Understanding Gamification of Business

Understanding Gamification: From Commercial to Social Bala Iyer February 2012 @balaiyer 1

Trends• Gamification, social layer and virtual currency are buzzing. 2

What is Gamification?• Integrating game dynamics into a core activity or non-game environments in order to educate, change attitude or behavior and inspire action.• "taking the best ideas from games and applying them to fields where they are not usually used” [Gabe Zichermann]• Core activities -- business process, service, community of purpose, content management, campaign management or product use 3

Purpose• Drive motivation, participation or engagement.• Education, change habits, attitudes and behaviors and inspire action 30-day rule 4

What can we get out of it?• The technique can encourage people to perform chores that they ordinarily consider boring, such as completing surveys, employee performance, training, remembering to take medicine, or shopping.• Activities are made more game-like (i.e. fun, rewarding, desirable, etc.)• We believe that it can also have loftier ambitions like catalyzing social change. 5

More than a technology• It is a capability• Requires investments in: – People (designers, developers, change management) – Process (methodology, performance) – Technology (gaming platforms, analytics) – Governance (policies and review) 6

Skills Video Games DevelopSource: Online Colleges 7

What is a game?• An environment• A set of clear rules to win rewards & achieve victory• An objective for victory (a quest)• A way to measure progress against ourselves and others (scoring system)• Many things in our lives are an implicit game: – getting into a good college, landing a good job, finding a significant other, and credit scores. Source: Tim Chang, Mayfield fund 8

Not New• We’ve had this for a long time: – Frequent Flyer Miles – Frequent Shopper Cards• We’ve been engaging in it recently without calling it Gamification – Foursquare and “Check Ins” – Wii Fit – Progress Bars in Social Media Profiles 9

Categories of gamification• Consumer Engagement (using game mechanics to draw consumer attention and sell more goods and services)• Employee Incentives (using game mechanics for more employee productivity or for employee training, etc.)• Collaborative work (to encourage teams to discover solutions)• Social Change (using game mechanics to enact social change). 10

Examples Source: Link 11

Why pay attention?• There are more than a half a billion people worldwide who play online games at least an hour a day. Gaming is productive. It produces positive emotion, stronger social relationships, a sense of accomplishment, and for players who are a part of a game community, a chance to build a sense of purpose. Im interested in bringing this mindset to our real lives and efforts to tackle the worlds most urgent problems, from curing cancer to slowing climate change.— Game designer Jane McGonigal, 12

Generation G, Primed for games• Currently more than half a billion people worldwide playing online games at least an hour a day -- and 183 million in the US alone.• More than 230 million active users play Zynga’s games• 97% of boys under 18 and 94% of girls under 18 report playing videogames regularly.• The average young person racks up 10,000 hours of gaming by the age of 21. Thats almost exactly as much time as they spend in a classroom during all of middle school and high school.• 5 million gamers in the U.S are spending more than 40 hours a week playing games -- the same as a full time job! 13

Moral hazard problem• If you reward people for doing something they are not interested in, you de-motivate them in the long run• Its like giving kids a dollar for doing math problems. They will do the math problems because they like the money, but will become conditioned to do it only for the money-- Michael Wu, Researcher online behavior for Lithium Technologies 14

Market• Gamification market, currently estimated at around $100 million, will grow to more than $2.8 billion by 2016.• The enterprise represents the largest vertical segment of the gamification market, accounting for nearly a quarter of the market.• Top Gamification vendors are projecting 197% growth in 2012, up from 155% in 2011.• Gamification vendors report that 47% of client implementations are for user engagement, with brand loyalty accounting for 22% and brand awareness 15%. 15 Source M2 Research

IT Stack Users Services Behavioral Gaming Change Layer Social ApplicationsOperating Systems Hardware 16

Why does it work?• Meaning – Connect actions to personal goals – Tells a story• Mastery – Learning is fun – Scaffolding challenges• Autonomy – Play is voluntary 17 Sebastian Deterding Meaningful Play: Getting Gamification Right

Don’t Play Games With Me, Sebastian Deterding 18

What are game mechanics?• They are principles, rules, and/or mechanisms (much like mechanics in physics) that govern a behavior through a system of incentives, feedback, and rewards with reasonably predictable outcome Source: Micheal Wu 19

Examples of Game Mechanics• Points• Badges• Leaderboards• Levels• Challenges• Virtual Goods• Gifts 20

Human desires• Rewards• Status• Achievement• Self expression• Competition• Altruism 21

Motivation• Extrinsic – Points – Leaderboards – scores• Intrinsic – Challenge – Learning 22

Motivation Triggers• Personal – You came back to this site 7 days in a row• Within network – You wrote more reviews than your friend• Across networks – You are the first to kill all enemies Source: Badgeville White Paper 23

