our real world but also challenges that. And so they were able to tweak the game and in a completely different way to not reward popularity. And this also came up with the students. We picked themes when they're designing their games. And so the themes was love and the wild West. And so they had to create a game for that.
Naomi Pariseault:
And a lot of the games had the Cowboys saving the cowgirl at the end. Right? The damsel in distress. And I know that obviously Mario and Peach had that going on with Nintendo. And I totally think that's cool and I respect that, but I asked the question, "Alright, I'm ready to play your game. I'm so bummed that I can't be a cowgirl. What's up with that? I don't want to be the one who's saved at the end. Why is it a cowboy? Why is that the assumed character?, Right?"
Naomi Pariseault:
And so I think they ended up changing it so it was a cowboy saving cowboy, which had its own Brokeback mountain thing going on. But it was definitely better. It was really productive to have those conversations. Right? About how this is creating a world that mirroring a world, reinforcing the world.
Dave Eng:
Alright, thank you Naomi and Jim. So I want to preface this with, they both work at Brown university and they're working on gamifying individual classes. Which I think is a really great and positive use of gamification. But now I want to go back towards a little bit of the dark side and talk a little bit about some unfolding examples of how gamification is being used for nefarious purposes. So one of the most, I think egregious examples if I may say so, is in China. The government is implementing something called the Sesame Credit Score where if you've been paying attention at the very beginning, individuals who do things in society will be rated on a five point scale. And on that five point scale, they're then issued a social credit score that they call the Sesame Credit Score System.
Dave Eng:
If this sounds a lot like Nosedive in from Black Mirror, it's because a lot of it is. So this system seemingly from a dystopian universe is now currently being in use right now. And that's probably one of the biggest examples of how gamification is being used for these nefarious purposes.
Dave Eng:
Another thing to remember is taking advantage of workers. Whenever we see or whenever I see gamification being used for some of these nefarious purposes, it's because they want to take advantage of the productivity of those workers. So the example that Naomi brought up before was done at Disney World, I believe down in Orlando. And it was to achieve a corporate goal, which was to have their workers working in the laundromat maximize the amount of time there in order to process as much laundry as possible. Because the more laundry that they can process, the more rooms and beds they can turn over and ultimately it helps them.
Dave Eng:
And because, the same wage you're paying to workers are getting more product productivity out of them meant that this was a great business goal. But you also have to think about does that mean that your workers are not taking breaks? Does that mean your workers are not ... they're taking double or triple shifts. Does that mean that they're not eating or sleeping or anything else? You always have to think about that.
Dave Eng:
Another example is any application of gamification that infringes on people's autonomy. I brought up that PAX XP thing before. And I know in my head I'm going up without a paddle and I'm tapping it from my badge and I'm doing that. But anytime you ever use gamification and a person feels more than compelled, which I know is kind of iffy to describe. But if they feel like this is something that they need to do, that's when you're infringing on people's autonomy a little bit.
Dave Eng:
I think one of the great parts about games is that it provides people with a lot of really great meaningful choices and meaningful decisions to make. But if it's not meaningful for them or if they feel compelled to do one thing or the other, that's not really a great use of games. And that's not a great use of gamification.
Dave Eng:
And another one, and this one's kind of iffy. It's that if there's a negative impact on the moral character of parties, and I realize that's kind of a really big sentence to unpack. But really it's one of those things of I'll just go back to Jurassic park here. Just because you can do something does not mean you should do something. So, oftentimes we always have to ask ourselves, particularly us working in higher education or working in game design. Just because we can do something. Just because we know people will probably do it and take advantage of it, does not mean we should do it.
Dave Eng:
We always have to think about what are these moral implications of what we do? Why are we doing it? Ultimately, what is the bottom line and how will this affect us as a community of gamers, us as a community of academics and researchers and everything else? So again, just because you can do something does not mean you should. Alright, so following up and closing us off Naomi. What can we do to address some of the dark sides of gamification?
Naomi Pariseault:
Well. Good question. So it really touches upon a lot of what we've talked about in this presentation. You want to think about what do they get as players, as students, as whoever's in the gamified system. Like what are the people with Fitbit getting if I'm Fitbit corporate headquarters just getting our data right, but you want to think about the implications of data and what do I get as the player too? And that balance of benefit and protection of my privacy and my data and what is done with that information and data? I mean we've seen so much now with the whole conundrum with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, right? That's brought to light some of the things that we didn't know, we're obviously like "yeah, yeah, we're aware and oh yeah, it's just my data.
