ATD Unleash Potential Virtual Conference, 2020 Jaime McDonald, EVP of Customer Success, showed not only why games are effective but how to add the "special sauce" your learners crave. She explores how to keep your learners motivated by mixing solo gameplay with head-to-head challenges, team competitions, social collaboration, global leaderboards, achievements, and meaningful rewards. In this session, she also explains the difference between game-based learning and gamification, how to tap into your learners' extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, how to measure results and maximize ROI. If you'd like to learn more, please email jaime.mcdonald@thegameagency.com

1. ATD Virtual Conference
Unleash Potential 10.26.20
8 Ways to FUNkify Your
Training with Next Gen
Gamification: Motivate,
Activate & Celebrate
Your Teams!
©2020 The Game Agency LLC. All trade names, trade dress, trademarks, artwork and other content are trademarks and/or copyright material of their respective owners. The Training Arcade and
Arcades are trademarks of The Game Agency LLC. All rights reserved. JEOPARDY! ©2020 Jeopardy Productions, Inc. “JEOPARDY!” is a registered trademark of Jeopardy Productions, Inc. All rights
reserved.

2. JAIME McDONALD
EVP, Customer Success
The Game Agency & The Training Arcade®
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3. The Game Agency
Pursuing a better way to learn, we
help transform training and education
with game-based solutions.
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● Custom Game Development
● Game-It-Yourself Software, The
Training Arcade®
● Library of Games including the only
“official” Jeopardy!® game for
training
● Next-Gen Gamification with
Arcades™

4. Why Games?
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● Increase Engagement and Frequency with content
to improve Performance
● Maximize Virtual Meetings and Live Events with
group play
● Robust Data collection for Measurement and Analysis
of individuals and groups
● Integrate into your existing systems for access
Anywhere
● Help Trainers become Heroes!
● 3 Cs: Keep employees Connected, Collaborating, and Competing

5. ● Why games are so essential in today’s training
● The difference between game-based learning and gamification
● 8 ways to use gamification to tap into your learner’s intrinsic
and extrinsic motivation
● Measuring your success
TODAY’S AGENDA
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6. WHY ARE GAMES ESSENTIAL FOR TRAINING?
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EMPLOYEES
ARE
DISTRACTED
EMPLOYEES
ARE NOT
STIMULATED
EMPLOYEES
CRAVE
FEEDBACK
Games engage people, increase attention, sustain focus, & drive improvement.

7. 50% of Employees are Millennials
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Anxious due to COVID, less connected to their employers,
challenged to communicate with colleagues

8. Games can teach higher order thinking skills
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9. Games can develop soft skills
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10. THE PERFECT MARRIAGE
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BRAINS + GAMES =
● Safe place to fail and learn
● Reinforce Knowledge
● Improve Retention

11. THE PERFECT ROI
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TRAINING + GAMES =
● Engaged Learners
● Increased Attention
● Sustained Focus
● Improved Confidence
● Higher Performance

12. How do you
FUNkify Your
Training?
How do you make your
training more fun and
engaging while also
providing the feedback
that your learners
need?
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13. ● Is it spending time with your
family?
● Going for a bike ride, picnic, run,
yoga?
● Seeing live music with the sun
shining on your face?
● How about skiing down the
perfect trail, wind in your hair?
● Reading a good book on a
hammock?
THE POWER OF PLAY -- WHAT CONSTITUTES
FUN?
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● Seeing your name at the top of a
leaderboard?
● Knowing your team beat the team that
has always been giving you a run for your
money?
● Acing a test?
● Passing a course?
● Solving a puzzle?
● Earning a prize? Cash? Merch? Gift cards?

