Startups Stack Exchange Archive

What is gamification and how can my business utilize it?

“Gamification” seems to be an increasing trend in modern business.

I have started watching the video series The Beginner’s Guide to Gamification, and it seems like it has a lot of good information, but the guy keeps on skipping frames and it kind of irritates the watcher.

So what is it? What are the basics of gamification? How can my website/application benefit from gamification to increase my user base, or at least make it more engaged?

Answer 1599

Gamification is the application of positive psychology findings and research, mostly coming from the work of people trying to make video games better. It’s currently getting a lot of well-deserved attention for its potential for businesses. Want to engage people? Learn what makes an experience engaging!

One of the key principles is imbuing something with intrinsic value. Most things we do (work is a prime example) have extrinsic value (work > money > goods/experiences > fun/feeling good). When you can make something intrinsically valuable to people, you will end up with something deeply engaging.

It doesn’t necessarily mean making a game. A lot of the best uses of gamification boil down to making something that’s normally tedious into something that holds attention and drives action.

There’s a lot out there that will give you a basic understanding of gamification:

(More) to watch:

  1. If videos are your preferred way of learning, I’d recommend checking out Badgeville’s webinars. There are 26 of them, ranging from the basic and general to the advanced and specific. I attended a live one that was informative and insightful.

Disclosure: During the talk, they recommended books that they or the guest speaker had written (nothing underhanded, just saying things like “this topic is covered in greater depth in this book”; “for more on this idea, read this”, etc.). They sent me a single email afterwards to follow up, and when I said I wasn’t interested in discussing any business I did not hear from them again.

  1. Nicole Lazarro, Founder and President of XEODesign, Inc., has given a variety of interesting presentations, mostly to do with sharing what she has learned from the research her company has done into what makes something fun. She’s most often cited in gamification literature for her theory of four key drivers of fun (there’s more than one type of fun, didn’t you know?), but this talk she gave while here in Chicago covers a lot of ground useful to aspiring gamifiers.

Reading:

  1. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
    • On Amazon
    • LA Times review
    • TED talk by author
    • I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s well-researched, organized, and practical. I’ve read a few other books that are supposed to be primers on gamification and they struck me as watered-down versions of this work.
  2. Flow

Answer 1601

From Wikipedia:

Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems and increase users' self contributions

In a business context, I interpret that as hiding services/features/perks behind various accomplishments (tailored to your business) so there is constant incentive to engage with your product/service. Some business models lend themselves to gamification while other do not (e-commerce is probably not a good thing to gamify...it should be as low friction as possible). Imagine a scenario where a user signs up for your service and has free reign to do whatever they want. Without any guidance or incentive to use specific features of your service, you run the risk of that user becoming confused or bored and leaving. Contrast that with a "gamified" version of the same service where that user must perform some entry-level tasks before being granted free reign:

  1. Visit the help page [+50 points]
  2. Perform a search [+50 points]
  3. Refer a friend [+100 points]

Now that this user has 200 points, they have unlocked the ability to [insert your website features here]. It doesn't necessarily have to involve points, but there should always be a carrot dangling in front of the user, not only to increase engagement but to teach them about how your service works and what kinds of features are available to them.

Obviously there is a lot more to it but I'm sure you'll dive deeper in the videos you're watching.

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