Naomi Pariseault:
It's no big deal." But all of a sudden we're able to figure out that people... where our loved ones go to school, right? And all these other things are the craziness of someone realizing you're buying a puppy or adopting a puppy before you get one. Right? Because they're able to look at our credit card stuff. So it's just crazy the amount of information that can be called from the data that we're sharing.
Naomi Pariseault:
So just with game designs, just to be aware of that is really important. Yep. And we already talked about the privacy piece too. That is so, so critically important. So anytime there's data and information, there's privacy. That's an automatic pairing and an automatic given. And it's so important in today's world with the cybersecurity and hacks and everything that information is kept private and safe. And I also think it's really important to stop and reflect and think about when you're playing something and it doesn't seem right, something seems off to be aware of that there's heavy psychological underpinnings with everything. Like with the gambling, we talked about what that reinforcement schedule is.
Naomi Pariseault:
So just stopping to reflect when you're playing something, it doesn't seem right. I also think that from the creator side that we want to be play testing, play testing, play testing and thinking about the dynamics that we're creating and the implications of our design and the unintended effects that we're having. But as people who are playing games or engaging in gamified systems to speak up, right? And on the various channels that we have about things and give thoughtful and meaningful feedback if we're a play tester for a prototype cause that can be incredibly helpful for the designers as well.
Dave Eng:
All right, Thank you Naomi. So we're going to open it up to questions. Again, the microphone is right there. So I just wanted to review this before we get into the Q and A part of the panel. But overall in dark side of gamification we covered information and privacy, the basic needs of the community that you're serving. This whole concept of big brother psychology and motivation and remember what Naomi talked about before with that fixed interval and variable ratio of reinforcement and also schedule of when things happen, gambling and loot boxes, which happens to be a big thing right now, reinforcing stereotypes which affects a lot of your work. Jim and Naomi at Brown, those unfolding examples. And then what can you do in your own every day play in practice of how can you mitigate a lot of the dark stuff that can happen with gamification.
Dave Eng:
So, that brings us to the end. We'll now take questions if there are any available. Again, my name is Dave. I was joined today by Jim and Naomi. If you'd like to get a copy of the slides you can just go to that link or you can just use your phone to scan a QR code on the screen. So we will take our first question.
Speaker 4:
Hi. So what are your thoughts on personal behavior gamification? I'm thinking about like weight loss games or exercise games, games that are trying to get you to meet some personal behavior goal through gamification mechanics.
Dave Eng:
Okay, thank you. I guess I'm taking this. So I would say remember what we were talking about before with ultimately whenever you use those apps you are entering your information about your own weight loss gain or your weight change overall. If you feel that giving up that information will help you reach your goal, whether it is to gain or lose or maintain your weight, then I think it's a fair trade off. I know for me as like a Fitbit user, Fitbit knows a ton about my health right now, but I think it's great because it's also helped me become a better and healthier individual when it comes to play tester that. I think that's actually kind of a good use of gamification. But I also realize that the trade off is that I've given a third party my information. But I've also read their terms of service or I've scanned or terms of service for Fitbit. So I kind of know what they're doing. So for me, my personal opinion is that I think it's worth it.
Speaker 5:
How's it going, Panel? Quick question. So do you guys think that this generation of kids specifically around let's say eight to 12 that grew up playing games that have loot boxes, do you think they're ever going to be able to enjoy life afterwards?
Dave Eng:
Wow. I love that question, but I don't like the amount of time I have to answer it. Do you want to take it, Naomi?
Naomi Pariseault:
Life in the post loot box world, right?
Speaker 5:
Yeah its taken away from-
Dave Eng:
It's like pre-loot box, post loot box on the timeline.
Naomi Pariseault:
I'm so bummed that someone had to ruin it for everybody else. Right? It could have been anything but why did they have to make that happen? I mean, I hope so. I hope loot boxes end up getting used in really productive ways to erase that negative history and kind of build up the mechanic in what it should have been. So I'm hopeful for the future if game designers are being thoughtful and I would hope that loot boxes, would it be either easier to earn through gameplay or maybe used in the middle level of like this is the most desirable hardest thing to get. This is the easiest thing to acquire that it would be used somewhere in the middle.
Naomi Pariseault:
I mean I know with NHL they have a loot box type thing with the bags, right? Like the hockey bags. I was asking my husband "do you care about them? Do you want them a lot?" Cause he plays it and he's kind of middle of the road. But I think that's a thoughtful use of that mechanic. Right? Because it's exciting when you win like a really high-stakes tournament, you get to have that and there's a clear connection between the skill that you have and the thing that you earn.
