Five things you need to know about gamification

Why the rules of play are increasingly proving to be relevant to the world of work

What is it?
The term “gamification” describes the use of games in daily life and business to motivate people to achieve better results or exhibit positive behavior. This can apply to education, training in the workplace, health care, marketing and financial services. The theory is that both adults and children learn better when their time and efforts are rewarded in the manner of a game.
How is it being used?
At its simplest, gamification could involve using a computer game to teach math to children. Other examples include social media (location service foursquare confers points and status on regular users), marketing (online voucher business Groupon gives consumers a time limit in which to make their purchase) and customer engagement initiatives (Nike+ inspires runners to reach new personal bests by racing or teaming up with other runners online).
How much potential does it have?
Players in mass games such as World of warcraft are keen to use the collaborative skills that they have honed in fantasy environments to achieve results in the real world, says game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal. Attempts to translate virtual engagement into real-life projects — to defeat poverty, save the environment or build new businesses — are already under way. McGonigal has designed her own game, World without oil, to tackle the peak oil crisis.
What do the critics say?
Game-style rewards in real life are not new, say the skeptics: reward schemes for customer loyalty have been around for decades. There’s a deeper issue, too: namely, that reality is messier than, and less amenable to, the simple rewards of a game, potentially resulting in disengagement and disappointment.
So is it the future or just a fad?
McGonigal points out that, when playing, gamers spend 80% of their time failing. This suggests that they are willing to strive for success, rather than be given easy wins and results. Games bring out many of the positive aspects of human nature: our curiosity, optimism and capacity for collaboration. As motivational tools, they deserve to be taken seriously.
More than half a billion people worldwide play computer and video games for at least an hour a day, with five million US gamers spending almost 50 hours a week on their hobby. The rewards for firms, governments and organizations that can tap into this appetite effectively may be considerable.

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