THE EFFECT OF GAMIFICATION ON LEARNING - THE EXAMPLE OF VENDORS BRAND AWARENESS - JKU ePUB
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Author
Maria Angelica Silva
K11948938
Submission
THE EFFECT OF Institute of Innovation
Management
GAMIFICATION ON Thesis Supervisor
Robert Breitenecker
LEARNING - THE Assistant Thesis Supervisor
EXAMPLE OF Johannes Gartner
VENDORS BRAND April 2021
AWARENESS
Master’s Thesis
to confer the academic degree of
Master of Science Global Business
in the Joint Master Program Global Business - Canada/Peru
JOHANNES KEPLER
UNIVERSITY LINZ
Altenberger Straße 69
4040 Linz, Austria
jku.at
DVR 0093696
DEDICATIONS
This research is dedicated to God, my family and my friends.
Thanks for supporting me in my professional development,
for helping me through the good and bad times,
and always motivate me to move forward.
María Angélica Silva
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 2/83
STATUTORY DECLARATION I hereby declare under oath that the submitted Master’s Thesis has been written solely by me without any third-party assistance, information other than provided sources or aids have not been used and those used have been fully documented. Sources for literal, paraphrased and cited quotes have been accurately credited. The submitted document here present is identical to the electronically submitted text document. Canada, April 01st, 2021 Signature April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 3/83
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In this research, a gamified experiment was designed and implemented to determine how
the additional offer of gamified information can affect vendors' learning. Twenty vendors from the
Peruvian company Limon participated in the implementation of this methodology, they were
randomly classified in group A and B to be trained with two different learning techniques, one
traditional and other including gamification through a game created on the Quizizz platform. The
theoretical basis was used to choose the key game elements that would conform the design of the
game created in Quizizz, being selected elements such as the leaderboard, time restriction and test
report.
The results of this experiment were evaluated through a final test and showed that vendors
who were trained using gamification had a higher score than the group that was trained with the
traditional training methodology, achieving 8.4% more correct answers and 48.4% less incorrect
answers than the other group. This positive result was related with their participation on the Quizizz
gamified platform, considering the game as a kind of previous training to achieve an improvement
on vendors' learning, particularly about their brand awareness.
Through the implementation of this methodology, it can be shown that the application of
gamification to train vendors can bring positive outcomes such as learning improvement. This
experiment contributes to the actual research of gamification, giving a better understanding of how
gamification works in the work environment and providing insights related to its effects on vendors'
learning. Also, it is a practical case of how gamification can be applied, and it is a reference for its
implementation in other areas and targets.
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 4/83
Table of Contents
List of Tables.................................................................................................................................................. 6
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................................ 7
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 8
2. Problem Statement ............................................................................................................................... 11
3. Objective .............................................................................................................................................. 13
4. Methodology ........................................................................................................................................ 14
5. Literature Review ................................................................................................................................. 19
5.1 Gamification ................................................................................................................................ 19
5.1.1 History ................................................................................................................................ 24
5.1.2 Components of Gamification .............................................................................................. 26
5.1.3. Successful Corporate Applications .................................................................................... 30
5.2 Gamification Motivates and Satisfies Intrinsic Needs ................................................................. 34
6. Limon Company................................................................................................................................... 38
7. Implementation .................................................................................................................................... 41
8. Results .................................................................................................................................................. 46
9. Analysis and Discussion....................................................................................................................... 60
10. Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 64
11. Limitations ........................................................................................................................................... 65
References .................................................................................................................................................... 67
Appendices ................................................................................................................................................... 74
Appendix A: Question Session .................................................................................................................... 74
Appendix B: Quizizz Game Questionnaire .................................................................................................. 79
Appendix C: Final Test ................................................................................................................................ 82
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 5/83List of Tables Table 1. Results of the Quizizz Participants Section ................................................................................... 47 Table 2. Report of Results of the Quizizz Summary Section ......................................................................... 48 Table 3. Results of Quizizz Test .................................................................................................................... 49 Table 4. Results of the Final Test ................................................................................................................. 50 Table 5. Percentage Difference of Correct and Incorrect Answers of Group A Versus Group B ............... 61 Table 6. Group A Improvement .................................................................................................................... 61 April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 6/83
List of Figures Figure 1. Easy Quizizz Procedure to Create a Game ................................................................................... 17 Figure 2. Gamification Overview ................................................................................................................ 27 Figure 3. Gamification Elements Pyramid .................................................................................................. 27 Figure 4. Motivational Affordances, Psychological and Behavioral Outcomes from Gamification ........... 35 Figure 5. Limon’s Organizational Chart ...................................................................................................... 38 Figure 6. General Settings from Quizizz ..................................................................................................... 43 Figure 7. Activity Settings from Quizizz ..................................................................................................... 43 Figure 8. Quizizz Leaderboard. ................................................................................................................... 44 Figure 9. Final Screen with the Score of the Participants who Played in Quizizz....................................... 45 Figure 10. Accuracy Percentage, Number of Questions and Participants. .................................................. 46 Figure 11. Results of the Quizizz Questions Section. .................................................................................. 47 April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 7/83
1. Introduction
Gamification has been defined as the use of characteristics commonly associated with video
games in non-game contexts (Landers, 2015). This tool uses games in routine activities and in non-
playful environments, making them more fun and motivating. In this way, it takes advantage of
their psychological predisposition to participate in the games and foments the desired behaviors in
the users (López, 2013). In this sense, these games intend to achieve a behaviour or attitude in the
players, aiming at the improvement of outcomes such as learning improvement (Landers, 2015).
