Exploring the Impact of Gamification on Users’ Engagement for Sustainable Development: A Case Study in Brand Applications
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
You've had a hard time correcting the points.
I think that you revised this paper sufficiently to reflect what I pointed out last time.
Author Response
Reply to the Review Report (Reviewer #1)
- You’ve had a hard time correcting the points. I think that you revised this paper sufficiently to reflect what I pointed out last time.
Reply:
Thank you for providing the insights and giving the valuable suggestions. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to strengthen our manuscript with your valuable comments and queries. We have worked hard to incorporate your feedback. Appreciate your valuable comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article deals with a very important relevant topic, however, it does not relate to sustainable development. It seems that the author mention the concept of sustainability in order to meet the scope of the journal. The research does not include any sustainability aspects. This is proofed by the raised hypotheses as well - there are no hypotheses connected to sustainability issues. If the authors wanted to show the indirect influence of the researched factors on sustainability, it should be thoroughly explained in the study. The research itself is adequately done, the methods are appropriate, but I do not think, that it is suitable for "Sustainability".
Author Response
Reply to the Review Report (Reviewer #2)
- The article deals with a very important relevant topic, however, it does not relate to sustainable development. It seems that the author mentions the concept of sustainability in order to meet the scope of the journal. The research does not include any sustainability aspects. This is proofed by the raised hypotheses as well - there are no hypotheses connected to sustainability issues. If the authors wanted to show the indirect influence of the researched factors on sustainability, it should be thoroughly explained in the study. The research itself is adequately done, the methods are appropriate, but I do not think, that it is suitable for "Sustainability".
Reply:
Thank you for providing the insights and giving the valuable suggestions. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to strengthen our manuscript with your valuable comments and queries. We have worked hard to incorporate your feedback. Appreciate your valuable comments. We agree with you and have incorporated the suggestion throughout our paper. Please see the Abstract, Introduction (page 1) and Section 6 (page 13-14) with blue line in the revised manuscript and the following.
Abstract (page 1):
“Game elements and mechanics have been widely applied as marketing strategies for sustainable development. Seldom have studies explored the relationships between the components of the game and consumer continuous usage with gamification. This study analyzed how game mechanics impact users’ gaming behavior and awaken positive feelings so as to increase stickiness of the brand. This research model empirically surveyed 411 Nike Run Club (NRC) app users, based on the Mechanics–Dynamics–Aesthetics (MDA) framework. The results show that the self-challenge is a pre-factor that affects self-benefit, fun, and social interaction, while self-benefit and social interaction affect fun. The results also show that fun is of primary importance among all others, as it is a factor that affects brand attitude and sustained use. The results provide valuable insights into sustainable strategies for industries related to the operation of an app-based brand.”
Introduction (page 1)
“Gamification is drawing growing attention from both researchers and practitioners [1-3]. For the innovation and sustainable developments in related industries, combining game features and game-thinking into non-gaming contexts, gamification can incentivize and motivate people, as well as enhance their perception and engagement. Therefore, gamification as a powerful engagement tool has been widely utilized in various fields, such as education, healthcare, entertainment, and non-profit enterprises [1-6]. As reported in TechSci Research [7], the gamification market is estimated to reach 40 USD billion by 2024. The emergence of gamification marketing not only changes business marketing strategy, but also alters consumption behavior. As a marketing tool, gamification, apart from aiming to boost sales and to increase profit, can improve customer engagement, enhance product/brand identification, and build loyalty [8-11]. To further gain a competitive advantage, it is of key importance for practitioners to identify the core elements and important attributes contributing to most of the users’ experience and to boost engagement with gamification in marketing.”
Section 6 (page 13-14)
“To enhance the competitive advantages for sustainable development, marketing activities is designed based on creating communicating, and delivering superior value to targeted consumers. The importance of sustainability marketing should emphasize building and maintaining sustainable relationship with consumers and the social environment. Gamification motivates consumers to become more sustainable while entertaining them. In other words, companies have turning to gamification to enhance their sustainability efforts and trying to generate behavior change in consumers and thus increase the stickiness of the brand. This study fills in the knowledge gap and explores how the integration of game dynamics into a brand app contributes to better users’ experience and to boost engagement from the sustainable perspective point of view.”
