• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.315-325
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• 2021

The value and importance of Gamification has intensified as the way Gamification is applied to social networking applications has added to users' interest and involvement to the product. Gamification entails the adoption of gaming techniques and modes of thinking in non-gaming domains to elicit user engagement. To this end, the paper draws on Gamification's analytical model, Octalysis, with the aim of identifying user loyalty of the three major Chinese social networking applications and extracting their characteristics. In this regard, the first task in the advancement of the study is to establish an understanding of the components and characteristics of Gamification within the context of available examples. Next, a questionnaire survey covering China's three dominant social applications, WeChat, QQ, and Xiaohongshu, is administered and their user loyalty is examined through Octalysis's eight analytical frameworks. By virtue of analysis, the results demonstrate that the three elements of game mechanics, Point, Badge, and Leadboard, which are external to the game, fail to sustain the user loyalty, but are merely a means to an end. Only by including a combination of social application features, contents and user needs can Gamification considerations be maximized to ensure that users are subjectively engaged with the product.