The history of gamification is a long one until it was recognised as a powerful engagement
tool. Before 2003, the word ¨gamification¨ was not widely heard; at the end of the millennium, it
was slowly gaining recognition; and during the latter part of the 20th Century, people began to
consider games as a way to increase productivity at work and also realized that game mechanics
had the power to attract customers. In 2002, the word ¨gamification¨ was born when Nick Pelling
created this term while he was designing a game-like user interface for commercial electronic
devices such as ATMs, vending machines, and mobile phones. From this moment, the story of
gamification really began (Growth Engineering, 2019).
In recent years, gamification has become a hot topic and its application over time has
increased in different areas, contexts or environments such as education, training, commercial
business, marketing, sales, health, human resources, government, and even everyday life (Mora et
al., 2015) to stimulate the engagement of users such as employees (Mekler et al., 2013). In the labor
context, McKinsey (2016) mentioned that organizations have to look at ways to engage and make
employees happier to share successfully the vision and the company's brand-value proposition to
customers, highlighting that successful enterprises are those that can build customer loyalty
because these companies have happy employees that offer an excellent customer-experience.
In this sense, many industry professionals are looking for ways to engage users and have
used the motivational attractiveness of games in non-game environments (Mekler et al., 2013).
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 8/83Werbach and Hunter 2012 (cited in Figueroa, 2015) indicated a serie of characteristics that games
must accomplish in order to have this motivational attractiveness, for example games should be
designed with the purpose of being entertaining and fun. For this reason, the games have to be
original, creative, but also should be focused, with a vision of context, and not only gameplay.
In addition, Sailer et al. 2017 (cited in Ouariachi, Li, and Elving, 2020) suggested that
during the game design, it should include visible and non-visible game elements such as points,
badges, leaderboards, performance graphs, meaningful stories, avatars, teammates, and also
consider mechanisms as the need of psychological satisfaction, including the need for competence,
autonomy, and social relatedness.
Therefore, within the game design the scenarios must be varied; incorporate certain rules,
techniques, and levels; game length should be short; a system of prizes or rewards must be
implemented; and challenges should be assigned not only individually but also to teams in order to
prevent monotony; avoid the loss of interest; promote the collaborative work (Ašeriškis and
Damaševičius, 2014); encourage the development, training and employee performance (cited in
Figueroa, 2015).
Another aspect to consider is that these games need to be applied on areas, in which metrics
can be attained both before and after gamifying. One area where gamification can be applied and
measured is the sales department, represented by vendors (Noll, 2013).
Hence, the goal of this research study is to determinate if the additional application of
gamification in a company that sells food products and mass consumer goods, can increase vendors'
learning about the company portfolio. For this purpose, two randomized samples of ten vendors in
each group will participate and two different learning mechanisms will be applied, one traditional
and the other gamified. The traditional mechanism will be that a PDF document with the company’s
products’ information will be sent to group B as it will be the control group, while in the gamified
mechanism a game created in the online platform Quizizz will be sent to group A, in addition to
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 9/83the PDF. Both mechanisms will provide the same information and content. After one week that this
experiment be executed, both groups will be evaluated with a final online questionnaire.
After executing this methodology, the findings found will be analyzed using confidential
information about product portfolio, sales volume, most sold products, demand, and some relevant
company insights provided by the owner. In case there is any doubt about the participants' answers,
they will be consulted individually. On the other hand, a comparison of the results obtained by
group A and B will be made according to the number of correct and incorrect answers obtained in
the final test. This means that a descriptive analysis will be performed to compare the outcomes
and determine if the group in which the gamification was applied achieved a higher or lower score
than the other group. In case that group A would have a higher score, it will allow to calculate the
improvement percentage of their learning compared to the other group.
This research makes three contributions. Firstly, it contributes to the actual research of
gamification providing information that begins with general concepts, history, and its components,
showing that the addition of the right game elements and mechanics can bring positive effects. In
this sense, it can give a better understanding of the gamification value to improve the literature
research. Secondly, the findings of this research can provide insights for further studies related to
the impact that the gamification can bring to the learning of company's vendors. Thirdly, the reader
will be able to obtain from this experiment a practical case of how gamification can be applied in
the workplace and it can be a reference to achieve a learning improvement in other areas and even
in other potential users, which are not only employees or vendors, but also customers and students.
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 10/832. Problem Statement
Companies face the problem of continuously improving the skills and updating the
knowledge of their employees due to the fast changes and developments occurring nowadays
(Stadnicka & Dei, 2019). Furthermore, it has been perceived that the traditional training offered
could be considered as boring and ineffective, so there is a preference for more engaging and
interactive learning activities (Treiblmaier & Putz, 2018) and companies have the challenge to find
the best way to train their employees to improve their qualifications and prepare them for this
dynamic environment, not only by increasing their knowledge but also their motivation, soft skills
and understanding of industry issues (Stadnicka & Dei, 2019).
