Approximate Reading Time: 5 minutes

I’m still playing along with the coursera course on Gamification. (See my initial reaction here, and my first assignment here).

This week we got our last assignment (out of three). This course only runs 6 weeks (August 27 – Oct. 8) so we are now finishing our second last week. Almost done.

Next week I’ll tell you what I got.

Our work consists of quizzes and short written assignments. I haven’t seen the final yet but I would imagine it is the same format as the quizzes, only longer.

Here’s the scenario this week:

Project Part III: Design Document

Now that you know the essential concepts about gamification and game design, it’s time to use them. For this final task, we ask you to bridge this gap as you meld creativity and structure to match peoples’ needs with technical feasibility and business realities.

You are approached by Cheyenne Kendrick, the CEO of Go Digital Press (GDP), a global publisher of electronic books for devices such as the Kindle, Nook, and iPad.  She knows you are one of the top experts on gamification, which she has heard can revolutionize publishing.  She asks you to present a proposal for a gamified system to take her business to the next level.

GDP concentrates on the trade segment of the book market, i.e. non-fiction publications that would traditionally appear in bookstores, rather than mass-market paperbacks. Approximately 50% of its titles are targeted at business professionals; 25% are educational resources on technical topics such as computer programming; and the remainder address a variety of different subjects.

As a pioneer in e-book publishing, GDP faces the challenge that many users, even in the U.S., do not yet own reader devices.  As of April 2012, only 21% of American adults reported that they had read an e-book in the past year, although those numbers are increasing rapidly.  Kendrick tells you that another concern is that the device manufacturers and their associated distribution platforms control the sales process, making it difficult for publishers such as GDP to obtain data or develop direct customer relationships.  On the positive side, an e-book is a flexible digital asset, which can offer interactive features beyond any physical book.  Kendrick asks you to propose a way to gamify the distribution or consumption of e-books, or both.

Provide a detailed description of your proposal, organized according to the design framework described in the lectures in Unit 7:

1.     Define business objectives
2.     Delineate target behaviors
3.     Describe your players
4.     Devise activity loops
5.     Don’t forget the fun!
6.     Deploy the appropriate tools

A summary of each concept is provided on the Gamification Design Framework page.

Format: Maximum of 1500 words.  A normal answer will have descriptive text, and/or a set of bullet points, for each of the six sections of the design framework.

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Here’s My answer:

Business Description:

• eBook publisher
• sells primarily trade books:
  • 50% business
  • 25% educational – IT
  • 25% other
• not enough customers own eReaders
• no direct access to sales data or customers because the distributor has that and won’t share

1. Define business objectives

• increased distribution of eBooks & readers
• increased consumption of eBooks

This can only be done by driving sales TO the distributor site, but we want to make that the last place the customer goes – after they have already decided they are going to buy the book. We want to keep them on our site as long as possible. We also want to convince them to buy more eBooks. We can highlight the features of the eReaders, but people are more likely to buy eReaders if there is a book that they want than they are to buy the eReader first and look for books after.

2. Delineate target behaviors

(be specific; what are the win states; how will we measure)

1. Increase traffic to GDP website ( .5 or better DAU/MAU)
2. Increase talk about available eBook titles (good virality)
3. Increase landing on eBook descriptions (pages) (volume of activity)
4. Increase sales of eBooks

3. Describe your players

Trade books are basically educational (i.e. people buy them to learn something), but they are not designed for use in a classroom, although they are often used there. This means that the people who buy these books are looking to learn something about the subject of that book.

Let’s concentrate on the 2 main demographics:

1. corporate professionals
2. educators who need to know about IT

These are people who are probably college educated and also motivated to learn from these books. We’ll assume that these are people who are reasonably technologically savvy; but for some reason they don’t own an eReader, or they don’t buy eBooks. I can personally relate to this. I DO own an eReader, but prefer to buy trade books as physical books.

So it seems to me, *I* am the kind of customer we are targeting. The goal is to convince me to buy trade eBooks instead of paper ones. This can be done by:

1. making me more familiar with what’s available
2. demonstrating how easy it is to search inside a book (this is a common reason why people buy paper instead of eBooks)

4. Devise activity loops

This will include a variety of activities that are spread between the GDP website and the eBooks themselves. They will include a considerable amount of cross-referencing between the two “locations”. People can, of course read their eBooks on their computers so they can access both simultaneously to make gameplay seamless.

eBook sales can be increased by demonstrating that it is just as easy to use an eBook as a paper one. Some of the activities in the gamified site are geared towards helping people become more familiar with how to use eBooks.

We can also boost sales by creating value added found only in the eBook versions.

Rewards will include those that come from creating a community for social sharing and creating connections. They will also include the more typical PBL: players can earn points that can be traded for coupons towards eBooks. In this context it makes sense to use points that can be used as currency to trade for coupons that give players $off on eBooks.

Activities include:

1. Book review (earn points)
2. Rate a book (earn points)
3. Treasure Hunt:
   1. On the website:
      1. find N books in a particular topic
      2. be the first to …
      3. various clues and challenges
   2. INSIDE the eBooks: (Easter Eggs)
      1. answers to clues given in the treasure hunt
      2. be the firs to find the …..
      3. find the key (hidden code) to unlock a mini-game on the site
4. Become an “expert”
   1. comes from purchasing N books in a topic/category
   2. from answering questions about that topic/category on the site
5. Book Club
   1. done asynchronously, using the social applications
   2. could offer those books at a discount to book club memners
   3. there are several featured books each week
   4. people can discuss the book
6. Form “guilds” based on purchases, wish lists
   1. suggested guilds to join based on your lists
   2. get registered users to report which books they bought (Because GDP doesn’t have access to sales data)
7. Occasional contests
8. Meet the author (online – only for people who purchase eBooks)

5. Don’t forget the fun!

The visual appearance is important. Because the target audience are mostly professionals, the site should be fun and lively but not juvenile.

• each registered user may choose an avatar from among:
  • various bookish characters (owls, professors, …)
  • various literary / professional  characters
  • various others
• players can
  • issue challenges on the social board
  • create lists (top 10 books on gamification)
  • discuss books
  • post lists

6. Deploy the appropriate tools

This system would become the new GDP website. Since the device manufacturers control the actual sales, the only places where GDP has control are on their own website and inside the eBooks. Thus the “home base” for the game will be the website, but play can be distributed across the site and all of the eBooks sold by GDP.

GDP can offer updates to existing eBooks containing the new content so as not to drive anyone away. People who already own the eBook can play too. All they need to do is update their book.

The distributor will have to agree to accept coupons earned in the game. IF done well enough, the distributor will also want to get in on the fun, but the “price” will be access to their data.