14. 2 TYPES OF PLAY:
GAME-BASED
LEARNING
VS.
GAMIFICATION
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15. GAMES
Games are all about learning.
You're discovering new techniques
and adapting to new challenges.
Games stop being fun once you
figure everything out and they stop
being fun once you stop learning
--George Fan, (PopCap / EA
Games)
GDC: How I got my Mom to Play Plants vs Zombies
“
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16. ● A strategy that utilizes specific games to obtain a desired behavior
change or learning outcome.
● The game itself is teaching the learner specific content as they are
proceeding through the game.
● Game-based learning provides a practice playground or safe
environment for the learner to fail safely and learn.
GAME-BASED LEARNING (GBL)
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17. ● The design process for games can vary wildly when building a game.
● Many Instructional Designers will be familiar with add-on games:
○ add them to the end of a regular page turner course so they
don’t require a big shift in design thinking
○ Subject matter experts who are used to presenting content in
a linear way don’t have to change the way they think about the
content
● Game-based learning forces a shift in design thinking. You have to turn
your content inside-out and think about the end goals that you want
people to achieve, not just the script you want to read to them
GAME-BASED LEARNING (GBL)

18. CONFIDENTIAL
PICKING THE RIGHT GAME

19. SCENARIOS
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Soft Skills: Sales Training, Role Play, Customer Service,
Choose your own Adventure, Overcome Objections,
Navigate a Difficult Conversation, Situational Learning,
Decision Making

20. RECALL
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Build muscle memory in a fun, contextually relevant way

21. JEOPARDY!®
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Assessment, Reinforcement, Practice, Retention

22. CONFIDENTIAL
CUSTOM GAMES develop a custom game or
immersive simulation specific to your audience,
performance objectives, learning environment,
budget
OFF-THE-SHELF GAMES create games fast, deploy
to learners anywhere, affordable, flexible

23. DESIGN FOR A VARIETY OF AUDIENCES
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24. GAMIFICATION
the application of typical elements of
game playing (e.g. point scoring,
competition with others, rules of play) to
other areas of activity, typically as an
online marketing technique to encourage
engagement with a product or service.
Oxford University Press
“
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25. CONFIDENTIAL
GAMIFICATION
takes the learning to
the next level with
motivating factors that
allow the audience to
immerse themselves
into the content and
become true masters.

26. ● Gamification is the use of game elements or game mechanics to
encourage a desired outcome and provide feedback along the way.
● Motivational Game elements are: points, badges, streaks, rewards,
achievements and leaderboards.
● These elements tap into our extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and drive
us to return to the game to progress and improve our score.
● Gamification doesn’t always look like a game. A gamified element (such
as a progress bar) can be used to drive activity.
GAMIFICATION
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27. ● For instructional designers, the ability to incorporate social
learning, and the fact that this approach helps to create
motivation, is a huge plus!
● Gamification can be used to pump up a traditional page-turner
course in a way that is more integrated than just tacking a game
on the end. Best of both worlds!
GAMIFICATION
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28. Gamification Your Brain The Results
Competition
Status
Incentives
Rewards
Dopamine Release
Fun
Engaged
Memorable
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29. CONFIDENTIAL
Instructional designers talk about this all the time -- about how
important it is.
But it's often lost in the conversations that we have with
stakeholders and subject matter experts.
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

30. CONFIDENTIAL
According to the APA (American Psychology Association)
“an incentive to engage in a specific activity that derives from
pleasure in the activity itself (e.g., a genuine interest in a subject
studied) rather than because of any external benefits that might be
obtained (e.g., money, course credits).”
Intrinsic Motivation

31. Extrinsic Motivation
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According to the APA (American Psychology Association)
“an external incentive to engage in a specific activity, especially
motivation arising from the expectation of punishment or reward (e.g.,
completing a disliked chore in exchange for payment). Compare intrinsic
motivation.”

