What is gamification?
Gamification is when serious services and applications use insights from the game industry (game mechanics) to engage, retain users and more. It is an attempt of the world to change, to adapt to new people and their new lifestyles. To compete successfully, to be effective, to be interesting, to be worthy of attention. Attention is expensive these days.
Why does gamification work? Because the generation Y (those who from early childhood had a computer at home and, of course, games) not only grew up, but also occupied key positions in all spheres of life (https://kevurugames.com/gamification-services/). Their motivation from an early age was built not on duty and rightness, but on passion and reward.
The fact is that all of these people (and the hundreds of millions who are playing right now) have an excellent understanding of levels, progression, quests, rewards and achievements. At the same time, they may have no idea what their boss is expecting from them, or how to get the most out of your service. They already instinctively pump up their level, develop skills, complete tasks and set records. You can and should take advantage of this. Look at how games have changed in the last 10 years. They have become much more diverse, in some ways bolder, in some ways softer. They have reached more audiences than ever before. They are getting more attention than ever before. And making more money than ever before.
A key problem with most services is that they are difficult to learn. In order to get to grips with the service, the user has to do a certain set of actions. It is not always clear how to motivate him or her. The goal of the user is the result, learning the interface is a tax he is forced to pay.
Gamification for users presents the process of mastering the service (onboarding) as a conscious game process, makes you calculate where the user needs to make an effort, where he can relax, where the user sees a momentary goal, how we can reward him for his efforts (custom game development company). Similar tools are available for retention: when the user should return to the service, why, how they will know about it, how to set the user a rhythm.
Gamification helps to engage the user, draw his attention to key features, lead him by the hand through the features of the service. With gamification, we can not only teach the user the algorithm of interaction with the service, but also convey the essence of the project, its values, which are likely to be close to the user, create an emotional attachment, start a pleasant and interesting dialogue.
And when the user has already had all the answers, when he or she has experienced that it works, the “activation” comes – an event after which we believe that the user is sufficiently engaged, ready to try and listen – and we move on to the next stage.
It is not enough to keep the user interested and give them a quick benefit. If the user gets what they came for immediately, they won’t come back.
It is important to offer some long-term, regular scenarios for using the service. If the user has come for a small thing, offer them a new, bigger goal. Prepare a reason for him to come back, enable push notifications, sign up for the newsletter, build a long-term plan and make an internal promise to follow it.
Gamification as an intangible motivation for employees. Many people have probably seen RSA Animate’s genius video about motivation. It talks about the fact that material motivation does not work for creative employees. It is the drive and self-organisation that comes first.
Gamification for employees is often about removing the effects of routine and creating additional meaning. For example, even the lives of programmers can be made more fun by giving them duels, checkpoints, and battles with bosses.
Top management already considers gamification as one of the staff motivation tools. But for our company, it’s more of a middle management tool, certain structures. We, like many other companies, need non-financial incentives to encourage employees to be more creative, to motivate them. We have used gamification quite successfully for this purpose.