On the other hand, employees can also face problems in the companies, such as a turbulent
and unstable environment where they work. It can often cause discouragement, frustration, stress,
emotional exhaustion, the sensation of lack of development and hopelessness, probably causing
workers to feel that they will not be able to change their situation. These negative labor factors are
not only associated with economic problems, but also related to the lack of inclusion and
participation of workers in the work team, and the absence of involvement and commitment of the
company with its employees (Saltijeral and Ramos, 2015).
Therefore, a positive and innovative solution to deal with the problems that the workforce
is going through might be offered by gamification (Oprescu, Jones and Katsikitis, 2014) because
this tool could increase motivation, engagement, improve knowledge retention, leading to better
learning through an interactive setting (Treiblmaier & Putz, 2018). These positive outcomes could
be achieved through the development of games that meet the specific needs of companies,
presenting clear guidelines to reflect the problems and the business environment. In this way,
employees would possibly not only learn about how new tools or concepts work, but also why it is
important to apply them in the work environment and overcome problems that frequently arise
(Stadnicka & Dei, 2019).
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 11/83For example, some organizations have applied selected principles of game design, and
game-style interactions to transform some of the work processes into a game-like experience for
the employees. Likewise, several analyses of research literature have been made, indicating that
gamified workplaces could be a good strategy to promote well-being, and also a key element to
maintain a healthy workforce, letting employees to reach the job satisfaction at a personal level,
and increasing their productivity (Oprescu, Jones and Katsikitis, 2014).
According to the need for enterprises, as the Peruvian company Limon, to improve learning
and update the knowledge of their workers, a methodology was applied in order to study if the
application of gamification to train vendors can have an impact on their learning.
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 12/833. Objective
This research aims to determine if the implementation of gamification in the training
process of vendors could enhance their learning. The purpose of selecting this target and no other
kind of employees as the research target is due to the fact that vendors are considered as the most
important personal in a commercial enterprise for being the direct contact between the business
owner and the customer. Therefore, vendors should always transmit confidence and know in detail
about products or services they offer, in many occasions they may be faced with customers who
like to debate or ask questions about why they should buy their product if the competition sells the
same and sometimes cheaper, so a good vendor with great knowledge will defend the products that
he is offering (Lema, 2019).
In this way, the contact with vendors is the most effective method to make a sale and
increasing the effectiveness of this target is the major sales management task (Sujan, Weitz and
Sujan, 1988).
Therefore, the main objective of this research will be to investigate whether gamification
generates an impact on the learning of this target. In accordance with the specific objectives, these
will be to identify which of the methodologies implemented in the training of group A and B
generated more learning in the vendors, since one group had gamified training and the other did
not. Moreover, to determine if the additional application of gamification in the sales staff can really
increase their learning, and in what percentage compared to other group who received traditional
training.
Based on the main objective, the research question would be: "How does an additional offer
of gamified information affect learning?".
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 13/834. Methodology
The methodology that is going to be applied is to conduct a fully randomized experiment.
This kind of method was defined by Dennis and Boruch (1989) as the random assignment of
individuals, entities, or sectors, with the idea of creating equivalent groups, assigning them a
different regime, and comparing them with a control group, the last one usually represents the status
quo. As mentioned by these authors, the purpose of this methodology is to determine which is the
regime that can bring the best outcomes.
This type of randomized experiment has many advantages because it ensures that all
individuals in the population have the same probability of being included in the sample. This means
that the probability of selection of a subject "x" is independent of the probability of the rest of the
subjects that are part of the population. It is also considered as a simple method, easy to understand
and that allows to make fast calculations (Otzen and Manterola, 2017).
Other advantages of random sampling are that it enables researchers to measure the effects
of an intervention on a particular interest outcome, as participants are randomly assigned to be part
of the group that receives the treatment or they conform the control group. One clear example
which highlights the need to use this randomized methodology is a study which had as objective to
test the effectiveness of a voter education program on high school seniors. In this case, if each of
the students would be allowed to be a volunteer for this program, when comparing the results of
the volunteers' behavior with those of the non-participants, clearly different effects would be seen
in each group, and this would be associated with the different qualities, and voting propensities of
each group. In addition, if a random model would not be used, teachers could have biasin who they
chose. Therefore, in order to avoid this kind of irregularities in the results, it is suggested that
randomized experiments be used. This powerful method reflects the effects of the interventions
that were intended to be measured, without being interrupted by other variables (Yale University,
2020).
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 14/83Due to all the positive aspects mentioned above, random sampling is often used in business
and some authors consider that data collection techniques tend to apply this methodology. For
example, the Peruvian company Taecoma, belonging to the industrial manufacturing sector,
highlighted the usefulness of simple random sampling to determine the entry of raw materials into
the process, allowing to make statistical inferences and facilitating the calculation of the pallet
percentage that is received in good condition (Misantla Institute of Technology, 2016).