This research provides an innovative approach and application for sustainable development as a case for enterprises or industries to promote strategic planning. It is closer to the direction of sustainable development. Therefore, we modified the title as below.
“Exploring the Impact of Gamification on Users’ Engagement for Sustainable Development: A Case Study in Brand Applications”
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I have been able to read the revised version of the article and I consider that has been inproved.
- The Theoretical Background is complete
- The operational definitions have been added as Table 2.
- Figure 2 depicts the model and constructs. On the basis of the MDA framework, it was analyzed how a game’s mechanics changes the user’s behavior (Dynamics), which in turn evokes emotional responses (Aesthetics). Specifically, the model shows that Self-Achievement (SA) and Team-Achievement (TA) in the gamification design mechanism affect Self-Benefit (SB), Fun, and Social Interaction Ties (SIT)—all three of which influence brand attitude and continued intention to use (CIU).
- Section 3 further explains how marketing variables are used in the area of Gamified Brand Marketing fits the meaning of scope in this study.
- Research methodology is correct
- Results are presented clearly
Author Response
Reply to the Review Report (Reviewer #3)
- I have been able to read the revised version of the article and I consider that has been improved.
The Theoretical Background is complete
The operational definitions have been added as Table 2.
Figure 2 depicts the model and constructs. On the basis of the MDA framework, it was analyzed how a game’s mechanics changes the user’s behavior (Dynamics), which in turn evokes emotional responses (Aesthetics). Specifically, the model shows that Self-Achievement (SA) and Team-Achievement (TA) in the gamification design mechanism affect Self-Benefit (SB), Fun, and Social Interaction Ties (SIT)—all three of which influence brand attitude and continued intention to use (CIU).
Section 3 further explains how marketing variables are used in the area of Gamified Brand Marketing fits the meaning of scope in this study.
Research methodology is correct
Results are presented clearly
Reply:
Thank you for providing the insights and giving the valuable suggestions. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to strengthen our manuscript with your valuable comments and queries. We have worked hard to incorporate your feedback. Appreciate your valuable comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have included sustainability aspect to their research, hence, the artificial in its present form meets the scope of the journal.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
It was a real pleasure to read your article. I did it more times. Congrats!
Please analyze my following recommendations.
- I think the topic of the article might be defined more accurately, to be defined less general. I mean, the title, the theoretical background, the hypothesis should be more related to content of the quastionnaire and the research methods. You make conclusions mostly based on the NRC project, and the conclusions might not be valid to other apps. I think, this research has already enough scientific value, the article can be published even if you 'll have a little bit more narrow topic for the article
- some of the hypothesis might be necessary to be reconsidered, some of them seems to be almost obvious. Anyway, I think you have proposed yourself to test to many hypothesis. Fewer hypothesis might let you to make more in-depth evaluation of the proposed topic. You collected a large amount of data and made statistical analysis of it, but still further investigations are possible
- there are few wrapping errors in figure 3, and please check of tables 2 and 3 follows the template. It seems the space between the rows is to large.
Best regards!
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic is interesting, and issues related “gamification" are gaining growing attention. It is methodologically sound and the results have been analyzed with careful attention. Especially the conceptual model is reasonable with MDA framework. However, it seems that this research will require many modifications and supplementation as follows. Please hope these comments and suggestions can help further their study.
(1) There is no operational definition.
It is necessary to give operational definition for the readers or future researchers. If the definitions of previous studies are to be used as they are, basically you should mention definitions of variables. However, the study has no operational definition anywhere. When the operational definition of each construct is mentioned, the reader be able to determine whether the measured items in appendix are properly configured or not. It will also be easy to understand how each construct was used in this study.
For example, what does “Continuance Intention” mean? Is this usage intention of NRC app or relational intention with Nike brand?
(2) There is a lack of grounds for argument.
Basically, researchers' arguments should be provided by logical basis with the summary of existing studies and related examples. In this study, however, the following arguments often appear without giving any evidence. For example, what are the past research mentioned in the text, and what are most of them?
Past research on gamification has mainly focused on education and learning, health care, and games themselves. Most research on gamification marketing has explored the effects of player motivation, satisfaction, or behavioral intentions from the perspective of game content design.
(3) In context, there is a lack of logical probability.
You suddenly mention human-centric design as follows, arguing that this promotes user engagement. There was no explanation as to what this had to do with the preceding context and why this was important in this study. Above all, what is human-centric design?
