By: Merve Cicektakan Gogus, Associate Consultant

Gamification is one of the buzzwords we hear while reading industry news, looking around social media, even while gaming! Being a buzzword comes with the danger of falsity, and gamification has a fair share of that. Sometimes it is confused as a game, limited to younger generations, considered a danger to serious businesses, and seen as a demanding process. One of the most dangerous myths is using it as an extrinsic-only motivation with points and badges, which is one of the main causes of failure. Now, let’s define gamification and clear these five misunderstandings.

1. Gamification and game are the same things.

According to Collins Dictionary, a game is “an activity or sport usually involving skill, knowledge, or chance, in which you follow fixed rules and try to win against an opponent or to solve a puzzle.” Games consist of components called “game elements.” Competition, collaboration, storytelling, problem-solving, strategy, and PBL (points, badges, leader board) are a couple of examples of game elements. Gamification is applying these game elements to the real world. As a more scientific approach, Sailer et al., 2016 defined gamification as “the process of making activities in non-game contexts more game-like by using game design elements” in their ‘The rise of motivational information systems: A review of gamification research‘ paper.

Another way of looking at their differences is their value stand-alone. A game is a product by itself, while gamification is a practice applied to products and processes. Therefore, gamification does not have value without a real-world artifact or process to be based on.

2. Gamification is for the younger generation.

Because we have the conception that “games are for children,” or worse ‘games are for boys/men’ we also tend to think the same for gamification. Both assumptions are wrong.

Have you ever played Candy Crush? Have you ever seen someone playing it? The answer is most probably ‘yes’ for both questions. The company announced that its core users are women aged 35 and above. Almost 40 percent of their active users are above this age, and they have a nice crowd in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s. I know I seem to contradict myself when I give a game example for gamification, but this is not about the game. This is about our capability of enjoying and normalizing game elements.

3. We are doing serious business; we cannot incorporate gamification into what we do.

Gamification is not about pretty design and playfulness. Good gamification is designed based on its aim and audience (like all good designs should be). Hence, it can be applied to almost anything.

What is the most serious entity you can imagine? I think, military. Did you know that US Military integrated gamification into their recruiting and training processes? They even have a fully gamified website AmericasArmy.com.

4. I cannot use gamification; it is difficult to learn.

The good thing about gamification is, it is intuitive. It is simple to understand and use. A small explanation might be needed initially, but if you cannot grasp gamification while game-playing, the problem is most probably the bad design of gaming elements. As I mentioned before, the gaming elements should be put in for specific reasons, and they should be engaging. A gamified process should not repel you. On the contrary, push you to learn more and get better.

To give an example, OPower (now Oracle Utilities OPower) made it so simple, yet so effective. It is a data-driven company aiming to understand users’ energy consumption behavior and increase energy efficiency. It has one crucial element to engage users, compared to the average. We always consider ourselves “not worse than average” in everything. Then who are these people lowering the bar? OPower says we are. Their system averages the energy consumption in the neighboring community and tells you how much you are consuming concerning this ratio. They also advise you on energy-saving activities and use graphics to demonstrate how you improved your consumption. Result? 2% less energy consumption. It may seem low; therefore, let me paraphrase, this equals $120M savings in bills or removing 100,000 cars off the roads. I need to mention that this data is collected before OPower’s acquisition by Oracle; therefore, it is not up to date.

5. If I put points, badges, and leaderboards into anything, it will be gamification.

Firstly, it is true that PBL elements are the most popular gamification elements, but it is not the whole story. There are many more design elements in gamification, as I mentioned above. Secondly, there is no holy grail applicable to every situation. There should be logic behind every game element used based on what we want to achieve through gamification. And finally, PBL is only extrinsic motivation. If you only put points and badges, it will most probably collapse in the long term.

A nicely designed gamification should include elements that motivate you internally, encourage you to work together and be a part of a community, elevate your skills, and encourage you to be a better version of yourself, tell a story, and make you want to be a part of it. I am not saying that rewards and points are bad, but they are only half of the story. Without the second half, it is a short-term fix doomed to fail, hence should be avoided while creating a gamification strategy.

Creating this internal motivation is not rocket science; as human beings, we have values and purposes in our nature. A company named Cundari made children heroes without any material gain through gamification. Children with cancer are supposed to log their pain information (the location and degree of pain) into a system twice a day. It was not their favorite time of the day, so the data collected was not consistent and accurate. Cundari saw the problem and created a platform where children position themselves not as victims, but as detectives fighting cancer. As they logged more and more, they received videos from the police saying, “You are a hero, you are amazing,” and suddenly, children started to like logging their information because they felt like heroes, and they wanted to beat the villain, cancer.

Gamification is not a game; it is for every age group, it is for all industries, it is usable to all its audiences, and it motivates us beyond basic rewards. It is not a magic wand that you touch people with, and all the problems disappear. But once we break our prejudices and give it a chance, it becomes a powerful tool to aid us in the long term by making work fun. And ultimately, by making life fun.