a16z partner jonlai: The most successful applications are packaged games

Author: jonlai, a16z Partner
Translator: Claudia, Shenchao TechFlow

In the narrative of blockchain or Web3, a common idea is to use "Tokens" to incentivize behavior. Therefore, a frequent narrative among entrepreneurs is, "Because I provided incentives (Tokens), I can naturally attract users…"

I am usually skeptical of such expressions. First, this idea underestimates the complexity of human nature. Society itself has a set of incentive systems that drive human behavior, which can be vanity, a desire for recognition, or approval. Whether it’s the points/badges of the past internet or today’s Web3 Tokens/NFTs, they are merely short-term external incentives; what truly matters is meeting internal needs.

Second, retaining users is more important than acquiring them. The "sprinkling money subsidies" of traditional Web2 and the "airdrop expectations" of Web3 can generate short-term popularity, but the more important question is how to turn temporary usage into long-term behavioral habits.

Today, I share an article titled "The Most Successful Applications Are Packaged Games" by jonlai, a partner at a16z in the gaming field, exploring the mechanisms behind gamified applications. What kind of game-like applications can retain users in the long run?

The following is the main text:

Gamification is dead, but not in the way you might think.

When you think of gamification, you might think of the application of video game mechanics, such as points, badges, and leaderboards, or some products that are not within games. This is why Tripadvisor offers points for writing reviews, why Starbucks has a mini-program that allows users to earn free coffee through loyalty spending, and why Google News initially awarded badges for reading articles.

However, over the past decade, the allure of gamification has faded.

During its heyday, many early developers used gamification in ways that did not align with user interests. We can see that writing reviews benefits Tripadvisor, but not the users. Allowing Google News to access browsing history could even harm users who value privacy.

These gamification projects did drive user engagement in the short term to some extent, but most did not manage to retain users in the long term. To date, many such projects have been shut down.

The reason these gamification projects failed is that they overlooked the fundamental principles behind great game design—the foundation of great video games is user retention. Classic games like "World of Warcraft" and "Candy Crush" have attracted users for over 10 years. Their success lies in the alignment of game mechanics with users' intrinsic motivations. By establishing feedback loops, teaching, and rewarding users, they provide a long-term path to becoming a "game master."

Today, many well-performing applications incorporate these game design principles into their core product design. These game-like experiences provide users with enjoyment and establish long-term usage habits. This category includes many popular modern applications across various aspects, including productivity, social networking, finance, mental health, and education.

Motivation, Mastery, and Feedback

While there are many different frameworks for "what is a game," most people agree on three core principles.

Motivation: Why does a person want to play your game?

Mastery: What are the rules and systems of the game?

Feedback: How will this person learn these rules?

Let’s look at some successful games that apply these principles.

Motivation

Most game designers today agree with the self-determination theory, which posits that behavior can be driven by intrinsic or extrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation comes from external sources, such as monetary rewards or commands from parents/bosses.

Intrinsic motivation stems from innate psychological needs, such as autonomy (the desire to control one’s life), competence (the desire to control outcomes), and relatedness (the willingness to connect with others).

Most games focus on intrinsic motivation, viewing it as the most effective and long-term driver of behavior. Take the introductory level of "Mega Man X" as an example, a classic sci-fi action game. In the first 5 minutes of the game, the user encounters Vile and is defeated (Vile is a very powerful enemy combat robot).

However, the user does not see "Game Over"; instead, at the last moment, they are saved by a red robot named Zero, who wears flashy armor reminiscent of a Ferrari. When the user kneels before Zero, he declares that you will become stronger and one day "might even become as strong as me."

This sequence of actions is a powerful demonstration of intrinsic motivation, as the game encourages users to set two goals.

1) Become as strong as Zero

2) Defeat Vile

These goals constitute the "victory conditions" of the game and are motivating because they directly enhance the user's competence (becoming stronger) and autonomy (deciding how to achieve it).

More importantly, users are motivated to continue playing without needing any gamification tricks, badges, or points. Users embark on achieving self-determined goals, and the game provides them with the tools to achieve those goals. This aligns the product with intrinsic needs.

This is also a key principle that many gamified applications fail to grasp. Instead, they treat the accumulation of badges or points as a goal in itself. Without the support of intrinsic needs, these mechanisms ultimately become shallow, external drivers that quickly bore users.

Mastery

Cognition is the second key principle of game design. A player motivated by victory conditions is ready to learn the rules of the game. In the case of "Mega Man X," these rules include the control scheme (how to run and shoot) and enemy behaviors. These rules show players how to win: a gradual path to mastery.

Mastery is an essential component of any activity, related to the intrinsic need for competence. People want to improve their skills through engaging in activities, whether learning a new sport or playing a game. Of course, they also expect that mastery is fair, and progress should be based on skill and choice, not luck.

Game designers often struggle to find the right balance of difficulty, ensuring it is neither too hard nor too easy. Well-crafted games create flow, a mental state where users are intensely focused on the present, and time flies by.

The same applies to non-game products. For example, painting a landscape or playing a challenging piece on the guitar can also produce flow.

Combining intrinsic motivation with a balanced path to mastery is crucial for maintaining learning effectiveness. As long as the rules are fair and the goals seem achievable, users who reach certain points in a game or activity will typically persist. Where gamified applications often go wrong is in celebrating the use of systems that track mastery, such as levels, experience, and badges, without any real challenges or paths to mastery.

When you "level up" on Tripadvisor, you haven't mastered any skills, and when you earn a Google News badge for reading an article, there’s nothing truly worth celebrating. To be more effective, these systems need to measure real skill progress toward the intrinsic goals that users care about.

Feedback

Feedback is the third key design principle, referring to how users learn the rules of the game/product.