“To sum up, gamification integrates gaming elements, incentive mechanics, rule systems, and feedback systems into non-game situations to attract and motivate people to engage, and then to change their behavior. Gamification is a human-centric design; essentially, it is not entertainment, but a way of thinking and an effective way to promote user engagement.”
(4) There is a lack of explanation to help readers understand the content.
There are many sentences with unclear meaning as follows. Readers need detailed explanations to understand clear meaning.
e.g. 1) What is the difference between ‘Just for Fun’ and ‘Fun in the process’?
“The added gamification design is not just for fun, but mainly to add gaming elements to achieve specific goals and make users feel fun in the process.”
e.g. 2) In the following sentence, what motivations are improved through ‘gamification’?
“Zichermann & Linder [11] believe that gamification is the process of integrating games and strategies in business; through gamification, it is possible to create experiences that can provide internal meaning and improve the motivation of employees and customers.”
(5) A description of the relevant content is required to meet the scope of the study.
In the text, as shown below, you list the important elements of general marketing and describe the common marketing. But there is no explanation for how these variables are defined and used in the Gamified Brand Marketing studies that you call in the text. In other words, I believe that explaining how these marketing variables are used in the area of Gamified Brand Marketing fits the meaning of scope in this study.
“In the past, the main focus of gamified marketing was: (1) Engagement is the consumer's performance and investment in cognition, emotion, and behavior during their interaction with the brand or in other relevant activities [21] ...............This translates into stronger brand connection or improves a brand’s foothold in a consumer’s memory. Analyzing consumer brand attitudes and behavior can enable corporate determine brand marketing strategies used to influence consumers to sustainable services and goods”.
(6) Appropriate cases are required.
While Nike's case is understandable, I don't think Starbucks is appropriate as a Gaming Brand Marketing case. Starbucks as an example of Gaming Brand Marketing, which is rather judged to be just an example of the compensation system previously covered by marketing research. Unsuitable cases will add to the confusion among readers.
(7) Problems in deriving research models
First, you adopted MDA framework to analyze how a game’s mechanics changes the user’s behavior, which in turn evokes emotional responses.
But I wonder why the brand attitude and the continuance intention used in this study are emotions.
I don't understand why you are choosing brand attitudes and continuance intention with emotional responses. Most marketing studies deal strictly differently with emotional constructs and behavioral intentions.
Second, why do you divide the ‘Mechanics of Gamification’ into two? As you mentioned in the text, the ‘Mechanics of Gaming’ consist of several factors. You should explain why the ‘Mechanics of Gamification’ is divided into ‘Self Achievement’ and ‘Team Achievement’ instead of the several specific factors of ‘Mechanics of Gaming’, but there is no reason or explanation for this in the text.
(8) Lack of logic in hypothesis setting
Most of all, the biggest problem is the lack of a logical basis for detailed hypothesis setting across the board. For one thing, for example, you draw hypotheses through the following arguments.
“In order to pursue the sense of accomplishment generated by success, people with a strong need for achievement will focus on overcoming challenges in the game and play for increased Self-Benefit.”
However, there is no previous study or logical basis to support this argument even H1b and H1c too.
(9) You need to seriously proofread the paper.
There are many typos and grammatical mistakes throughout the paper, making it hard to read and understand. There are so many awkward English expressions that will be a huge problem for readers to understand. It needs to be carefully read by an English native speaker in order to detect any deficiency in the quality of the language adopted.
Reviewer 3 Report
- The authors start the introduction with the gamification concept. The theoretical background begins with gamification definition. All this should appear in the theoretical background. The introduction should be devoted to the authors' motivation to conduct the current research. The authors ought to provide the following thing in the introduction:
- the scientific gap they want to cover with their research
- the novelty of the research
- the problem of the research
- the aim of the research
- The theoretical background consists of three sections, however, it is not clear what is the connection between those sections.
- The 4th section "Research Methods" must be improved significantly. I failed to find a description of methods that are used for obtaining research results. All the methods should be explained thoroughly and the motivation of their choice has to be presented as well.
- Table 1 has to be removed to the results part. Moreover, the formula according to which the sample size was calculated has to be provided in the methodology part as it is not clear if the sample is representative.
- Results are presented clearly.