Another example that evidences the use of this methodology in the business world is its
application in the company Ingram Micro S.A. This enterprise did an investigation to determine
the influence of the system for decision making in the Business Intelligence of its commercial area,
and used the random sampling to select 168 participants from a total of 300. Once the participants
were separated efficiently and without any preference, to one sample an experimental method was
applied while the other sample was considered as the control group, finally, both groups were
evaluated through a post-test (Villanueva, 2017).
After examining the favorable aspects of random sampling, it can be noted that it is the
fairest and most effective mechanism of selection because it gives all participants an equal chance
of being chosen and is not influenced by any bias of classification (Confederation of Andalucía
Businessmen, 2021). For this reason, the random sampling will be applied in this study to select
the participants who will belong to each sample of vendors.
According to the methodology of this study, the participants will be twenty vendors of an
age range between 25-55 years old, and who are working in the company Limon. All of them will
be trained by the company owner through the Zoom application and a PDF document is going to
be used as part of the presentation. This PDF with the information of the products that Limon
company commercializes will be sent by mail to all vendors so they can have access to it during
the training, also they will have useful material that can help them in their day to day work.
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 15/83Once the training has been completed, a questions session will be done to clarify vendors'
doubts about the presentation and to resolve any queries they may have in general. At the end of
this session, the random sampling will take place, which will be done in Excel and will be used to
indicate to each vendor if they are going to be part of group A or B.
The first sample of vendors (A) will have the PDF document with which the training was
done, but additionally they will be trained through gamification, so a game created in the online
platform Quizizz will be sent, and this will contain 14 questions with multiple choice answers,
images and background music. While the second sample (B) will be trained in the traditional way,
which means that they will also have access to the same PDF document provided to the first sample
(A) but they won´t participate in the game, these vendors will be considered as the control group.
One week after the first sample of vendors (A) have completed the Quizizz test, both groups A and
B will be evaluated through a final test of 21 questions, to determine if the additional application
of gamification in group A had an impact on their learning. As it will be done in this methodology,
according to Noll (2013) gamification is usually measured with A/B testing, in which some users
work with the gamified system while others use the non-gamified system.
In this research, the platform that is going to used to apply gamification in the first sample
of vendors (A) will be Quizizz, as it was mentioned previously. Quizizz is a gamified application
(Ratnasari, Hikmawati and Nizam, 2019) that designs teaching-learning experiences through
games, presenting innovative elements and game mechanics adapted to different groups of
participants with the objective that they can acquire knowledge and skills in a fun way (Gutiérrez,
2019). The gamified elements that conform Quizizz are significant in the relationship with users’
extrinsic motivation, these are points, level of difficulty, avatar construct (Razali et al., 2020),
leaderboard, time limit and test report (Dafit, Sumardi and Asib, 2020). These key elements have
great potential for engagement and motivation, as well as the game mechanics (Gutiérrez, 2019).
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 16/83These mechanics can be challenges, rewards, feedback, resource acquisition, cooperation
and competition (Dafit, Sumardi and Asib, 2020), which are used in order to gain specific
behavioral acquisitions since these have the power to shape the behavior of users guiding them in
the right direction (Çeker and Özdaml, 2017).
Among the most remarkable benefits of Quizizz are the simplicity of use (see Figure 1), the
wide range of possibilities it offers, the large number of questions that can be entered, the inclusion
of audiovisual elements such as images or videos that exceed expectations, the level of detail of
the reports, the possibility of reviewing the errors in the test report, as well as the facilitation of
data collection to perform a user evaluation (Gutiérrez, 2019).
Figure 1. Easy Quizizz Procedure to Create a Game (taken from Quizizz, 2020).
In this study, the elements used in the game test were time restriction, leaderboard, and test
report. Dafit, Sumardi and Asib (2020) mentioned that time restriction helps participants to focus
more in answering the questions without wasting time; leaderboards generally increase motivation,
and represents faithfully the grade of competition; while the test report allows users to download it
to see their results and learn from it.
According to the Quizizz game mechanics of this research, these were challenges,
competition, and feedback. These challenges were represented by the level of difficulty of the
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 17/83questions; the competition was generated when the participants could visualize their score in real
time at the moment that they were answering each question, this generated a competitive
environment among the players; while the feedback came from the results of the test report,
motivating the players to see their score, check their mistakes, and encouraging them to improve.
The application of the key elements and mechanics of Quizizz were applied to motivate
participants through a more dynamic, fun and entertaining way; in order to convert the motivation
generated into a psychological result that could bring a desired behavior from participants as the
achievement of better learning outcomes.
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 18/835. Literature Review
5.1 Gamification
Gamification is a synonym of “productivity games”, “surveillance entertainment”,
“funware”, “playful design”, “behavioral games”, “game layer” or “applied gaming” (Deterding et
al., 2011a). The gamification term is more related to “games” than “play” or “playfulness”, because
“play” is a concept with a very extensive and ambiguous meaning (Deterding et al., 2011a) that
refers to a human experience regardless of the particular activity in which the individual is
involved, it takes a great amount of energy and has no clear limits, while “game” seeks to create a
zone of fun and exuberant energy for the player, but also generating engagement within a more
structured environment, with content that has meaning, produces interpretable results (Salcu and
Acatrinei, 2013) and is capable of turning a game application into a “full” game if it is built with a
concrete purpose (Deterding et al., 2011b).
