How a Gamification Engine Integrates Game Mechanics and Player Features in Software Environments

Table of Links

Abstract and 1 Introduction

2 Related Work

3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture

3.2 Gamification model

4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments

4.1 System architecture and design

4.2 Integration

4.3 Other functionalities

4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site

4.6 Advanced functionalities

5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite

5.2 Design

5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection

5.5 Intervention

5.6 Analysis of results from the case study

5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study

Discussion

Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References

4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements

A popular question in gamification is what game mechanics we can apply in gamified environments in order to foster motivation and engagement in the users. In our previous systematic mapping about gamification in software engineering[8], the game mechanics and elements which have been considered previously were identified. Table 3 shows that list of game mechanics, and how they are supported in our gamification engine. As we can see in Table 3, only one, namely “betting”, is not currently supported.

4.5 Player’s site

activities in the gamified environment. Figure 8 displays a screenshot of the home page of the player’s site in a real setting of the engine (real logos have been removed from the head of the page). This application allows the players to see all the information about their activity in the gamified environment. The home page shows them their profile information, the experience points they have accumulated, the level, the percentage of points obtained until the next level is reached, a chart for experience points, a list of the badges obtained, and two rankings, one of them considering all the players, and the other one taking into account only the players immediately above and below the player. The site also allows the players to access other information, such as a map with their locations, the projects they are involved in, social networks (“Friends” option in the menu), messages, notifications, challenges, and access to the virtual assistant.

The players can thus access all the information of the gamified environment in a single place. Of course, this does not prevent us from showing information about rewards in the gamified tools.