Dave Eng:
I don't think I've ever lived my life without loot boxes because of magic. I've never known a life without loot box.
Jim Egan:
Yeah. Can I just say, I guess as the father of two sons who play games all the time with loot boxes and I don't know, I just have no worries whatsoever. Will they be able to enjoy life afterwards?
Speaker 5:
Like for perspective, me and my friends call [inaudible 00:38:20] games. They're, they're crack games. They're pretty bad.
Jim Egan:
I understand. I guess I'm so old now and I have heard for my entire life X will mean that the children of the future will not enjoy life. And I mean I think climate change is a much bigger threat. So I guess I just don't see it. I don't think of myself as Pollyannaish. I just think we tend to generate these concerns, understandable concerns that are not going to be the genuine... They're not going to... That are not as much of a threat as we think.
Speaker 6:
Hey guys, what's going on? So, Oh should probably back up a little bit though. But my question is it seems that technology always lags, excuse me, strike that. Legislation always lags behind technology here and every time we do something there's always going to be a negative side effect. Do you feel like we need some form of perhaps simple legislation to help protect people's digital identities? Just because here we all share the identity of gamers right here and I always hear that people bad mouth and gamers about this or that. I don't think we should let the actions of the few reflect upon the group as a whole. So I'm just thinking, are there any particular methods or angles of attack to kind of help address this and just protect our personal information and if we are going to give it out, give it out in a way that's maybe not 101 pages long.
Jim Egan:
Mm-hmm I'll go first as a person who is almost as ignorant as one could possibly be about legislative processes, I guess my inclination is to say that without some form of legislation, it's only going to get worse. I would be in favor of something like that, but it would all be in a case by case basis. That's a Weasley answer I know, but that's the best I can do.
Naomi Pariseault:
I work with cybersecurity folks at Brown, actually students who are studying to be in cybersecurity like C-suite stuff so I see and hear a lot of things. I think what's really interesting about games is sometimes it falls between the cracks of other things, right? That's the whole thing with loot boxes is they're like, "Well, we can't enforce this because it falls underneath this stuff." There's this funkiness around the fact that it doesn't fit into the mold. They're trying to create legislation. Think about copyright, right? It enables you to be a creative user of information. It has gray area, but it stood the test of time for a long time. They only had to create new laws in 2000 to deal with digital stuff as an addendum. But generally speaking, the principles are applicable.
Naomi Pariseault:
I think that they're having a really hard time because they had gambling legislation and now they're like, "What is this coming out of left field?" But, games fall in between the cracks. I think that there needs to be some thoughtful look at things in a broader sense so that people can be enabled to make really good design choices without having to worry too much about all the different variations. I've seen that with drone laws too, every state has their own drone laws and everything is happening individually and people are figuring out all the same things. I'm really curious on what level legislation happens, but I hope that helped answer your question. Dave, do you want to add anything else?
Dave Eng:
Technology is always going to move faster than legislation. That's why we don't have any laws that prohibit time travel or no one has come back to tell us to enact those laws yet.
Speaker 6:
Thank you, guys.
Dave Eng:
Thank you.
Speaker 7:
Hello.
Dave Eng:
Hello.
Naomi Pariseault:
Hi.
Speaker 7:
I don't really have a question but I want to get and contribute something to the discussion. One of my favorite games is RuneScape and something they've done in the last few years is they have these double XP events. What they found in the beginning is at first they just had over the weekend. If you logged in at any time over the weekend and did whatever training you want to do, you'd get that double XP bonus. But, what they discovered is that their players were harming themselves to maximize the double XP bonus. Recently, what they've done is they gave you 48 hours of double XP time over 10 days as a way to encourage their players to sleep, eat, drink, live, all those positive things.
Dave Eng:
Basic needs.
Speaker 7:
Exactly. Perhaps, there's something to be learned there as a positive way to mitigate these unintended consequences or in some gamification system if something does happen, maybe something like that could be done.
Dave Eng:
RuneScape isn't the only one that's done that. My Wii has yelled at me to tell me to go outside and then I have a yelling match from my TV telling me how to live my life. But, it's always in there somewhere.
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah. That's such a great thing to bring up. Thank you for sharing that. Right? Because you think about it is, if there's a double XP event and it's really time bound and limited, aren't you infuriated if you're doing some real life stuff like, "Oh, I got to go to a baby shower, rats, probably can't log in." That's some Wizards Unite is doing some stuff with that because I'm a big player of that. I'm really thankful when they have longer events rather than the one day like three-hour nonsense. I hope that game designers are looking at what other people are doing that's really productive to protect people because it's really important. It makes you happier and take care of yourself.
