Walk through any public area and you'll see people glued to their phones, playing mobile games like “Game of War” and “Candy Crush Saga.” They aren’t alone. Fifty-nine percent of Americans play video games, and contrary to stereotypes, 48 percent of gamers are women. The $100 billion video game industry is among the least-appreciated business phenomena in the world today.
But this isn’t an article about video games. It’s about where innovative organizations are applying the techniques that make those games so powerfully engaging: everywhere else.
Gamification is the perhaps-unfortunate name for the growing practice of applying structural elements, design patterns, and psychological insights from game design to business, education, health, marketing, crowdsourcing, and other fields. Over the past four years, gamification has gone through a cycle of (over)hype and (overblown) disappointment common for technological trends. Yet if you look carefully, you'll see it everywhere.
Tapping Into Pieces of Games
Gamification involves two primary mechanisms. The first is to take design structures from games, such as levels, achievements, points, and leaderboards—in my book, For the Win, my co-author and I label them “game elements”—and incorporate them into activities. The second, more subtle but ultimately more effective, is to mine the rich vein of design techniques that game designers have developed over many years. Good games pull you in and carry you through a journey that remains engaging, using an evolving balance of challenges and a stream of well crafted, actionable feedback.
