In the realm of gamification, Yu-Kai Chou, the visionary president of Octalysis, shares the eight foundational principles that transform mundane and essential activities by integrating playful elements. According to Chou, these principles not only offer an innovative approach to enhance user experience but also address crucial aspects of human motivation.

Chou’s proposed principles are grouped into an octagon, where “everything you do is based on one or more core drives,” as stated by the author. The core drives are: Epic Meaning and Calling, Development and Accomplishment, Empowerment of Creativity, Ownership and Possession, Social Influence and Affinity, Scarcity and Impatience, Unpredictability and Curiosity, and Loss Avoidance. Each drive addresses specific aspects of human motivation, creating a comprehensive framework for effectively applying gamification.

Chou emphasizes that these principles result from years of in-depth research into what makes a game engaging. Without these motivational principles, actions lack the drive needed for behavior. Developed by the president of Octalysis, these principles offer a comprehensive analysis based on empathy and understanding of human motivations to effectively apply gamification, transforming everyday essential activities into engaging and motivating experiences for users.

You can find the translation below:

Gamification is the art of combining the enjoyable elements of games with things that are relatively boring and routine but likely very important.

My name is Yu Kai Chou, and I am one of the pioneers in the field of gamification. I have helped many companies such as Tesla, Google, Apple, and I believe, from my own experience, that gamification is useful when motivation and behavioral action are key components for success.

Many times you want customers to buy something; that is obviously related to motivation and behavior. But if you want your employees to be more creative or collaborate more, that’s about motivation.

I would say that as long as you can define a desired behavior, gamification can improve that behavior. The Octalysis system is what I am most known for. It was the result of many years of studying what exactly makes a game engaging.

After many years, I realized that all successful games have what I call the 8 Core Drives, which denote a mix in an octagon-based analysis. The key to these core drives is that everything you do is based on one or more of these core drives. In other words, if there are none, there is no motivation, and there will be no behavior.

Epic Meaning and Calling

The first core drive is Epic Meaning and Calling. It is the drive that says we are motivated because we feel we are part of something greater than ourselves. People contribute to Wikipedia because they feel they are protecting human knowledge. It’s something bigger than themselves.

This is often seen in games, the typical scenario where the world is going to end, but somehow, you are the only one who can save the world. That motivates. Saving the world is Epic Meaning and Calling.

Development and Accomplishment

The second core drive is Development and Accomplishment. It is the drive that says how we feel that we are improving by leveling up, mastering it, and feeling very motivated. Most points and medals in traditional gamification fall under this category.

Points are nothing more than counters; they give a sense of progress. So even if you perform the same action or one and the same again, pressing the same buttons day after day, at least you are advancing this progress bar, or you see the number increase and feel like you are making progress.

Creativity and Feedback

The third drive is Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback, which is like Lego. You give users a lot of basic building blocks, and there is an almost infinite way to be creative, try different strategies, receive feedback, and then adjust. It’s a process that generates a lot of interest.

Ownership and Possession

The fourth core drive is Ownership and Possession. This drive says that when we feel something belongs to us, we want to protect it, improve it, and want more. This is seen a lot in things like virtual goods and currencies. But it is also the drive that makes us collect stamps, baseball cards, or accumulate money.

It also leads to other abstract aspects. If you invest a lot of time in customizing your Facebook profile or your Dropbox folders, then you feel it’s more yours, and you become more attached to that system. Even if a new technology comes out, you may not want to change because this system. You don’t feel the other one as yours.

Social Influence and Affinity

The fifth drive is Social Influence and Affinity. It is about everything you do; you do it because of what others do. It involves things like collaboration, competition, group missions, or giving gifts.

But it also has to do with the aspect of affinity, which can be, for example, nostalgia. If you see a product that reminds you of your childhood, your chances of buying increase a lot. If you know someone from your hometown, you are more likely to close a deal with that person. That connection, that relationship, is very important.

Scarcity and Impatience

The sixth drive is Scarcity and Impatience. This is the drive that says we want something because we can’t have it or it’s very difficult to get. If there are grapes on the table, maybe we don’t care; maybe we eat a couple, but we don’t give them importance. If the grapes are behind a showcase, out of our reach, we won’t stop thinking about them. Can I eat them? When? What are they doing in a showcase? Will they be good? This is a strategy that Facebook used at the beginning. When they said that facebook.com was only for Harvard students, and if you don’t go to Harvard, you feel you can’t use Facebook. Later, they said, “I’ll extend it to Harvard, Ivy League universities, and other universities” that your friends go to. But they didn’t choose you. It feels. In the end, it opened to more people.

Unpredictability and Curiosity

The seventh drive is Unpredictability and Curiosity. This is the drive that says that, since we don’t know what will happen next, we can’t stop thinking about it. This is used in things like everything the gaming industry does, the mechanics of slot machines, and also the draws of the lottery system. It is also what makes us want to finish a book or a movie.

Loss Avoidance

We have the eighth drive, Loss Avoidance. This is very simple. It’s when we do something to avoid a loss or when we don’t want something bad to happen. The signals indicate that it is much more likely that we will do something to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain because a loss is more painful.

Those are the eight core drives, and I repeat, everything that is done is given by one of these core drives. If there is none, there is no motivation.

The most important thing I want you to learn is to understand motivation and human psychology and apply it to the experience. It’s not about technology, functions, or features. It’s about understanding how the brain is interested in stimuli, in the environment, what excites it and using empathy to know how to create a better experience.