ABSTRACT
One of the main principles of gamification is the use of social comparison. Leaderboards are commonly used to allow players to compare their performance against others'. We sought to examine how leaderboard ranking affected satisfaction with a game and desire to play a game again. In our study, individuals in a second, fourth, or seventh position on the leaderboard reported higher satisfaction than individuals in other positions on the leaderboard. Our results support a potential mechanism that might contribute to game satisfaction from leaderboard position: counterfactual thinking. Future work and implications for the design of leaderboards are discussed.
- Antin, J., & Churchill, E. Badges in Social Media: A Social Psychological Perspective. In CHI 2011 Gamification Workshop Proceedings.Google Scholar
- Butler, C. The Effect of Leaderboard Ranking on Players' Perception of Gaming Fun. In Online Communities and Social Computing, Springer Berlin, Heidelberg (2013), 129--136. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining --gamification. Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, USA, 15, 9--15. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Epstude, K., & Roese, N.J. (2008). The functional basis of counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12(2), 168--192.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Landers, R. N., & Landers, A. K. (2015). An Empirical Test of the Theory of Gamified Learning: The Effect of Leaderboards on Time-on-Task and Academic Performance. Simulation and Gaming. doi: 10.1177/1046878114563662 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Medvec, V. H., Madey, S. F., & Gilovich, T. (1995). When less is more: counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists. Journal of personality and social psychology, 69(4), 603.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Shapiro, D. N., Chandler, J., & Mueller, P. A. (2013). Using Mechanical Turk to study clinical populations. Clinical Psychological Science.Google Scholar
- Schell, J. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. CRC Press, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zichermann, G., & Cunningham, C. Gamification by design: Implementing game mechanics in web and mobile apps. O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol, CA, 2011. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Leaderboard Position Psychology: Counterfactual Thinking
Recommendations
Not (Only) a Matter of Position: Player Traits Which Influence the Experience with the Leaderboard in a Digital Maths Game
Games and Learning AllianceAbstractLeaderboards have often been shown to increase engagement and motivation in digital serious games, supporting better learning outcomes and positively affecting players’ game experience. However, few studies show how the player’s position on the ...
The effect of leaderboard ranking on players' perception of gaming fun
OCSC'13: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Online Communities and Social ComputingAlthough fun is desirable in nearly all commercial games, defining it and actually getting it into a game can prove difficult. Developers have added multiplayer features to their games since the beginning of the industry in an attempt to create fun, but ...
Gamification, Serious Games, Ludic Simulation, and other Contentious Categories
This paper provides a conceptual framework for gamification, ludic simulations, and serious games. Central to this framework is the spectrum of design that differentiates work and play. Work and play help define software in purpose as games, ...
Comments