The best games teach through clear cause-and-effect iterative loops, such as how Super Mario teaches users through the feedback loop of death.

At the beginning of the first level, an enemy Goomba appears. If the Goomba touches Mario, he dies and restarts at the beginning of the level, but only goes back 3 seconds. This brief, harmless loop encourages users to experiment until they discover they can jump over or onto the Goomba.

The iterative loop also provides positive feedback for users taking the right actions. In the animated GIF below, Candy Crush Saga celebrates players matching 3 candies of the same color with spectacular explosions. The game also employs randomness, surprising users with unexpected outcomes. When users chain matched candies together, they appear in layers on the screen, with design effects so fast they are hard to track, such as fireworks, fish, and lightning—these unexpected joyful moments.

The best designers often assume that users will not read the instructions and generally design products in a "Learning By Doing" manner, setting up iterative feedback loops along the way. These loops help guide users along the path to mastery, ultimately achieving their goals. Few gamified applications can establish feedback loops as naturally as the examples above.

Game-like, but not Gamification

Over the years, the three core design principles of Motivation, Mastery, and Feedback (MMF) have extended far beyond the realm of games. In the 1990s, these principles were incorporated into human-centered design by the renowned design firm IDEO. Today, many of the most popular consumer products and enterprise applications utilize MMF in their core design.

Games and Social

Many of our most popular social networks are game-like apps. Applications like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok directly tap into users' intrinsic motivations. Users express themselves while creating stories (autonomy) and connect with others in the process (relatedness). There is even an optional path to mastery, as users strive to attract followers and receive feedback in the form of likes.

Clubhouse is a relatively new app that further embraces randomness in its core design. The app recreates the feeling of "bumping into" friends by allowing users to enter live rooms, creating delightful moments. Top Clubhouse speakers can help other users host or improve their public speaking skills and achievements.

Regardless, note that these social applications have abandoned the use of points or badges, yet they exhibit strong long-term user retention, a hallmark of game-like experiences.

Games and Work

Recently, a new generation of productivity software has emerged that resembles games more than tools. Repl.it, a browser-based IDE; Figma, a collaborative design tool, have introduced multiplayer modes for coding and design. Developers can work, comment, and learn from each other in real-time, making these software applications more enjoyable than previous solo operations due to the "human element."

The email application Superhuman is also a game-like example. Under the leadership of former game designer Rahul Vohra, Superhuman sets a goal for its users: achieving a zero inbox, and provides finely-tuned controls and inbox rules to help users complete this process. When users reach a "zero" inbox, Superhuman displays a beautiful, high-definition nature image that changes daily. At the bottom of the image, Superhuman tracks the number of days users have achieved a "zero" inbox, reinforcing the path to mastery.

Games and Mental Health

Forest is a game-like productivity and mental health application with over 6 million paid users, turning the act of maintaining focus into a game.

Users start their focus training by planting a tree. When users work, the tree grows; if they leave the app before the time is up, the tree wilts.

A wilting tree serves as negative visual feedback, discouraging users from distractions like checking social media or email. Successfully maintaining focus nourishes a tree, which users can plant in their personal forest, showcasing their achievements and duration of focus (this is also a path to mastery).

Over time, Forest aims to build long-term user habits around "being present" and "being mindful."

Games and Finance

Chime Bank's automatic savings account turns saving money into a game. Chime sets a clear goal for its users: save money, and designs a complete process to help users achieve this goal.

Chime's debit card rounds transactions to the nearest dollar and automatically transfers the difference into the savings account. This savings amount varies with each transaction and is highlighted in color on the Chime app's homepage, providing users with unexpected joyful moments when they open the app.

By adding randomness to its design, Chime makes the traditionally tedious task of reviewing bank statements enjoyable.

This positive feedback loop reinforces the savings goal and helps users cultivate good habits on the path to mastering saving. Over time, users may even feel motivated to save outside of Chime.

Games and Fitness

Zombies, Run and Strava are game-like personal fitness applications that make running and cycling more enjoyable.

Zombies is an audio app where users play as survivors in a zombie apocalypse. Zombies motivates users to run by assigning them goal-oriented tasks, such as gathering supplies or escaping zombies. Users win by running a certain speed or distance. The app tracks each run and sends daily progress reports via email, celebrating milestones and task completions.

Strava employs similar goal-setting and feedback loops as Zombies, adding a social dimension. Strava maintains leaderboards for users' running or cycling activities, allowing users to see their progress relative to peers. As users run faster, they see themselves climbing the leaderboard in real-time. The leaderboard itself does not inherently provide motivation, but it works well in Strava because competition is a natural activity, and users want to measure themselves against their peers.

Games and Education

Duolingo is a popular game-like language learning application. The app sets a goal for users—to learn a language—and suggests that users study for 15 minutes daily to achieve mastery.

Courses are divided into short, relatively easy levels, similar in length to mobile game levels. The courses are well-structured, focusing on helping users achieve a state of flow. Each lesson mixes new and old words and adapts to the user's performance. If a lesson seems too easy, new words are introduced, and vice versa.

Duolingo also tracks how many consecutive days users have studied and reminds them if they continue their streak. This maintains user autonomy while providing a form of external regulation (avoiding becoming a bad student).

Looking Ahead

These three core principles have been integrated into many of today's most successful modern apps. We may no longer refer to them as gamification, but the fundamental principles are more relevant in today’s gamified applications than ever before.

Early gamified applications prioritized short-term engagement over long-term retention, while game-like applications closely align with user needs and achieve long-term user retention. The core of the MMF framework has always been user retention. When people have fun and realize they are achieving their goals, they establish long-term usage habits. In this way, game-like applications have helped users move toward lifelong goals, such as saving money, exercising regularly, and improving productivity at work.