An Introduction to Gamification27th Jan 2012

For centuries games have been used to entertain, compete, reward and educate. Throughout history games have proven to bare many positive effects on individuals including; rational problem solving, spatial skills, creativity, co-operations, memory, maths and ethics. Unlike movies or books, games not only have content, they also have rules which through reward have the ability to teach values. Only now are we beginning to understand that games are not just for play and entertainment, they are in fact vehicles for change.

Gamification is the application of game dynamics and game thinking to non-game initiatives. To make it clear, gamification is not creating virtual worlds and games – that’s gaming. Gamification is about taking the engagement tactics found in games to make real world activity more rewarding. These tactics have been used to help kids learn, make loyalty programmes more engaging and are now being applied to business to improve productivity and job satisfaction.

The main goal of gamification is to motivate people to participate in a certain activity. Participation can be increased by providing people with something deeply engaging that satisfies their basic desires. These desires include things such as: reward, recognition, status and achievement and can be fulfilled through game mechanics such as point systems, bonuses and levels. By satisfying these desires, the behaviour of people can be influenced in a positive way. These people could be customers, fans, employees, students or anyone else you want to engage.

In the case of customers, participation could include:

- Visiting sites

- Watching videos

- Posting comments

- Posting in online communities

- Interacting through social media

- Downloading files

- Sharing information

These are just some examples of participation and obviously a lot more can be achieved depending on what your goals are. By increasing participation among customers, you increase the chances of them telling others and becoming advocates for your brand leading to greater brand awareness and loyalty.

Over the next couple of months we plan on expanding on this post with a series of posts that go into more detail about gamification and the ideas behind it. Stay tuned for more and in the meantime make sure you download the One Fat Sheep white paper at the bottom of the page.

Tags: Gamification, marketing, engagement