In this sense, gamification consists of applying components as game elements and
mechanics to contexts that are not directly related to games, in order to try to solve real problems
(Rodríguez and Santiago, 2015). These game elements are the achievements, conquests, avatars,
badges, boss fights, combats, unlocks, levels, points, leaderboards, tests, and virtual objects
(Borras-Gene, 2015) that can be applied to motivate users in order to get better outcomes such as
promote learning, increase motivation, achieve the immersion and engagement of users, stimulate
the social competence by promoting an active participation, among other results (Deterding et al.,
2011a). To achieve these positive results through increasing user motivation, firstly, one or more
underlying objectives that are interesting to people must be identified. These objectives should
capture the user's interest and based on this, determine what kind of game mechanics should be
incorporated to meet and satisfy their psychological and social needs such as the desire for
autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Aparicio et al., 2012). Some examples of game mechanics
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 19/83are the challenges, rewards, resource acquisition, cooperation, feedback, and competition
(Kocadere and Çağlar, 2015).
Both the elements and the mechanics that are applied in games must be adapted to different
groups of players (Gutiérrez, 2019) to stimulate and increase their participation in any area,
carrying out different tasks and activities which sometimes are not attractive to them (Aparicio et
al., 2012). As gamification can be applied in any field, it has been implemented in different areas
as education, finance, health, productivity, sustainability, and entertainment media (Deterding et
al., 2011a).
In education, gamification has been used to motivate students to learn better, generate
engagement in the classroom, and to care more about school. Through gamification teachers can
have better tools to guide, inspire, and reward students, giving them a joyful experience while
generating student learning. However, there are some challenges that teachers should consider
when using gamification, such as not accustoming students to receive external rewards. It is
necessary to have certain rules to control the freedom given to students to experiment, to fail, to
explore multiple experiences, as well as to give moderately difficult and immediate goals. The idea
in this educational environment is that the playing experience should not feel obligatory like the
usual school tasks, because instead of giving chocolate and peanut butter, it will be like giving the
students chocolate-covered broccoli. The application of these techniques can impact positively
student’s perspectives on learning (Lee and Hammer, 2011), because this educational method
allows to train the students' abilities and it is by far the most common and effective teaching practice
that can be used (Breuer and Bente, 2010).
Some gamification apps that have been created to improve students learning include
Socrative, Kahoot!, Classcraft, Quizizz, Goose Chase, Minecraft: Education Edition, Breakout
EDU and Play Brighter (Lynch, 2017). For example, Ratnasari, Hikmawati and Nizam (2019)
applied the gamified application Quizizz to investigate the effect of this platform in teaching
reading comprehension of narrative texts to first grade students of Senior High School in
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 20/83Majalengka. These students were separated into two groups: an experimental group, where
gamification was applied through Quizizz, and a control group. In addition, both groups
participated in a pre-test and a post-test. The results showed a significant difference between the
experimental group and the control group, where the students to whom Quizizz was applied
obtained better grades than the other group. Therefore, the importance of these authors' research
relates the use of the Quizizz application with the improvement of students' reading skills and their
growing interest in the learning process.
Just as gamification has been applied in the education sector capturing the interest of people
such as teachers, it has also attracted the attention of company managers, becoming a key
instrument for organizational change (Valenzo, 2019). According to Teixes 2015 (cited in Valenzo,
2019) the application of gamification in the business sector aims to modify the behavior of
employees through actions on their motivation, in order to create value in areas such as commercial,
human resources, finance, among others.
One example of the use of gamification at work is the study of Kananen and Akpinar (2015),
where a solution was designed using game elements in a multinational telecommunications
company in Finland. The main purpose was to improve the motivation of vendors and the service
that they offered. The game elements used were rewards, a point system, leaderboards, levels,
challenges, badges and feedback to enhance the information flow, provide gaming experiences to
create value for the sales force, satisfy the need for competition and provide the motivation to
contact more customers, while promoting co-learning within the teams to achieve better results. In
order to achieve this kind of positive results, some recommendations must be taken into account,
such as avoiding competing for the same customers, implementing levels and challenges that
vendors can choose from to satisfy their need for autonomy, constantly challenging them to keep
up motivation, keeping them informed of their achievements, periodically monitor and promote the
vendor’s progress, provide feedback, and it is essential to be aware that intrinsic rewards can have
more impact on maintaining high levels of motivation in the long term. In this example, it was
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 21/83emphasized that thanks to the implementation of gamification, it is possible to satisfy the needs of
competence, autonomy and social relationships to progressively improve the worker's performance.
Considering that in the research of Kananen and Akpinar (2015) the study population was
vendors, Valenzo (2019) highlighted the importance of this target indicating that the sales force is
a highly competitive group in organizations, and the ability to take advantage of this competitive
element is very natural. One way to take advantage of it can be by using tools such as gamification,
this is a very important resource for the substantive commercial function in an organization as it
can help to involve vendors in their arduous commercial task reinforcing their commitment to the
strategic objectives of the company. For this reason, it is essential to develop systems that
complement traditional economic remuneration schemes that not only enhance extrinsic
motivation, but also intrinsic motivation through the long-term involvement of the sales force.
