This is especially true if badge earners are “gamers”, a demographic that according to the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) is 59% of Americans.
Digital badge systems can be made better by understanding what video games have done with similar mechanics and the lessons learned should be applied to systems being built today. The examples in this chapter are meant to be a collection of exemplars that represent patterns in the game industry, good and bad design decisions, interesting techniques, and the impact they have on players. Nor is it a complete picture of everything that is going on in all games. This chapter is not meant to discuss every aspect of achievement systems and skill trees in games. Because the vast number of games that contain achievements and skill trees as well as the limited amount of documentation on their designs, the majority of the examples in the chapter are taken from the author’s experience as a player and designer. This chapter is organized by achievement and skill tree design techniques with game examples that illustrate them. We are reinventing the wheel when another industry is already making supercars. Ignoring this kind of information is folly, but so far we have stuck primarily to academic explorations of the psychology behind digital badges and limited our case studies to the systems our community has made in the past few years. Not only have game developers had a head start, but they are building systems for audiences on a massive scale that is bigger than anything that has been made for digital badges. The story of each one of those little experiments is filled with successes, failures, innovations, and evolutions. There are thousands of games that have used these mechanics when accounting for all platforms. In video games, badges are called achievements and pathways are called skill trees. The gaming community just uses different terminology for them. Video games have a big head start on the digital badge community utilizing badges and pathways. Because of the similarities between the design and intent of games and educational systems it shouldn’t be a surprise that in many cases they reach the same conclusions about the best way to accomplish that intent. Both games and educational systems rely on goal setting, feedback loops, difficulty that scales along with participant experience, and incentivizing continued participation. Both are designed to move participants through an experience by equipping them with knowledge and skills. In many ways games and educational systems aim to accomplish the same things.
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