Gami­fic­a­tion: Using play elements to increase a company’s Success

Companies that attempt to improve employee per­form­ance through pressure and pun­ish­ment are relying on outdated models. In order to motivate employees, it is much more efficient to integrate prin­ciples of play into a company’s everyday routine. Fur­ther­more, new customer ac­quis­i­tion and customer retention also benefit from in­cor­por­at­ing more playful elements. This method is referred to as gami­fic­a­tion.

We explain in which areas gami­fic­a­tion can be im­ple­men­ted and what you should keep in mind with regard to its ap­plic­able measures. In doing so, it will become apparent that in some busi­nesses, the concept is already being pro­duct­ively im­ple­men­ted. To conclude, we will introduce some suc­cess­ful practical gami­fic­a­tion examples from well-known companies.

The term gami­fic­a­tion is derived from the term “game.”

It always means the same thing:

People have an innate need to learn, to improve their skills and to match them­selves up against others while competing. Playing games addresses these needs, with mech­an­isms such as riddles, pro­ceed­ing to the next level or dif­fi­culty level, and mo­tiv­at­ing the user to stay on the ball and immerse them­selves in a task.

Anyone who im­ple­ments these prin­ciples of play in a context where they are not normally utilised can also increase people’s mo­tiv­a­tion to solve problems, improve their stamina and guide their behaviour in a way that’s con­sist­ent with man­age­ment’s needs.

Con­sequently, gami­fic­a­tion can make more in­ter­est­ing those tasks that are viewed as mono­ton­ous and boring, while mo­tiv­at­ing employees to address difficult problems on a long-term basis.

Gami­fic­a­tion can be im­ple­men­ted in quite different contexts. For example, in companies, research, education or crowd­fund­ing.

Because the drive to play is deeply-rooted in humans of every age (even if it is sometimes buried), it can appeal to both young and older target groups.

The fas­cin­a­tion with play can be utilised in the workplace by companies to motivate employees (internal gami­fic­a­tion), and ex­tern­ally, to acquire new customers and retain them (external gami­fic­a­tion).

Potential ap­plic­a­tion areas within a company:

• in quality man­age­ment, to improve data quality
• in re­cruit­ing, to test the skills of ap­plic­ants and narrow down the selection
• in sales, to increase the closure quote through internal com­pet­i­tion (rankings, awards, etc.)
• in health man­age­ment, to improve the fitness of employees (e.g. through race chal­lenges)
• in the training of employees, to improve learning ef­fect­ive­ness
• in product de­vel­op­ment to increase customer retention
• in marketing to acquire new customers (for example, on websites and in apps)

There are countless ways of playing, and as a result, quite a few different forms of gami­fic­a­tion. However, some elements form the basis of each game, and for this reason, they must also be part of every gami­fic­a­tion measure if companies want to benefit from the positive effects of playing.

Anyone who draws a 1 or 2 when playing “Sorry” may begin to move their pawn forward. Anyone who doesn’t draw a 1 or 2 must wait. Every game, whether it’s a board game or mul­ti­play­er online game, needs clear rules that are known by every player be­fore­hand. This also applies to gami­fic­a­tion in a company context. An example: Anyone who doesn’t know how many points they receive for their par­ti­cip­a­tion in the internal test platform, and what reward awaits them at which score, won’t make as much effort as someone who can use the points toward the ac­quis­i­tion of a new tablet.

Every game contains a task that is to be completed. However, the challenge should not be too easy to overcome, otherwise, the fun is quickly over. At the same time, it cannot be made so difficult that the player or employee becomes dis­cour­aged and gives up. This would miss the purpose of gami­fic­a­tion, as the principle is ul­ti­mately supposed to lead to more intensive, motivated work.

The player’s activ­it­ies should result in a direct response so that they can improve them­selves and learn with the help of positive and negative feedback. A game in which the user is groping around in the dark, re­gard­less of whether their actions bring them closer to the goal, quickly loses its appeal. Examples of direct feedback include progress bars, badges, and point systems.

Anyone who has mastered a task within a game must receive a reward for it – whether it’s unlocking a new level, receiving a material reward or gaining access to new content. The prospect of a reward es­tab­lishes an incentive for playing the game regularly. Each gami­fic­a­tion requires the reward aspect – es­pe­cially when it’s a matter of getting the user to interact regularly.

