Gamification is a field that is substantially taking off in today's world. Today there are hundreds of Gamification Case Studies with ROI stats in the double or triple digits. However, there still are many misconceptions and misunderstanding on gamification, especially when it comes to actually implementing good gamification design into your own projects. 

This talk will be about Yu-kai Chou's Octalysis Framework. Published in late 2012, the Octalysis Gamification Framework has become a global standard, being translated into over 16 different languages, and transforming many businesses throughout the world. 

The premise of Octalysis is that an experience is not motivating simply because it has "game mechanics" and "game elements" in them. Every single game in the market has game mechanics in it, but most games are still boring and unsuccessful. It is unrealistic to think that, once you take those game elements (such as Points, Badges, and Leaderboards) that are even found in boring games and plug them into your project, your project will automatically be fun and successful.

Instead of focusing on various game mechanics and game elements, Octalysis focuses on the 8 Core Drives, which are our inner drives that motivate us to do anything. Everything we do is based on one or more of these 8 Core Drives; which means that if none of these 8 Core Drives are present, there is no motivation, and no behavior happens.

Among the 8 Core Drives, there are also different "natures" of those Core Drives. White Hat Core Drives make people feel powerful and in control, but there is no sense of urgency; Black Hat Core Drives make people feel urgent, obsessed, even addicted, but in the long-run it leaves a bad taste in their mouths because they are not in control of their own actions. Extrinsic (Left Brain)Core Drives motivates users through rewards, goals, and achievements, but users don't necessarily enjoy the activity itself and may drop out after obtaining the reward; whereas Intrinsic (Right Brain) Core Drives motivate users because they want to enjoy the experience - they would even pay in order to do the activity.

About the speaker:

Yu-kai Chou is an Author and International Keynote Speaker on Gamification. He is the Original Creator of the gamification framework: Octalysis, and the author of Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. He is the Founder of The Octalysis Group and has been a regular speaker/lecturer on gamification worldwide, including at organizations like Stanford University, Accenture, TEDx, SxSW, Ericsson, Gamified India, Huawei, the Innovation Center in Denmark, Kingdom of Bahrain, and many more.

Yu-kai was one of the earliest pioneers in Gamification, starting his work in the industry in 2003. In 2015, Yu-kai was rated #1 among the "Gamification Gurus Power 100" by RISE, and was also awarded "Gamification Guru of the Year Award" for both 2014 and 2015 by the World Gamification Congress based in Europe.  He has helped a variety of companies, from seed stage startups to Fortune 500 companies such as LEGO, eBay, Huawei, Fidelity, AIG, Verizon, HP, Cisco, Wells Fargo, and more. His work has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The World Journal, Business Insider, PBS, and many more.