Behavior• Uploading content• Viewing a page• Sharing an item• Leaving comments• Writing reviews• Return visits to a site• Watching videos• Buying a product• Adding an item to your shopping cart, or• Any other behavior trackable with a click or mouse- over 24

Source: Bunchball 25

Gamification Advantages• Accelerated feedback cycles.• Clear goals and rules of play.• A compelling narrative.• Tasks that are challenging but achievable. Source: Catherine Aurelio 26

Risks• Poor execution – It’s boring, it’s incompatible with your goal, etc. As a result, at best it distracts your user; at worst it damages your brand• Mismanaging engagement – In the “social” era, everyone believes that he or she is a part owner of brands and content and they believe they have a vested interest in the direction of the brand or content – And every user engaged through gamification has a free non-legal remedy if the engagement was mismanaged.• Legal risks 27

Challenges• Extrinsic rewards, like monetary bonuses, are great at encouraging rote behavior• They actually hinder performance for tasks that require creativity• People are motivated by three main things: autonomy, mastery, and purpose• Any ethical issues with behavior manipulation? 28

Challenges• Margaret Robertson: Can’t Play, Won’t Play [2010] “Gamification is an inadvertent con. It tricks people into believing that there’s a simple way to imbue their thing (bank, gym, job, government, genital health outreach program, etc) with the psychological, emotional and social power of a great game.”• Exploitationware 29

Examples 30

Health• Being healthy isn’t inherently fun per se, but could be made more engaging and actionable if it’s gamified, which starts with• Measuring daily actions and decisions,• Providing instant feedback and data back to users,• Adding interactivity and game-like mechanics around this data to make health “playable” by users. Source: Tim Chang, Mayfields 31

Source: Wired Magazine, 2008 33

Other Examples• Sustainability - Nissan Myleaf• Get fit : NextJump• Financial – Mint.com• Save the planet: RecycleBank• Make research and evangelism count: Crowdtap• The biggest loser 35

Common across good use• Applying principles of game design to non- game activities can be done carefully, artfully, and with wonderful results• Necessary condition: your brand, product, service has to make users better at something• Just make people better at something they want to be better at. Kathy Sierra 36

Platform Providers• Bunchball, Nitro• Cubepoints• Badgeville• Get Glue• Bigdoor 37

Capabilities Supported• Game mechanics• Social fabric analysis• Integration with social platforms• Engagement analytics• API based SaaS pricing• Personalized challenges, not "one size fits all" badges• The opportunity to compete and collaborate alone or in teams• Meaningful rewards for accomplishing things. 38 Source: Quora

Question• Can gamification be used to solve societal problems? 39

Gamification for Social Good• Balancing the federal budget• Reducing poverty• Decreasing waste of natural resources• Reducing energy consumption• Measuring consumer confidence• Leading healthier lifestyles• Other topics will be considered, but – Must show strong links to a social issue & – Must have macroeconomic content or context 42

Framework• Define Problem• Identify Stakeholders• List Critical Success Factors• Identify Current Challenges• Apply Gamification – Mechanics – Human needs or motivators – Align incentives with goals• Perform Risk analysis• Track Success measures 43

Apply Gamification• Define player motivation• Define your victory conditions• Set the rules of the game• Make it social Source: Addingplay with Playgen 44

Alignment• Define your site’s business goals. – Which behaviors do you want to encourage? (Visits, comments, etc)• Identify & segment site visitors. – Use deep engagement analytics to understand the site audience• Reward Engagement – Recognize and reward engagement that aligns with strategic business objectives in real time. 45

Gamification best practice• Be clear about business outcomes• Map your goals with your user’s interests.• Prioritize the actions you want your users to take.• Add rewards and prevent users from gaming the system.• Reward behavior based on the value of the action.• Use levels to keep users coming back.• Use real-time feedback on progress.• Leverage groups and teams to collaborate and push one another.• Integrate social media.• Integrate into business processes or core activity• Measure, analyze and refocus 46

Virtual currencies• Are the incentives/rewards that you offer convertible into real goods and, therefore, run afoul of virtual currency regulations?• Are the incentives/rewards effectively gift cards and, therefore, run afoul of state gift card rules?• Are the games structured in a way so that they are a legal contest or sweepstakes? 47

What next?• Add gamification capability to your toolkit• What processes do you want to gamify?• Join gamification communities• Perform strategic experiments• Analyze success and failure stories• Understand the risks• Make sure that preconditions are validated• Measure success 48

Resources• Catherine Aurelio, TED Talk• 11 Tips for a Winning Gamification Strategy 49

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Understanding Gamification of Business

by Bala Iyer

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