Gamification: What is it?

Hello and welcome back to my blog! In today’s post, I will be focusing on gamification: what it is, how it’s used, and the value it provides to consumers of your business. As part of our assignment this week we had to read the fourth chapter of our textbook, Loyalty 3.0 written by Rajat Paharia, entitled “Gamification – The Engine of Loyalty 3.0”, which I will be pulling information from periodically throughout this post. With that out of the way, let’s get into it!

Defining Gamification

Gamification is the third and final part of the Loyalty 3.0 equation that we’ve been piecing together over the last month. Although it includes the word “game” in the title, there is a very distinct difference between games and gamification. Gamification uses information from big data along with “motivational techniques that video game designers have used for years” to influence players and apply them to non-gaming situations (Paharia, 2013, pg. 65). With gamification, “your core experience is the centerpiece, and the gamification mechanics go around it”, and this experience must “have some intrinsic value of its own” (Paharia, 2013, pg. 69). Whereas with games, their main purpose is to entertain and are mainly identified as “play-based elements in a course” (TTCInnovations, 2017). 

10 Crucial Gamification Mechanisms

This process relies on 10 mechanisms that touch upon consumer intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Fast feedback is motivated by mastery and progress. This technique instills real-time feedback after an action is taken to engage less-involved players, positively encourage good behavior, or correct mistakes. Transparency, motivated by progress and social interaction, allows consumers to track where they’re at compared to others. Goals motivate players with purpose, progress, and social interaction. This technique focuses on achieving challenges and often includes a description of what needs to be done, an indication of time expiring, a description of the reward, a visual indicator of progress, and comparison statistics (Paharia, 2013). 

Badges and leveling up, touch upon mastery, progress, purpose, and social interaction. It is a way to represent the accomplishment of a goal or skill. The more consumers progress, the more rewards they earn. Onboarding is a technique that helps guide players step-by-step through a process or game, hitting on mastery motivators. Competition fosters achievement by playing against others and seeing where you rank compared to them, driven by mastery and social interaction. Collaboration and community, similar to competition fulfill a need for social interaction, allowing consumers to work as a team to achieve a unified goal (Paharia, 2013). Lastly, points hit upon progress and social interaction, acting as a way to keep score and reward participants for doing something valuable (Paharia, 2013). 

Case Study

Recently, I had the chance to review Fender’s newest subscription program, Fender Play, which offers customers a range of video lessons to learn how to play the guitar (Fender, 2020). This program touches upon intrinsic motivators of mastery and progress, and gamification techniques including goal-setting and leveling up. As you level up in the course and complete various skills and lessons, you can unlock rewards, including access to free one-on-one instructor sessions, gift cards, and promotional codes to use at Fender’s online store. This drives members to engage with different product lines, rewards progress, and helps them achieve their desired goals, all while adding meaningful value to their lives.

Citations:

Fender. (2020). Fender Play Online Guitar Lessons - Learn How to Play Guitar. @Fender. https://www.fender.com/play

Rajat Paharia. (2013). Loyalty 3.0 : how big data and gamification are revolutionizing customer and employee engagement. Mcgraw-Hill Education.

TTCInnovations. (2017, May 12). Gaming Vs Gamification – Is There A Difference? - Custom Learning and Development Solutions. TtcInnovations. https://ttcinnovations.com/gaming-vs-gamification-is-there-a-difference/