Gamification Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience

I was in high school and college in the late 90s/early 00s, and emo had really come into its own during those years. Being the depressive person I am, I naturally gravitated toward this genre. One of my favorite bands was Jimmy Eat World. While there are many memorable lines from their music, there’s one line from the song “Your New Aesthetic” that has always stayed with me: “I remember back then thinking / Easy comes but doesn’t stay / What comes easy never stays.” How true these words are. Things that come easy to us never seem to last. They aren’t memorable. It’s why people who live up north think nothing of snow while we in south are amazed by the rare occasions when snow actually covers the ground.

Challenging but not Impossible

Scarcity & Impatience, while being a Black Hat Drive, can have a powerful impact on students. It motivates in two ways. First, we are motivated because we can’t have something immediately.

Delayed gratification is considered one of the traits that leads to true success and real joy in life, but so many students lack this trait. They’ve grown up in an instant gratification society that wants everything now, and many of them don’t know how to wait and work toward something. By introducing Core Drive 6 and limiting instant gratification, students not only learn how to wait, but they can also gain a greater appreciation of earning something.

In addition to immediacy, Core Drive 6 motivates by generating difficulty in obtaining something. It’s basic supply and demand. The more scarce something is, the more perceived value it gains, even if it’s not actually more valuable. The more abundant an item is, the cheaper it’s perceived to be. This is why, in my opinion, A’s in classes have lost their value: they’re too easy to obtain. But that’s a different conversation.

“We have a natural tendency to want things we can’t have.”¹

Yukai Chou

The fine line with all of this in the classroom is that students need to know that while something may be challenging (i.e. earning an A), it is not impossible. When paired with other Core Drives, this can not only motivate students, it can help them develop greater appreciation for what they obtain.

Game Design Techniques

When designing elements of Core Drive 6, consider ways that you can create elements of waiting as well as challenges that create rare elements in your class. Where can you reward their patience? How can you create more value by making something challenging to obtain?

Technique	Description	Technique	Description
Virtual Goods	Virtual items that users can obtain and possess	Sunken Cost Prison	Users invest so much time into something, that even when it’s no longer enjoyable, you continue to commit Desired Actions because you don’t want to feel the loss of giving up on everything.
Avatar	A customizable representation of the user within a system. Avatars personalize the experience, giving users a sense of identity and ownership.	Countdown Timer	Visual display that communicates the passage of time towards a tangible event. Should display the smallest time interval that is appropriate (usually seconds)
Collection Sets	Give users a few items, characters, or badges, and then tell them that it’s part of a set that follows a certain theme. This creates a desire to collect all the elements and complete the set.	Torture Break	Users must wait an interval of time regardless of their actions
Appointment Dynamics	Utilize a formerly declared, or recurring schedule, where users have to take the Desired Actions to effectively reach the Win-State.	Moats	Limiting the user to an ability or item until certain conditions are met (i.e. You can’t equip this sword until you’ve successfully defeated a certain number of monsters)
Protector Quest	Give someone something, then say, “If you don’t do XYZ, I’ll take it away.” Use with teams: If ANYONE doesn’t pull their weight, the TEAM loses.	Magnetic Caps	Limitations placed on how many times a user can commit certain Desired Actions, which then stimulates more motivation to commit them. The feeling of abundance does not motivate the brain. Find the “upper bound” of the desired metric, and use that as the cap to create a perceived sense of scarcity but doesn’t necessarily limit the behavior. Let power users unlock more capabilities and have the limit rise as they continue to prove their commitment.
Desert Oasis	Visually, nothing else is prominent except for the Desired Action	Scarlet Letter	Publicly displaying a user’s negative actions or failures. This can act as a deterrent against undesirable behavior by leveraging social pressure.
Dangling	Regularly showing the user an appealing item that they want but can’t have. Consider the pathway to obtaining the reward. Users must know it’s challenging to achieve, but not impossible.	Evanescent Opportunities	An opportunity that will disappear if the user does not take the Desired Action immediately. (Treasure Goblin, Diablo III)
Rightful Heritage	A system first makes a user believe something rightfully belongs to them, then makes them feel like it will be taken away if they don’t commit the Desired Action.	Thornbush Weakness	Creating obstacles that slow down progress, motivating users to strategize and overcome challenges.
Visual Grave	Show users inspiring graphics when they fail to achieve the Win-State. Then, they will pick themselves up again.	Rare Items	Difficult to obtain items (or only available during certain times)
Weep Tune	Playing uninspiring or sad tunes when users fail to achieve the Win-State.	Grown Up Lock	Something that you own but can’t use until you reach a certain level

What can look like in the classroom?

Be careful with implimenting Core Drive 6. Too much Black Hat Drive can have the opposite effect. Here are a few ideas I’ve found.

• Countdown Timers are a great and easy way to add Core Drive 6 in class. Timers give students of any age a clear visual of how much time they have to complete something. The timer also adds just enough stress to keep them focused. Students tend to lose track of time, so this gives them something very concrete.
• Use Magnetic Caps to limit students and prevent them from “gaming the system.” Student will take advantage of something like extra credit instead of completing the main assignments, so capping how much extra credit they can do, or how many points they can earn from it, can deter those actions.
• Add in Torture Breaks or Appointment Dynamics to keep the same student from monopolizing your time. Some students want you to check their work every two minutes (“Is this right?” “Is this good?”). Use a torture break to make them wait a certain time before you’ll check again. Or you could give them a certain number of checks per class period.

These are some ideas I’ve been able to come up with. What about you? What ideas sparked to life? Please share in the comments section.

1. Chou, Yu-kai. Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. Packt Publishing, 2019. ↩︎