Dave Eng:
Thank you.
Speaker 7:
Thank you.
Dave Eng:
Hello.
Speaker 8:
Hi there. You guys talked a little bit about companies using gamification systems to get more productivity out of their employees. With Disney and their laundry system and Amazon recently came under fire for implementing something similar as well. My question is, because of the effects that we know that gamification has on people, our employer created gamification systems. Are they always inherently exploitative, just trying to squeeze more productivity for the same amount of time out of an employee? Or, are there ways that an employer can gamify daily activities without it being this inherently dystopic exploitative thing?
Jim Egan:
I would say that I am absolutely against all absolutes. I wouldn't say it is inherently. I'm just uncomfortable with that word inherent. For instance, Brown is an employer. Even though I don't do gamification for the university and for the employees, there are possibilities I think there to have the workers' interests at heart. I don't hold up Brown as an idealic, but as the example of a company that never exploits his workers, I would never say that. But, I do think I can imagine at least that employer, my employer, doing something which is in the longterm interests of its employees and does have a potential effect on their productivity, but is not the main goal of that. Whether that's a very common thing about for employers, I would be skeptical of that. But personally, I wouldn't think of it as an absolute or inherent aspect of gamification by any kind of corporation or large business entity.
Naomi Pariseault:
We've seen some great examples. We've gone through some certifications where a lot of folks are in the training sphere, right? They're creating training, gamified training. Right? We had someone gamify fire safety evacuation training and things that people need to know and to make that experience as good as it can be. Also, we found that the things that they're choosing to gamify are things that are not as fun to do at work. Not that they're trying to exploit the people to be more efficient with that because that's not their end goal. They're trying to make this painful thing a little bit less painful. I think it's all about the mechanics that are chosen and how you're playing on someone's extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. I think there's a balance and a really thoughtful way to do that in a way that's not in it because it depends on the end goal.
Naomi Pariseault:
With the efficiency thing, that's where things start to go awry when you're trying to get. The goal is to get the most productivity out of the worker as possible. But, you have to think about when you're gamifying something like, "Why are you doing it and what's the end goal and what should that person be able to do afterwards?" That's a big piece. I think that there's hope for thoughtful gamification and I'm seeing it from people. We were in a certification with 12, 15 other people and I didn't see anything that rose red flags for me. I hope that they continue.
Speaker 8:
Thank you very much.
Dave Eng:
Thank you. Hello.
Alex:
Hello. First off, thanks, Dave, Naomi and Jim. My name is Alex Story. I'm an instructional designer at a big corporation. Recently, I created a game of sorts that allows leaders to practice giving feedback to employees, that they make microaggressions without having to base those role plays off of their personal experiences, and leaders are loving it. I've already had a senior leader asked me to create a similar game for having conversations about sexual harassment. I'm a little hesitant, and my mind immediately went to what you talked about, about just because you can do it, doesn't mean that you should. I guess my question is what do you suggest that I do to limit any unintended consequences and implications about creating a game in this space?
Dave Eng:
You're the ID.
Naomi Pariseault:
I'm the ID. You're also an ID.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, to lots of things.
Naomi Pariseault:
That's a really tough one. So we've talked about this before because we had a panel on using games for learning. What is the best way to help someone do what they need to do, and gamification isn't always the answer. So once people see gamification and they do a particular thing with badges and points and leader boards... Dave was joking around about this. They have a hammer, everything becomes a nail, right? So sometimes a handout is enough. Sometimes a 10-minute online course is enough. Sometimes a poster is enough. So I guess the question is what's the best way for people to learn that and how are you respectful with the learning?
Naomi Pariseault:
This wasn't a gamified example, but one of the most profound examples of training that I saw was around domestic abuse training for police officers. This was just really, really well done. So it was online, and it had point-of-view video that would pause and stop and ask the person in the training to choose a prompt, like a dialogue prompt and what they would say to the person, what they would do next. Then as it was going through, it would point out things you should be looking for with that. They did a really great job with the color palette and just the tone and seriousness of the training. It was exceptional. I think it won an award.
Jim Egan:
It's a scenario. It's a simulation.
Naomi Pariseault:
Simulation, right. That was a better use rather than... They could have, I suppose, gamified it, but this was five years ago. It was just a really thoughtful design for that and with the content in mind. So you may be able to shift the design in a way that you think is productive.