A game’s success is de­term­ined in large part by its story – the world and plot into which the player is immersed. This is true for online games such as “World of Warcraft” and boardgame classics such as “Settlers of Catan”, and is just as much the case for gami­fic­a­tion in the work en­vir­on­ment.

Although there are single-player games, having other players is an essential factor for making games fas­cin­at­ing. You can be a com­pet­it­or in a com­pet­i­tion or a team member. In a company context, customers can compete against other customers or employees in teams to vie for awards.

Gami­fic­a­tion only emerged as a strategy in the context of business at the beginning of the 2000s. The inventor of the term was the pro­gram­mer and author Nick Pelling, who is said to have coined it in 2002.

The idea of using playful elements to acquire or retain customers, and to motivate employees, is however con­sid­er­ably older.

As early as the 1960s, psy­chi­at­ric clinics utilised a so-called token economy, a sys­tem­at­ic reward system in which patients received chips for desirable behaviour. These could be exchanged for specific prizes. Since the 1990s, airlines have been utilising frequent flyer miles pro­grammes, and su­per­mar­kets have been relying on loyalty pro­grammes for decades. Even the award “Employee of the Month” can be un­der­stood as a playful com­pet­i­tion to increase mo­tiv­a­tion, and therefore, gami­fic­a­tion.

If in the past there were gami­fic­a­tion pro­to­types that operated according to a simple reward scheme, the present-day versions are normally digital and offer playing ex­per­i­ences that are more soph­ist­ic­ated.

Sometimes, the physical and digital world can also interlock – for example, the app “Zombies Run” motivates runners, and apps like “EpicWin” combines the com­ple­tion of daily tasks with digital role-playing.

Big cor­por­a­tions such as Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and Deloitte were among the pioneers of the gami­fic­a­tion movement. Now more and more companies in the US utilise playful elements. Here are some suc­cess­ful examples of gami­fic­a­tion measures:

The company Starbucks in­tro­duced its Starbucks Rewards mem­ber­ship programme, through which customers can earn stars (points) toward free drinks and food, and receive access to exclusive offers. Members can monitor their star totals online and can also use an app to access their accounts.

IT company SAP utilises gami­fic­a­tion in diverse areas. For example, it developed a digital golf game, with which orders were executed back and forth between de­part­ments via virtual golf swinging. The game was so easy to play that lead times were reduced con­sid­er­ably. A well-known and ex­tern­ally visible example of in-house gami­fic­a­tion is the SAP Community (SCN), where members gather points if they answer questions by other users and receive awards as soon as they reach a certain point level. These awards motivate members, not least because SAP regularly recruits new employees from among the top con­trib­ut­ors.

The Nike Run Club enables runners to join an online community via its app. In addition to being able to track their progress and follow a per­son­al­ised training programme, they can also “compare and compete with fellow runners” and share their running ex­per­i­ences via social media and/or Run Club friends.

The language education platform Duolingo boasts that “gami­fic­a­tion” is “poured into every lesson.” Its app offers per­son­al­ised learning, immediate grading and motivates users with rewards such as virtual coins and unlocked levels.

The Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton, working jointly with North­east­ern Uni­ver­sity, Vander­bilt Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Cali­for­nia (Davis), offers free puzzles via the “foldit” portal. This enables users to fold long amino acid chains into virtual proteins. The better they fold, the more points they receive. Through playing, users thus become familiar with natural science topics.

The market research institute Gartner predicted in 2012 that as early as 2015, 40 per cent of the 1,000 largest cor­por­a­tions in the world would implement gami­fic­a­tion in the workplace to increase employee pro­ductiv­ity. However, a more recent study for dis­sem­in­a­tion has yet to be published.

Overall, the current sci­entif­ic research con­cern­ing the ef­fect­ive­ness of gami­fic­a­tion measures is re­l­at­ively flimsy. Nev­er­the­less, gami­fic­a­tion is seen as a formative social trend through 2030.

And you may notice that the use of gami­fic­a­tion in business practice is in fact in­creas­ing. This trend is not expected to reverse. Con­sid­er­ing that sales in the gaming industry have been in­creas­ing for several years now and that there is a growing number of ex­ec­ut­ives who them­selves grew up with computer games, one can instead assume that, going forward, gami­fic­a­tion will continue to play a large role for companies.