User/player type in gamification

Abstract

Gamification is defined as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts. Even though game design elements were integrated into the gamification application, some researches show negative and mixed outcome about user engagement and performance. The purpose of users segmentation is to identify groups which share commonalities characteristic but still profoundly different from each other. There are four types of users subdivision; demographic, psychographic, geographic, and behavioural. Our goal is to explore the theoretical and conceptual aspects of the player/user type towards creating an engaging gamification application by doing a literature survey. Our finding shows that the user type profile is not inclusive to one characteristic as it may be derived from a combination of either all types. The classification can guide the gamification designer to decide which game elements to incorporate into the gamified application. It is essential to consider a suitable game mechanics with user types because some researches have shown that certain game elements will produce an adverse outcome towards a specific user type. It is also recommended to suit an individual motivational preference with suitable game elements by using an adaptive approach. Furthermore, most of the gamification user type research is still using games player types such as Bartle’s Taxonomy and BrainHex, while HEXAD is a well-accepted model to describe gamification user type.