Multiple angles on gamification

• This week my fiancée told me about an app she had recently installed on her phone. As she excitedly described it, users of the app can "check in" at a retail store (it sounded like your location is verified through GPS) and you receive points for doing so, presumably to redeem for store purchases but I don't recall all the details. I should also mention that his app is not Foursquare, though I am not sure how the two apps differ specifically. Apps like this exemplify the gamification trend in marketing and advertising. There is an entire wiki dedicated to gamification, with detailed pages like this one describing the various game mechanics used in gamification.
  

• The gamification of shopping is the subject of this PCMAG article by Kara Kamenec:
  

Gamification applies basic game thinking and game mechanics to a non-gaming context. Many gamification models reward users for participating, completing defined user tasks, or achieving goals. A great example is Foursquare, which awards points and perks for "checking-in" to places you go. Although some models introduce distinguishable game-related features, gamification of online shopping includes any type of game thinking applied to an online shopping model.

Gamification makes things fun because it taps into our basic human appetite for competition, stature, and social interaction. Rather than feeling tricked or manipulated, we feel a sense of control when participating in transparent game-oriented shopping. As a result, shopping becomes more exciting and rewarding, while increasing highly sought-after engagement and customer loyalty for retailers and brands.

• This LinkedIn post by Dan Sanker describes gamification as "the application of game elements and digital game design techniques to non-game problems" and considers potential applications:
  

Small tools, influenced by simple game mechanics can be used to modify people’s behavior. [...] There is a long way to go to make some mundane tasks more engaging. I think the paradigm that rang true the most this week, especially after talking with the kids about their experiences – is that we need to start thinking about customers, consumers, employees and/or students less as ‘Users’ and more as ‘Players.’ Are there ways to enjoy the experience of buying, procuring, working and learning? It might be a better way for us to consider interacting with Generation Z and those who come after them.

• Joanna Faith at money.com looks at gamification in corporate and educational contexts, and considers whether games are the solution to our savings crisis:
  

But gamification hasn't just grabbed the attention of the corporate world. Teachers are trying to make learning more fun by introducing games into the classroom in the hope of keeping children engaged for longer. This made me think about how many banks, building societies and other financial services providers are using gamification to encourage kids to start saving or educate them about money.

• Liel Leibovitz at Tablet thinks gamification could help bring peace to the Middle East:
  

In the minds of Silicon Valley’s eternal optimists, and the journalists who so unconditionally love them, gamification is the possibility of rendering intricately complex processes, such as education or health care, more effective by transforming them into games. If kids aren’t reading, goes the gamified mantra, perhaps some friendly competitive system of badges and leaderboards might provide the missing incentive. And if adults are getting a tad too heavy, just slap a gizmo on their wrists that challenges them to burn more and more calories each day and they’ll play along.

As a professor of video games, I’ve strong doubts that the same principles that compel us to save Princess Zelda or defeat Donkey Kong apply in the classroom, the boardroom, or the emergency room. Like most game scholars, I view gamification as the creation of the TED-circle nabobs, largely empty, feel-good fodder for the intellectually limp. But the idea isn’t totally useless: There are some special categories of human events, rare and far-between, whose own innate absurdities are so profound that a touch of gamification might actually do them good.

I’m talking, of course, about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

• Peter Hosking at marketingmag.com writes about ensuring that "gamification adds real value to customer relationships":
  

We are naturally drawn to entertaining, visually appealing, easily digestible information sources and the power is in our hands to choose who, when, where and on what we will engage.  Witness the rise of video consumption on mobile as part of this trend.

Gamification may be the answer but the problem is that businesses can rush into it without necessarily lifting the bonnet to see what is making it work. There are a number of services putting their hands up to execute it for you but executing without a clear view of what motivates your audience can and will prove fatal.

• Lastly, Sakoni Surti at exchange4media.com offers a few tips on successful gamification practices:
  

The concept of gamifying products and services came into being when marketers realised that loyalty programmes are becoming too banal to retain consumers. A number of leading brand names, including Hungama, Zapak, Adobe and Microsoft, have used the concept successfully to create a habit of their product amongst users.

Microsoft created a unique gamified tool that allowed users to learn the new MS Office applications and earn rewards, thus making the whole process interactive.