How to Engage Users through Gamification: The Prevalent Effects of Playing and Mastering over Competing

Over recent years, gamification has been a frequent strategy to increase user engagement. Gamification of systems is usually associated with incorporating mechanisms for attributing points and badges to guide users' behaviors. However, since the dawn of the digital game industry in the 1980's, Malone's work has shown that the desire to play and master a game are important motivations to engage users. This paper aims to analyze the most engaging factors for gamers in the current context of technology. Using a sample of 717 users whose game preferences were classified into eight categories, representing different emphasis on playing, mastering, and competing, results show that competing is the least important factor to motivate engagement. As a consequence, we question the relevance of some of the most used gamification strategies like attributing points, badges, and reputation to participants. Additionally, we offer some suggestions for development of gamification of systems.