As Salcu and Acatrinei (2013) mentioned, one way to increase this intrinsic motivation
could be by taking advantage of the great opportunities that gamification can bring to companies,
not only being able to improve the performance of employees but also getting more engaged
customers. Therefore, these authors applied the gamification in an affiliate network present on the
Romanian market, who developed gamified online campaigns and obtained successful results such
as increased customer portfolios, higher customer loyalty, attraction of new advertisers and
affiliates, brand awareness growth, improved reputation, increased revenue and number of
commissions. These authors realized that people like competing while socializing, receiving
feedback, see statistics, boosting their achievements, and receiving rewards regardless of whether
these are virtual and mean nothing. All of these things make the games fun, addictive, and exciting;
but at the same time it is important to determine which elements of the game are unnecessary in
order to eliminate them and optimize the results. In this study, it was emphasized that gamification
has become an effective company practice which can revolutionize businesses.
However, just as gamification can be a successful tool, there can be some circumstances in
which gamification may fail (Noll, 2013). Some negative aspects generated in cases where
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 22/83gamification has been applied are for example the study of Campos et al. (2015), where it was
reported that some students did not understand the rules of the game, so this may have hindered
their performance negatively. Likewise, Toda, Valle and Isotani (2018) reported that gamification
influenced the loss of student performance due to demotivating factors, these authors identified
four negative results related to the use of gamification in education such as indifference, loss of
performance, undesired behaviors and decline effects in students.
Moreover, in the research of Snow et al. (2015) it was indicated that overexposure to game
features can be a seductive distractor that deviates students' attention from the designated task,
which harms their ability to transfer learned skills to new tasks. In addition, these authors reported
that students who were more active in the gamified activity scored lower than their peers on skill
transfer tests.
Even, Kocadere and Çağlar (2015) mentioned that sometimes learners focus more on the
mechanics of gamification than on the assessment. In this investigation some participants suggested
that being in a low position on the leaderboard could bother them, cause anxiety and make them
disconnected from the exam, furthermore some students were worried about the presence of locked
levels, as they could not see all the questions in the exam.
Another example where participants' frustration was caused, is the study conducted by
Mcdaniel and Lindgren (2012), where it was expected to increase the positive work habits of the
students but some hidden badges were too difficult to obtain and even some could not be identified,
this caused frustration for some students as part of their grade in the course was affected by the
number of achievements.
However, as Toda, Valle and Isotani (2018) mentioned, the negative results of gamification
are known but not well mapped, and there is a lack of information about the negative effects and
the gamified design that is used. On the other side, Pedreira et al. (2015) stated that the positive
effects of gamification were also not validated in their systematic mapping of gamification applied
to software engineering, and there is still a lack of empirical studies that attest to the effects
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 23/83promoted by gamification, as well as a deeper analysis of those effects and how to design
gamification strategies.
Nevertheless, Valenzo (2019) clarified that no gamified system will have a positive effect
if the success gamified elements, as the motivational factor, are not closely related with other
aspects as for example if employees are not properly remunerated, or are not treated with dignity
and respect in their work environment, it is evident that gamification will not have a successful
impact on them.
Similarly, Biro 2014 (cited in Valenzo, 2019) indicated that there are five factors that can
help to achieve a culture and workplace that is growing, dynamic, fun, productive and profitable,
these factors are fair payment, good benefits, leadership and open-mindedness, profit sharing and
making the workplace a fun place to work.
As gamification contains elements that can generate fun, it could be an agent of change in
user and employee behavior, but it should be recognized that this is only the starting point. If the
goal is to change someone in the long-term, then the gamification system should be understood as
a temporary activity so the participant can return to the real world, leaving the game elements aside.
This is different for a short-term goal, such as getting people to buy a particular product. In this
sense, the idea is that when players become more involved in the system, they should spend more
time directly engaged with the real world and less time with the gamification system (Valenzo,
2019).
5.1.1 History
Games have been used for different purposes since many millennia ago, migrating from
mainly military uses into education and business in the second half of the 20th century (Deterding
et al., 2011a). According to the history, the gamification of the work movement was originated by
two great precursors: the Soviet Union in the early to middle 20th century, and American
management in the last 20th and early 21st century. The author describes how the Soviet Union
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 24/83experimented with purely competitive games to increase productivity, and teamwork games to
build morale, initially moving away from capitalist work relations. However, in a more recent
period in the West, they tried to move within capitalist workplaces towards creating offices which
are more efficient and harmonious. The described Soviet approach focused on generating intrinsic
motivation, feelings of competitiveness, performance measurement and metrics, and giving
extrinsic rewards such as monetary incentives. While the American approach used competitive
games with a sense of childhood play, in an attempt to make work fun as well. The study illustrated
how the mechanics of games are deeply rooted in people's thinking processes and have changed
over time, as the use that previous generations made of games is different than the use we are
making of them now (Nelson, 2012). Traditionally, most people started learning to play at an early
age, and as the human brain was built for playing, certain brain functions work naturally toward
logical problem solving (Cook, 2013). Harter 1978 (cited in Ryan and Deci, 2000) mentioned that
even developmentalists recognized that from the moment of birth, children are active, curious, and
playful, even in the absence of rewards.
