The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale, ten years on
Lennart E. Nacke · University of Waterloo
Six authors turned a practitioner’s model into a questionnaire
Gustavo F. Tondello HCI Games Group, University of Waterloo
Rina R. Wehbe HCI Games Group, University of Waterloo
Lisa Diamond and Marc Busch AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Vienna
Andrzej Marczewski Gamified UK, who designed the Hexad framework
Lennart E. Nacke HCI Games Group, University of Waterloo
Twenty-four items score six motivations, and one person can score high on several
The first version rested on 133 people
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Tondello et al. (2016), CHI PLAY, pp. 229–233. doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968082
Cutting six items strengthened the retest for five of six types
Test–retest reliability (Pearson r, 40 people), 30-item draft to final 24 items
Tondello et al. (2016), Table 2. The Player scale fell to .357 and was revised in 2019.
One respondent in 133 scored highest as a Disruptor
Each dot is one person, placed by their highest-scoring type. Disruptor scores averaged 14.9 of 28; every other type averaged 20 to 22.
The data moved 14 of 31 game elements out of the framework’s grouping
Correlations between type scores and element ratings in the 2016 study, significant cells only
The most reliable scale matched none of its game elements
Kendall’s τ between each type and its suggested elements, framework grouping → improved grouping
Tondello et al. (2016), Tables 1 and 7. Philanthropist α = .893, τ = .039. The improved grouping gained 9% overall.
Google Scholar, October 26, 2026
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citations, and every index counts them differently
Direct citations climbed to about 75 a year by 2021 and held there
Papers citing the Hexad paper each year, OpenAlex. 2026 runs to November 4.
The most-cited follow-ups became citation engines of their own
Citations to the eight most-cited follow-ups, split by the year they arrived
594 papers cite the Hexad paper directly
Each dot is a paper. Time runs clockwise from 2016. Bigger dots have more citations.
Those papers drew 6,870 more
The orange ring holds papers that cite a paper that cites the Hexad paper.
The second ring kept growing every year through 2025
cite the Hexad papercite those papers
One 2017 review pulled in 496 citations on its own
Nacke and Deterding, “The maturing of gamification research,” Computers in Human Behavior
Follow the most-cited descendant and the line runs nine generations to a 2026 museum study in Tashkent
Authors in 65 countries cite the paper
Citing papers with at least one author affiliated in each country, top 12
The questionnaire now exists in 17 languages
Documented minimum, October 26, 2026. Translation and validation are separate questions.
Gustavo and I kept rebuilding the scale, and Jeanine Krath made it shorter and stronger
Hexad‑12 halved the questionnaire and fit the data better
0items, down from 24
0responses to choose items
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Krath, Altmeyer, Tondello, and Nacke (2023), CHI. Better model fit, reliability, and validity than the 24-item scale. 23,196 valid responses on the public Hexad-12 data page by October 26, 2026.
Twenty-three thousand Hexad‑12 tests later, the Disruptor is still rare
Share of people whose single top type is each type: the 2016 study (133 people) and the public Hexad-12 test (12,454 people). Another 47% of the 23,502 test takers tie on two or more types. Cyan dots rose since 2016; magenta dots fell.
Live Hexad-12 test data, hexad.gamified.uk/data (Andrzej Marczewski), retrieved November 4, 2026.
Player motivation falls in every age band, while Philanthropist rises
Mean proportional Hexad-12 scores by age, 18,423 test takers who shared their age. The lines cross in the 21–29 band.