Rise of Gamification: Playing your way through life! (Part 1) 🕹
What is Gamification? The psychology behind it + Pros & Cons + Examples.
Hi, Ravdeep here. 👋
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Have you ever been pulled into a game or a website where you and your friends have been asked to create avatars, score points and compete with each other to be listed on a leaderboard? If yes, then you have already experienced gamification. (and subsequently a part of the Matrix. Not kidding!)
What is Gamification? 🕹
In a nutshell, Gamification is the addition of game elements to non-game elements. It is the process of adding game mechanics and game dynamics to non-game environments such as a website, an online community, Learning Management System or a business intranet to increase participation. The goal of gamification is to engage with consumers, employees and partners to inspire collaborate, share and interact.
Let’s break it down even further:
Game Mechanics - These are the rules and rewards that appear in a program on a digital platform. A few examples would be points, levels, missions, leaderboards, badges, in-game currency and progress. Game mechanics determine how participants engage with a gamification program and receive next steps and feedback on accomplishments.
Game Dynamics - This refers to a set of emotions, behaviours and desires found in the game mechanics that resonate with people. A few examples would be competition through leaderboards, collaboration by completing team missions, community by seeing other participants on a news feed, collecting unique badges and surprises by unlocking new missions. Game dynamics are used with game mechanics to foster engagement and motivate participants.
So how does Gamification work exactly? 🧐
Before we get even more technical, let’s look at how gamification works and what kind of psychological impact does it have.
Some of the most popular gamification elements that are used today are Points, Badges, and Leaderboards.
Points are used as an indicator of progress within a game, in sports, with rewards and referrals.
Badges are used to display achievements, for completing specific tasks or evaluating how the tasks were done, much like a star on the report card.
Leaderboards are used across various fields of life, from sports to sales to video games to world records. These present competitive placements to participants.
Keep these three points in mind as you’re reading the following text. It is important to see how these very basic game elements tap into our human psychology.
The psychology behind Gamification 🧠
World leading Gamification expert Yu-kai Chou believes that true gamification is when we tap into our core human drives. He believes these core drives are key to bringing “fun & engagement” into almost any task; these 8 universal core drives are;
Meaning - The desire to feel that our actions have purpose
Accomplishment - The drive to achieve and overcome challenges
Empowerment - The desire to choose one’s own direction and try a variety of solutions to a problem
Ownership - The desire to own things and have possession
Social Influence - The drive to interact with, help, learn from, and compete with others
Scarcity - The drive of wanting things you can’t have
Unpredictability - The drive of wanting to know what will happen next, and...
Avoidance - The drive to avoid pain or negative consequences.
The effectiveness of elements like points, badges and leaderboards according to Yu-Kai Chou is in their ability to use these core drives. For instance;
Point systems make us feel like we have meaning, purpose and a sense of progression.
Badges tap into the need for accomplishment and reward
Leaderboards appeal to our need for social status and influence.
The more we are able to understand the psychology behind our core drives, the better we will be at creating gamified campaigns and actions that meet these core needs and in turn prove to become more fun, engaging and a higher likelihood of being shared. Many social media apps, digital marketers and brands are doing this these days and the application of it is almost seamless due to which the users do not realise that they are already in a gamified environment. (Dopamine rush from Instagram Likes ✅ )
Pros and Cons of Gamification 📝
Being the very unbiased writer that I am, it is always good to put both sides of the story into perspective. I am huge proponent of Gamification but it does have some really disturbing downsides which we can be better off without.
Pros:
Higher engagement due to increased competition.
Increased learning retention through involvement and creativity.
Real-time feedback and progress tracking which increases satisfaction and engagement.
When gamification is combined with repeated retrieval and spaced repetition, it can drive behavioural change.
Cons:
Addictive. Sticky apps that trap you into their algorithm by showing the next possible achievement at every step is the classic ‘Carrot on a Stick’ metaphor that use reward to induce a desired behaviour. This is the worst point in successful gamification.
It may foster unfriendly competition.
It may put people off the product entirely due to poor execution or poor audience fit. Just throwing in game elements is not enough.
Possible negative emotions such as frustration if user is not able to complete a task.
Doing the gamified activity for the sake of the game, not the activity itself.
Examples of apps using Gamification for User Engagement 🥕
Productivity:
Todoist
This app helps users to complete all types of tasks, from minor daily chores to major work projects, in the following ways:
Point-based reward system. For each completed task, the app rewards the user with karma points. There are even negative karma “rewards” for missed deadlines.
Levels. A certain amount of karma points unlocks the next levels.
Social engagement features. The users can share their karma score with friends on social media.
Habitica
The app uses the RPG game mechanics — for example, players can create characters, unite into guilds, and defeat monsters to help people adopt new habits in the form of fun quests. The gamification features here are as follows:
Internal currency/rewards. For each completed task, the users get different rewards: XP, HP, and gold.
Competition. The players can compete with each other in challenges.
Learning. After the users complete tasks, they can learn new concepts.
Forest
This gamification example app uses tree planting as the key gamification concept. It helps you stay focused on your tasks without distractions like social media. While you are working on a task, you “plant a seed” that may grow into a mighty tree. Or may not — if you succumb to temptation and interrupt the activity, the tree will wither. The more focused you are, the more trees you can grow, and eventually they can turn into a forest.
E-Learning:
Duolingo
This language learning app uses the following gamification features:
Internal currency — lingots — which the user can earn for completing various activities.
Social interaction — the ability to collaborate with friends invited via Facebook.
Competitiveness — the ability to vote on the best translation provided by users.
Badges awarded for achievements such as completion of a certain number of skills, following a certain number of friends, spending a certain amount of lingots, etc.
Point-based rewards and a scoreboard.
Codeacademy Go
Codecademy is an online platform that teaches software development and coding. In 2018, the company released a mobile app called Codecademy Go. The platform uses these elements to gamify the app:
Badges awarded for mastering specific stages of certain skills. Currently, there are four types of badges – for the completion of exercises, courses, specific courses, and promotion badges.
Progress dashboard that shows the completed lessons as well as the next ones.
Points are given per each completed exercise.
This is part one of a two part series on Gamification. I will be sending out the second part within this week itself to make up for not sending a newsletter last week, my apologies. The second part will feature Gamification techniques, how to use Gamification in your own life, more examples of Gamified apps and branding, Gamification thought leaders and resources that you can refer to to learn more about it.
Thank you and have a brilliant week ahead. I will see you soon with Part Two. Please write back on this email if you have any feedback. Share the newsletter with your friends and family as that helps a lot and hit that little heart button!