When children grow up and are at their best they are inspired, show considerable effort, are
self-motivated, striving to learn, dominate new skills, and apply their talent responsibly (Ryan and
Deci, 2000). However, it is evident that sometimes people are unmotivated, discouraged, feel
diminished and reject growth or responsibility. This happens not only in children but also in adults,
and the fact that human nature can be active or passive, constructive or indolent, is not only related
to disposition or biological endowments, but also to social contexts and situations, which influence
motivation, energy, domains, integration, and personal growth. According to these contexts, those
that satisfy the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are very important for individuals
who wish to motivate others in a way that generates commitment, effort, and high-quality
performance. All contexts that promote these three needs encourage greater internalization and
integration, as opposed to contexts that frustrate their satisfaction (Ryan and Deci, 2000). These
three essential needs are cover by the games, and thus increase the motivation of users by
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 25/83stimulating their psychological needs, giving them the autonomy to make choices and satisfying
the need for competition in a social environment (Kananen and Akpinar, 2015).
5.1.2 Components of Gamification
Gamification is the result of the integration of game design, behaviour, and user experience,
as it is shown in Figure 2 (Maan, 2013). The relationship between these three aspects explains how
gamification works, where it starts by designing games in non-playful environments, inserting key
elements, fun features such as leaderboards and badges, in order to generate a desired behavior in
users such as an increase in their commitment with a product or service. At the same time, the
intrinsic motivations of users are satisfied and it allows them to enjoy more the experience
(Interaction Design Foundation, 2020).
According to Maan (2013) the game design is defined as the internal logic of the game,
which must engage the users and encourages them to stick to the game. Priebatsch and Chatfield
2010 (cited in Beza, 2011) indicated that behind a successful gamification design there are seven
key principles: include visual cues that measure progress and experience such as a progress bar;
give fast feedback provided through a progression dynamic; have multiple short and long-term
goals; has an “appointment dynamic” which has the idea that to play a game, one has to be
prompted to return and be in the game. The other key principles are to consider an element of
uncertainty such as not knowing what recognitions to expect; there must be collaboration and
engagement with other game users; and provide rewards for effort and task completion because
rewards are strong motivators for game participation and are considered social status symbols
among players.
Just as game design is an important part of gamification, the behavior is also essential. It
classifies players according to diverse engagement levels and they can fall into these four different
behavior categories: achievers, who are very focused on game-oriented goals; explorers, who are
innovative and discover the hidden part of the game; socializers, who are mainly focused on
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 26/83engaging, sharing information and collaborating; and killers, who always create problems for other
participants (Maan, 2013).
The third fundamental gamification aspect is the user experience, which aims to provide the
best experience to users through an interactive game design, which must have a correct
implementation of the game mechanisms, as well as efficient processes and skilled workers (Maan,
2013).
Figure 2. Gamification Overview (adapted from Maan, 2013, p.11).
As part of the structure of gamification as a tool, the games are designed by a combination
of elements such as dynamics, mechanics, and components. All these elements, which will be
mentioned below, constitute the "toolbox" of gamification and the best games are not the ones that
incorporate the most elements but the ones that use them most effectively (Salcu and Acatrinei,
2013). Werbach 2012 (cited in Salcu and Acatrinei, 2013) proposed a pyramid of a variety of game
elements which can be used to enhance the game experience (see Figure 3).
Dynamics
Mechanics
Components
Figure 3. Gamification Elements Pyramid (adapted from Salcu and Acatrinei, 2013, p.771).
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 27/83This author defined dynamics as “the grammar”, the implicit structure that makes games
coherent. Dynamics draw the big picture and are formed by conceptual elements such as
constraints, which are the limitations in the game; emotions that the game tries to capture or exploit;
the narrative structure which should be a coherent storyline; progression in a sense of having
something to achieve and giving the game clear objectives; and relationships, which include social
dynamics that are important to the game experience. Then, he explained that mechanics are the
“verbs” of a game that move the action forward. The game mechanics are all the challenges which
have objectives and obstacles, chances, competition and cooperation, feedback, rewards,
transactions, exchanging with other players, turns as sequences of activity, and winning as the final
victory. The last element of this pyramid are the components, and Konrad 2011 (cited in Salcu and
Acatrinei, 2013) mentioned that these are the simplest things which make users progress in the
game. Components are achievements, avatars, badges, boss fights, collections, combat, content
unlocking, gifting, leaderboards, levels, points, quests, social charts, teams or virtual goods.
For example, Maan (2013) defined rewards as extrinsic incentives that the majority of
organizations seek to meet the internal psychological needs of their employees to keep them
intrinsically motivated. This is why companies do reward campaigns to offer discounts, promotions
and incentives to their employees, clients and partners. However, in practice it is much more
effective to practice intrinsic incentives like social competition and continuous feedback
highlighting achievements and mastery levels. Other key game element defined by this author are
badges, these are recognitions that demonstrate different levels of achievement. While leaderboards
help people to know where they are situated compared to their colleagues, it is used by companies
with the aim of encouraging competition as people generally like to validate if they are performing
well or not. In case of the point system and scores, these are a training practice where the game
player earns points based on their level of participation, and the more points the player has the more
chance they have to win the awards and incentives. Nevertheless, scoring criteria will depend on
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 28/83different key attributes like speed of response, frequency of participation, quality of participation
and continuous learning.