Alex:
All right, thank you.
Jim Egan:
Thank you. Hi.
Speaker 11:
Hello. So my company introduced some productivity tracking software last year. At first, it was told to all the employees, it's meant to be just personal to you so that you can see your own productivity enhanced. Later on, their senior got a hold of data, and they're starting to issue reports about this team is working say maybe five hours on average per day and this one is at six or something like that. So there were some gamification elements, like if you work for maybe an hour and a half at one sitting, you get a star that kind of pops up saying, "Good, you were focusing for this amount of time." So I just wanted your thoughts on how to prevent this from going down the wrong path. Is there anything sort of organizations out there that independently audit corporations that are introducing this type of thing or workers' rights or just some ideas from you?
Dave Eng:
My immediate reaction is that if you are using the corporation's hardware, like their computers, their workstations and everything else, that it doesn't belong to you. That's their hardware and they have the ability to monitor it. Personally and philosophically, I would not stand for that. I'm at a point in my career where it's like you've got to trust me to do the work with my own autonomy and my privacy or you don't. So it's kind of a hard line to cross because the corporation is in the right to do that. Are they in their right to view everything that you do or is it just metadata? Then even metadata has striations of what they can record and observe. Immediately when you said my company installed third-party software, I was like, "You got to open up a browser and you've got to get a clickpop and just move around the website and gain your statistics some way," but that's just my input. I'll turn it over to Naomi or Jim.
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah. I don't know of any external workers' rights or labor board, anything like that. I don't know what is internal to the company that would be viewed externally. I think that we're coming into a new era of technology and data, and data usage is being talked about a lot more. So I would hope that it's the balance of corporate greed and people's rights. I think we're coming into a dawn of a new age and I'll be curious on what happens.
Dave Eng:
You want to go, Jim.
Jim Egan:
I was just going to say that a number of the questions to me... My first question to you or to anyone asking this would be about your particular situation because there might be certain ways within the company to address the issue, there might be certain supervisors you can go to et cetera, but the number of questions that come up about this and the question about legislation before lead me to say that these individual instances, anybody can try to stop the dike in there, but what we need really are larger political social movements that establish organizations as the ones you mentioned.
Jim Egan:
Also if not legislation, the kind of will to legislation because I think the question of worker data that you are raising... Dave, as my understanding of the law, again, not that good. Dave was absolutely right about the ability for companies to monitor certain things. Whether they should or not, whether we allow them to or not, I think is up to larger political forces that at least for someone like me, I try to help build because I think we can talk about these things as individual instances, but they're just going to keep recurring unless we have larger social forces that work against them.
Speaker 11:
Okay, thanks.
Dave Eng:
Thank you. Hello.
Speaker 12:
Hello. So I'm a librarian and a teacher and I like to gamify a lot of my programs and classes for children to adults. In the same vein of gamification and it being used by corporations to almost take advantage of people, especially with younger kids, I want to make sure that I emphasize that this is cool here. We're just learning things, but how do I avoid almost normalizing them getting used to those kinds of systems and being taken advantage of?
Naomi Pariseault:
That's a really good question.
Jim Egan:
I don't know.
Speaker 12:
Because I'm all about education and telling them.
Dave Eng:
So in the previous panel we did on Friday, we were talking about using games for learning. One of the points I made was when you are creating a gamified system or you are creating a game-based learning unit, you're using the games for learning, you always want it so that the outcomes of the game are aligned with whatever the learning outcome is. There's tons of different ways you can do that, but one of the examples I use is if your learning outcomes are about teaching collaboration and cooperation and compassion, probably introducing a leader board is not the way you want to go. I see you shake your head right now because you can see how those things just don't align. So, it's just one of those things you have to ask yourself, and not a lot of people do. They're just like, "Oh, I know games. I teach. I should mash them together." It's not a recipe. I mean, it's a thing that you have to take into account, determine what you want to accomplish and what games you think can best accomplish that or what mechanics from those games. So, that's my input.
Naomi Pariseault:
Okay. Thank you.
Dave Eng:
Thank you.
Speaker 13:
Hey guys, so first of all, thank you for holding this panel, taking time out of your lives. This is a great discussion. So, thank you. So, my question is, going back to loot boxes. My daughter is five and she loves getting blind bag toys. So, if you're not familiar with blind bags, you buy the toy with the bag, you don't know what's in it. Some of them are rare, some of them are not. So, just like magic cards or whatever. So, there doesn't seem to be as much pushback on those and it's targeting even younger people than teenagers or whatever, that are spending a buck to get a loot box. Obviously the battlefield situation is another story, but we're talking cosmetics or whatever to get a little more money out of you. But it is gambling because some things are more rare than others.
