Motivation Discovery in ‘Gaming Lifestyle’

at Google

This is exploratory research project I led with multi-disciplinary team members. The high level objective of the study is to uncover motivations that drive people engage with “gaming elements*” outside of gameplay.

*In this project, the definition of ‘gaming’ is much broader than traditional video/mobile/console/computer games. It includes gamified experienced (e.g. hitting daily exercise goal everyday)

For more details, please contact yui.moana@gmail.com

Background and Goals

Google product team wanted to create more fun and engaging user experience when people use Google products. One of the ways the team was exploring was to bring gamified experiences in products.

Research goals

Uncover target personas’ motivations that drive them engage with gaming elements in everyday lives

Methodologies

Explored how gaming elements inspire people’s life and culture beyond gaming platform by conducting a range of activities to collect both attitudinal and behavioral data.

  • First, conducted literature review (desk study) and online discussion with 300+ game fans over 8 countries to form our hypotheses

  • Then, analyzed Google Search and YouTube video data to identify which non-gaming categories were intersecting with gaming topic and what their possible motivations could be

  • Additionally, conducted 10 in-depth user interviews to understand “why” people behave the way they do & “how” they feel

Crucial Insights

Games are more than just fun entertainment. The elements of gaming have entered people’s daily lives. The research uncovered opportunities for products to weave elements of gaming to address people’s desires for:

  • Self-expression: Gaming inspires how people express their identity

  • Burst of happiness: Gaming boosts my mood through entertainment

  • Motivation in the mundane: Gaming makes my daily routine more fun

  • Self-esteem to try new things: Gaming builds my confidence to learn

Research Impact

  • Strategic impact: Sparked product engagement ideas by integrating users’ desire to engage with gaming elements in their everyday lives & opened up opportunities in product roadmap

  • Stakeholder collaboration impact: Positioned our research team as a strategic partner of product, marketing as well as sales teams

My learnings

  • Providing a clear definition of “gaming” upfront was very important, but giving too much examples could have influenced participants comments.

  • Vendor management - I needed to rely on external resource because of the short staff in our team. Much more guidance upfront to get ‘insights’ was needed when we ran analysis. Otherwise, the insights was only the summary of interviews.

For more details, please contact yui.moana@gmail.com

Fig 1. Examples of gamified product experiences

Fig 2. Image of research methodologies

Fig 3. Summary of 4 personas based on their needs