32. CONFIDENTIAL
Take Training to the Next Level
Head-to-Head
challenging colleagues for
leaderboard dominance
Solo Play
competing with oneself for a
personal best score
Team Play
collaborating for a group
score. Peer motivation

33. CONFIDENTIAL
● Ability to earn points (or other currency) for participation or completing a
task or assignment
● Allow points to accumulate across different activities
● Compete on individual or group games/courses/challenges
● See your name (or initials) and rank in lights atop the leaderboard
(individual leaderboards, global leaderboards)
All motivating factors in driving learners to come back repeatedly to continue to
improve their score, grow their points, jump higher on the leaderboard, all while
allowing the content to really sink in to their long-term memory.
1. POINTS + GLOBAL LEADERBOARDS

34. 2. ACHIEVEMENTS & BADGES
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● Any Peloton riders out there?
● Beyond points, learners crave recognition and are motivated
to show off their accomplishments.
● Earning achievements or badges each time they complete a
new task, play a game, break a personal record, drives
excitement and desire to keep going
● Likes or Virtual High Fives taps into Intrinsic motivation we
talked about earlier.

35. 3. HEAD-TO-HEAD CHALLENGES
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● Why play alone when you can
challenge a colleague (or boss) to a
game.
● Humans are naturally social and
sales teams are naturally
competitive. Creating a challenge
adds an extra boost of excitement.
● Whether live or virtual, challenges
provide an immediate need to
strive for greatness or a push to
achieve more.

36. 4. TEAM PLAY
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● Work together to teach, practice and learn from one another
● Play as a team to drive group collaboration and motivation
● Nudge each other, celebrate successes
● Combine forces and knowledge across different areas of expertise to
grow or tackle challenges together
● Your score affects your fellow teammates so that extra extrinsic
push can help your team climb the leaderboard

37. CONFIDENTIAL
● Due to COVID, there’s never been a more important time to find
new ways to engage learners remotely
● Employees don’t see each other every day but they need to stay
connected
● Keep them collaborating outside the formal zoom room
SHIFT FROM LIVE TO VIRTUAL
LEARNING

38. REINVENT THE LEARNING!
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Zoom, Teams, Webex, GotoMeeting…
Connect and engage learners with Online Group Play™ and drive
friendly competition, collaboration and build community

39. ● Learning is a journey, not a moment in time
● Create a pathway of activities for learners to
achieve along the way - games, courses,
interactive PDFs, videos
● “Spaced Learning” - repeat the same content at
different intervals so people are less likely to
forget it -- repetition = long-term retention
● Guide your learners along the path with gated
stops -- they can’t move forward until they’ve
completed each assignment.
● Create a structured, gamified curriculum where
learners can work alone or together to complete
the journey towards the desired outcome or
prize.
5. LEARNING JOURNEYS Create a Clear Path for People to Learn
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40. 6. MINI-GAMES
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● Too many distractions leads to
short attention spans.
● Quick breaks for mini-games or
micro-learning activities are the
perfect solution for busy people.
● Rapid rewards, spin-to-wins, any
random game of chance, can
kick off learning and keep them
coming back daily.

41. 7. PRIZING
Tap into extrinsic motivation -- allow learners to earn cash, gift cards, vacation
days, company swag, trips, lunch with the boss!
● Set different milestones or goals to achieve over a select period
● Allow individuals and groups to earn prizes
● Tournament or bracket style competitions with different prize levels
● Podium style recognition
● Daily, weekly, monthly winners
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42. Unveil individual and group engagement patterns
with your material, reveal knowledge gaps,
personality behaviors, and group comparison.
8. MEASUREMENT: Data is King!
# of users % accuracy
sessions # Q answered
session length rank
game scores behavior trends
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43. Average time per
game session
Results from a 1,000 Game Study
Micro Experience Successful Repetition
Quick on-the-go
Learning
Measurable
Improvement
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2.9x 18 Min 64%6 Min
Total time spent with
each training game
# of times average game
is played
Lift in knowledge retention
from 1st to 3rd time game is
played

44. Tailor your approach
● Once you have developed a few games you can start to figure out what
your audience likes -- instead of just guessing
● Tailor your approach based on those preferences, so that you can "up"
the engagement even more.
● Know what’s working, which game types they like playing the most,
what is most effective, biggest gaps
● Think about creating different game styles with the same content and let
your learners pick which game style they like best

45. Thanks!
Jaime McDonald, EVP, Customer
Success
jaime.mcdonald@thegameagency.com
203.604.5635
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