Speaker 13:
So, two part question. Why aren't these being targeted as much as the video game stuff? Like you mentioned Belgium banned loot boxes, are they also banning blind bags and magic cards for the same reason? And why is that? Because being an older gamer, I've gone through a period of time where there was a heavy stigma against being a gamer and playing video games and which we've come a long way since then, but there is still that stigma over our heads. So, is there still a stigma relating to video games where they're targeting these loot boxes because of that stigma? Not because of an in general predatory nature of them.
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah. Do you mind if I start with this one Dave?
Dave Eng:
Yeah, go on.
Naomi Pariseault:
So, what I think is really interesting about the loop box conundrum is often like, you have unlimited access and ability to buy them unless that's tapered. So, I think that's part of the problem is, you can just keep buying and buying and to get another one of the blind bags, you'd have to go to the store. I mean, obviously you can go to Amazon, but it's not internal to the world that you're in. So, I think that also, maybe just the digital nature is why it's raising a red flag. And there's such a proliferation. But, what's interesting is Japan with banning the sets with the loot crates and loot boxes, that actually came out of Gashapon, right? So, the capsule games where you've got like five Sheba dogs and they're all in slippers and they're adorable and there's a rare one and you want that, that's where that was born out of.
Naomi Pariseault:
So, I have seen a ton of blind bags and issues and I don't know if it's because it's in the toy or collectible industry, but I see that with like pin sets. Right. And it's really infuriating. So, I don't know why that isn't being targeted because it's the same principle. Right. And maybe people aren't as driven or it's not being raised to the highest level as a major issue, but it is, it's the same exact principle, the same exact psychological principle with those variable ratios and such. So, I don't know why, but it's annoying. Really annoying.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. There's like a double standard going on.
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah.
Speaker 13:
That's the way I feel.
Dave Eng:
Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 13:
That's the way that I feel. I feel like it's being targeted. Not like trying to help the consumer and say, well this is wrong. We need to fix it. I think because, it's video games, this is a stigma being held over it and I think, if they want to help out the consumer, fine, but why pick which consumers are going to help over others? [crosstalk 00:59:33].
Naomi Pariseault:
I think that a larger conversation needs to happen with gambling, whether it's video games or toys too, right? Like, it's not just that one thing.
Speaker 13:
Thank you so much.
Naomi Pariseault:
Thank you.
Dave Eng:
We are almost at time, so we'll take one more question, but if you want to ask us any other specific questions, we're going to be right outside against the glass wall so that the next presenter can commence. We'll take one more.
Speaker 4:
Right. Last question. No pressure. Oh goodness. Okay. I was wondering if I could ask you about play testing in instructional design. Specifically, is there anything that you'd suggest that designers look out for during the play testing phase to ensure that learning is happening?
Naomi Pariseault:
I think, yeah, you... This is like, for you.
Dave Eng:
So, whenever I play test specifically for a game, I'm always looking for what players are doing, what they feel compelled to do and what they feel like they kind of just have to do in order to get through the game. Instructional design and using educational technology falls within the same realm. So, I know that for the most part, at least the students that I teach are all like working professionals. So, they're taking the class specifically to get the outcome. One of the classes I teach is teaching other people how to teach online. So, it's like education inception basically. So, in that class I know that the outcomes I have to get to is they have to feel really comfortable teaching in their, whatever their teacher persona is and in a synchronous environment like using zoom.
Dave Eng:
So, everything we do in the class sets them up for that. Not only how to use the tool, but how your presentation style, sitting at your desk in your home office is different than you going to a lecture hall. So, that's just one of the steps. But, all those steps, scaffold my students on the way up to getting to that specific outcome until they get to a point where they're teaching by themselves online. And, scaffolding is an educational concept. But, when you look at games, games are really great at scaffolding too. You very often get thrown into a game where it's like, first person shooter, it's like, look up, look left, look right. You now know how to use the thumb stick. That's part of the orientation. You need to know how to do that before you can play battlefield, before you can play any first person shooter. So, that's my input.
Naomi Pariseault:
Yeah, I think that's a really good summation.
Dave Eng:
All right, cool. So we're at time. Thank you everyone for coming. We are going to be outside next to the glass windows if you'd like to ask us any additional questions. Thank you.