Actionable Gamification

By: Yu-kai Chou

Narrated by: Scott R. Smith

Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's Summary

The new era of gamification and human-focused design optimizes for motivation and engagement over traditional function-focused design. Within the industry, studies on game mechanics and behavioral psychology have become proliferate. However, few people understand how to merge the two fields into experience designs that reliably increases business metrics and generates a return on investment. Gamification pioneer Yu-kai Chou takes the listener on a journey to learn his 12 years of obsessive research in creating the Octalysis Framework, and how to apply the framework to create engaging and successful experiences in their product, workplace, marketing, and personal lives.

©2015, 2017 Yu-kai Chou (P)2017 Yu-kai Chou

Just a bunch of rules and no source references

If you wanna learn how Gamification works and how to apply it, read Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal. This book has tried to summarize the theory while implying the author came up with it by himself while giving no one the proper credit. This is not even a simple breakdown, it's 8 core areas, with a bunch of numerical rules inside each. Hardly practical.
Most of it is self advertising. I returned the book after listening to half of it. There are cool points but these are better explained in other literature.
If you want to take a shortcut or just be able to add this topic to your LinkedIn, this book is for you. Just don't go thinking you can apply it to a product.

11 of 13 people found this review helpful

Best book on gamification

So many books on this subject are fluffy, solely spending time on adding badges and leaderboards to everything which in my personal experience is only sometimes effective in motivating people. But Yu-Kai unpacks the whole science behind human motivation and how to really use gamification in anything. Very engaging book and will definitely re-read and continue to add notes.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Not good as an audible book

There are lots of good ideas that I will follow up on. The audible book is too hard to follow. Lots of references to things I need to recall and then I lose track and have to rewind. The gamification of the book, i.e. Stop now and post something to social media, is annoying and not conducive to the Audible experience. I listen to books while I drive, I can't do that. I returned this by chapter 8.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Blatant self promotion

Very disappointed. I was expecting some general insight and 90% of the book was a punt on his framework. Note to self, read the reviews first. Might have added more value on paper but as an audiobook almost everything was lost without graphics.

The most useful book on human focused design

This book lives up to its title. Read this book and you will be at the perfect starting place on your gamification journey.

A methodology for optimizing life

So much more than advertised. A deep understanding of game optimization is shared. At the same time a model for optimizing any interaction is meticulously explained. This is a reference book. Take notes. Study the material. Apply it throughout your life and relationships. Listen again. Repeat

read this book

The term "gamification" may seem a bit juvenile. Even the concepts may be perceived as adding unnecessary distractions at work. But gamification is ready to take center stage. It is coming. And this author intelligently and morally breaks down and explains all the nuances and psychologies of integrating games and work. This is a must read for creatives who have any interest in making work more engaging.

Incredible

I was blown away to be honest. Much of it I had “known to be true through logic” beforehand, but this gave me a revitalized confidence in certain aspects of my gut vision that had fallen by the wayside. Octalysis seemed a bit far-flung at first but by the end I’m heavily convinced that it’s a useful framework for looking at designing experiences, as he intends it to be.

Amazing content

This is must listen for anyone who wants to learn about gamification. Simple but powerful framework of gamify any activities. I will try to implement more of these techniques in my daily life. Good luck to everyone

One of my top books on motivation

Great book, it helped clarify most of the motivations we experience in life and how to apply it in life, business, and game development. I highly recommend it to those who are trying to understand game mechanics, influence and motivation.

Good stuff

Some very good information in this work which relates to my line of work, a bit difficult to keep up with in some parts tho. Not sure that what describes can be easily visualise without the diagram in front of you.

Great ideas

Great ideas, I can definitely see myself revisiting this book maybe a few months later

Great but...

Be prepared that this maybe hard going for you (if I knew this before I would have prepared myself and I'd have not found it so if that makes sense ) . It was for me, but it gets 5 stars because he really tries to make it fun and the actual content makes brilliant sense. Onto the next one.

disappointing

The listener has already bought the book, so there is no reason to continue selling the book from inside of

1 of 7 people found this review helpful