Gamified monetary reward designs: Offering certain versus chance-based rewards

Gamified monetary reward designs: Offering certain versus chance-based rewards

Gamified monetary reward designs: Offering certain versus chance-based rewards

Martin Adam, Annika Reinelt, Konstantin Roethke

Abstract

"To motivate visitors to engage with websites, e-tailers widely employ monetary rewards (e.g., vouchers, discounts) in their website designs. With advances in user interface technolo-gies, many e-tailers have started to offer gamified monetary reward designs (MRDs), which require visitors to earn the monetary reward by playing a game, rather than simply claiming the reward. However, little is known about whether and why gamified MRDs engage visitors compared to their non-gamified counterpart. Even less is known about the effectiveness of gamified MRDs when providing certain or chance-based rewards, in that visitors do or do not know what reward they will gain for successfully performing in the game. Drawing on cognitive evaluation theory, we investigate gamified MRDs with certain or chance-based rewards and contrast them to non-gamified MRDs with certain rewards in user registration systems. Our results from a multi-method approach encompassing the complementary features of a ran-domised field experiment (N = 651) and a randomised online experiment (N = 330) demonstrate differential effects of the three investigated MRDs on user registration. Visitors encountering either type of gamified MRD are more likely to register than those encountering a non-gamified MRD. More- over, gamified MRDs with chance-based rewards have the highest likelihood of user registrations. We also show that MRDs have distinct indirect effects on user registration via anticipated experiences of competence and sensation. Over- all, the paper offers theoretical insights and practical guidance on how and why gamified MRDs are effective for e-tailers."

Reference

Adam, M., Reinelt, A., & Roethke, K. (2023). Gamified monetary reward designs: Offering certain versus chance-based rewards. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 47(4), 407-417. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12459

Keywords

Cognitive Evaluation Theory, Experiment, Gamblification