As well as many of these game elements have been successfully implemented (Maan,
2013), in the study of Dafit, Sumardi and Asib (2020) several game elements of the gamified
platform Quizizz were applied to higher education students with the objective of promoting their
motivation in learning about the English TOEFL structure class. The result of this study revealed
that most of the students were interested in game elements such as the time limit of test, the meme,
the test report, and the leaderboard in Quizizz. These game elements helped to motivate the students
because they were engaging and this caused that they want to learn more deeply after taking the
gamified test. Even these authors mentioned that Quizizz decreased students' anxiety during and
after the test.
Another example is the study of Anderson et al. (2007), where it was discovered that
leaderboards as game element generated a sense of playfulness and indirectly induced the
participants to do more exercise such as walking more. These authors clarified that the increase in
the players' activity is not directly related to the game, instead it is a useful benefit that is achieved
indirectly.
Likewise, Maan (2013) mentioned that many organizations are using key game elements as
rewards, incentives, badges, leaderboards, points system, competition, social connection, levels
and reputation with the purpose of creating social loyalty initiatives to improve their brand image.
However, to achieve the organizational objectives, companies must be aware that it is essential to
know the typical architecture of any gamification initiative and determine which game elements
should be used in its games to reach the results that they are looking for.
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 29/835.1.3. Successful Corporate Applications
If the previous decade tried to add a social component to the world with the development
of the Internet and tools such as Facebook and Twitter, the current decade tries to add a game
component to involve people in loyalty programs, marketing campaigns, online communities and
organizational processes in general. This is how the introduction of dynamics and game mechanics
to generate engagement or commitment in clients or employees is having a great impact, making
gamification a new and authentic discipline with a great growth potential (Ruizalba, Navarro and
Jiménez, 2013). Examining its potential that gamification has, Werbach 2012 (cited in Salcu and
Acatrinei, 2013) indicated that there are three main kinds of categories where gamification can add
value: in an external environment, in an internal environment, and in behavior changing. This
author explained that the external gamification is applied outside the company, to customers, for
the purpose of marketing, sales, and customer engagement. In the case of the internal gamification,
it is applied to the company employees, providing motivation, productivity enhancement, or
crowdsourcing. While the last category was behavior changing, which is applied when people need
motivation to do something they value, and want to do, this is why it can generate a social impact.
Regarding the implementation of gamification in the marketing area, Terlutter and Capella
2013 (cited in Garrigos, Gil, Estelles, 2015) argued that there are two types of gamification
applications in the marketing literature: advergames and marketing practices with game designs.
The first type, advergames, are full computer games specifically created to promote goods or ideas,
where the entertainment content follows traditional game forms. The second type are marketing
practices with game designs, which are partially based on elements of digital games. Their
interactive context increases the user’s involvement, giving them an enjoyable experience that leads
to feelings of immersion in a task, accompanied by a sense of control over the situation, and it also
leads to increased learning, and exploratory and participatory behaviour. As Zichermann and
Linder 2010 (cited in Garrigos, Gil, Estelles, 2015) indicated, marketing has always been related
April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 30/83to the persuasion, motivation and manipulation of people, and this makes the affordances, and the potential of gamification in marketing enormous. It must be noted that companies interested in revolutionizing human-computer interaction, and the user experience have skyrocketed. These firms have used gamification as an external marketing strategy to target consumers on websites and mobile applications, encouraging people to use e-commerce applications, in order to boost and improve customer loyalty, brand awareness and effective marketing engagement. Also, gamification has been applied in the tourism sector with the purpose of motivating travelers to participate in the marketing activities, and goals of the companies. Through this, it was indicated theoretically that any marketing practice can be gamified to influence consumer behavior and motivate the customers engagement in the realization of marketing tasks (Garrigos, Gil and Estelles, 2015). As much as many companies are using external marketing strategies, they are also using them internally to improve job satisfaction, and employee engagement. These organizations are considering their employees as internal customers, and are involving them more in order to generate a more favorable environment, where it is easier to obtain accelerated feedback. In addition, companies have been using "employee of the month" style dynamics, in which through work performance metrics they measure the recognition and reputation of an employee by the company in the eyes of their colleagues. It is interesting to note that as a result of technological advances, companies have been able to develop more sophisticated and intelligent gaming experiences, which allow them to increase the effectiveness of their loyalty in the medium and long term (Ruizalba, Navarro and Jiménez, 2013). One clear example of a company who used internal marketing strategies through gamification is "The Walking Company", an American shoe company, which implemented a game to manage the learning of their employees through SAP Litmos software. The game consisted of gaining points through viewing the training videos; it was a smart way to motivate employees to learn and thus offer the best shopping experience to customers. Before implementing the game, The Walking Company had not been successful with training because employees had to watch the videos by obligation. This gamification system April 1, 2021 Maria Angelica Silva 31/83
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