Gamification for health and wellbeing: A systematic review of the literature

Johnson, Daniel; Deterding, Sebastian; Kuhn, Kerri Ann L.; Staneva, Aleksandra; Stoyanov, Stoyan; Hides, Leanne

doi:10.1016/j.invent.2016.10.002

Cited by 906 publications

(774 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…As well as scientific literature, the development of the app drew on the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) as a theoretical grounding in combination with other theory-based strategies, such as selfmonitoring, social comparison and gamification -which have all been shown to be successful in either dietary change or digital health interventions [18][19][20][21][22][23]. The BCW is an integrative guide for understanding behaviour change, and is a synthesis of many previously published theoretical frameworks from this field.…”

Section: Phase 2: Ground In Behavioural Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of VegEze: Smartphone App to Increase Vegetable Consumption in Australian Adults (Preprint)

Hendrie¹,

James-Martin²,

Williams³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Section: Phase 2: Ground In Behavioural Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of VegEze: Smartphone App to Increase Vegetable Consumption in Australian Adults (Preprint)

Hendrie¹,

James-Martin²,

Williams³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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“…Gamification [2] and games have been used and studied in a variety of applications related to health and wellbeing [3,7,9]. Nevertheless, their application in the domains of wellbeing and flourishing (the pursue of a happy and meaningful life rather than the simple inexistence of illness) remain considerably less studied than other more common application areas, such as physical health, fitness, or nutrition.…”

Section: Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive Gaming

Tondello

Orji

Vella

et al. 2017

Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

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Gamification and games have been used and studied in a variety of applications related with health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, there are very few studies aimed at designing games (whether serious games or recreational games) or gameful applications for improving wellbeing or flourishing -the pursuit of a happy and meaningful life, rather than the avoidance of illness. Therefore, this full-day Workshop aims to form a community, discuss theoretical and practical considerations, and promote the development of research projects focused on "Positive Gaming" -the use of gamification and games as tools for realizing Positive Computing objectives. This will create the opportunities for interested researchers to form a common understanding, develop methods and procedures, and establish a roadmap for future research in Positive Gaming.

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“…Literature reviews of the impact of points in gamification contexts have found no evidence of effects (Hamari et al, 2014) or inconsistent effects (Johnson et al, 2016;Lewis et al, 2016). Notably, Lewis et al (2016) identify in their review that points play a major role.…”

Section: Thesis Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While subsequent research in this area may further iterate and refine our typology, its current validity in experimental settings has been partially established as an appropriate approach. In our own experiment, we found that the interest/enjoyment construct of the player experience is better facilitated by including a breadth of video game reward types, which has design implications for the games industry as well as implications related to the theory and practice of gamification, where the effectiveness of gamification strategies is often examined using a single type of reward (Hamari et al, 2014;Johnson et al, 2016;Lewis et al, 2016). Our experimental findings in relation to the role of reward responsiveness also reveals new possibilities for interpreting and investigating the player experience, and for the analysis and design of video game rewards in future research.…”

Section: Final Commentsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…This suggests that gamification, while popular, may be ineffective, or is not being implemented well. Johnson et al (2016) have also conducted a literature review on the effectiveness of gamification in the health and wellbeing domain (Johnson, 2016). Nineteen papers were identified, 59% of which reported positive results and 41% of which reported mixed results (again, 0% of papers reported only non-results, suggesting a publication bias in this space).…”

Section: Video Game Rewards In Gamificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Video Game Reward Types and The Player Experience

Phillips¹

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The complexity of video games is growing rapidly, with new game genres and game mechanics emerging. To keep pace with this, a broadly defined and widely applicable framework is needed to increase our understanding of how video game rewards impact the player experience. However, very few such frameworks exist, and those that do tend to be based on their authors' experience with video games. This thesis aimed to create a new typology for examining video game rewards in a meaningful and applicable way. A mixed-methods approach was used to iteratively develop a new video game reward typology. First, existing methods for classifying video game rewards were identified, trialled and revised. A set of focus groups was then conducted to explore the applicability of the existing and revised video game reward typologies to video games.Two card-sorting activities were then undertaken to test the applicability of the existing and revised video game reward typologies. This indicated that the revised video game reward typology was a more useful tool for classifying video game rewards.A purpose-built video game was then developed to determine the impact of eight video game reward conditions on the player experience in an online experiment. While we did not find a distinct difference between individual reward types, we did find that the diversity of video game reward types present in the experiment affected enjoymentbeing exposed to the full range of video game reward types led to greater enjoyment than exposure to only one individual reward type or to no rewards. This confirms that video game developers should aim to include a breadth of video game rewards in their game designs to maximise player enjoyment. Beyond this, we also found that reward responsiveness plays an important role in facilitating enjoyment-participants with higher levels of trait reward responsiveness enjoyed all versions of the game more than participants with lower levels of trait reward responsiveness. This result indicates that player experience investigations should consider player traits to gain a holistic understanding of how relevant constructs impact the player experience.This thesis has resulted in the development of a video game reward typology that can be used to accelerate understanding of video game rewards; it has also contributed to knowledge of how video game reward types impact the player experience. The contributions of this work thus have implications for both video game researchers and video game development practitioners.

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Gamification for health and wellbeing: A systematic review of the literature

Cited by 906 publications

References 76 publications

The Development of VegEze: Smartphone App to Increase Vegetable Consumption in Australian Adults (Preprint)

The Development of VegEze: Smartphone App to Increase Vegetable Consumption in Australian Adults (Preprint)

Positive Gaming

Video Game Reward Types and The Player Experience

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