Are You Gamifying Your Business?
“Hey, what’s the deal with everyone talking about this new trend called Gamification? Can’t deny that it does sound intriguing.”
Behold, what was once a pipe dream for millions of bored, half-asleep, demotivated trainees and students has boomed into a 2.17 billion-dollar global market in 2021. Studies have further predicted the gamification industry to grow at a 44.06% CAGR to 19.39 billion throughout the forecast period.
Sounds surprising? Ask yourself – how’d you react if the dull, boring workplace training sessions, all of a sudden, became rather engaging and fun? That’s what gamification does, in a nutshell.
Here’s everything more you need to know about the rising trend that has taken learner engagement and workplace training by storm.
What Is Gamification? What’s Its Origin Story?
Depending on who you’re asking — to the regular person, it’s all fun and games. Nonetheless, the Oxford dictionary defines the term “gamification” as the application of certain elements of game mechanics to non-game-related activities to boost encouragement and learning.
The term was first made popular in the early 2000s by Nick Pelling to encourage freestyle rappers across the globe to crank up the heat amidst ciphers. Fast forward 20 years, it has branched into:
Structural gamification (based on game mechanics)
Content gamification (based on game dynamics)
How Does Gamification Work?
Gamification of non-game activities encourages audiences to participate in achieving certain goals and objectives by offering proactive instructions and feedback via game mechanics and dynamics. Here’s what these terms stand for:
Game mechanics – It refers to the guidelines and prizes included to motivate the audience to successfully pursue the program
Game dynamics – These are the set of behaviors and emotions (e.g: leaderboard competitions, badges, collaborative group missions) included in in-game mechanics used to resonate with the target audience
What Is The Purpose Of Gamification?
From a business standpoint, these programs are viewed as fundamental to persuading the audiences to interact with their brand, products, or services. It’s also beneficial for the company to understand customer interests deeply, further influencing their marketing decisions with real-time information.
Companies use this strategy to motivate their workforce to pursue specific goals or actions. Here’s how:
It helps employees to get the gist of the milestones they’re supposed to accomplish, both individually or via collaboration
Besides, it also allows them to check their real-time progress and offers critical feedback to improve their performance
It also teaches the personnel how to use management tools and work-related portals efficiently
A Few Popular Examples Of Gamification
Here are a few globally renowned examples of the usage of gamification strategy, categorized into marketing, health, and education-related fields.
Transmedia: First popularized by Nintendo by releasing an N64 game to promote the film “007: Goldeneye”, transmedia is a strategy to market certain media properties via different mediums.
Brandification: Remember coming across Tesla cars in the battleground during a PUBG match recently? That’s what brandification stands for — placing in-game messages, products, and similar advertisements to catch the player’s eye.
Digital learning: The rather intelligent combination of fun and engaging games, and education to encourage children to study and learn more attentively is best executed by Archy Learning.
Mental health awareness: Have you heard about Headspace? This app uses game mechanics and game dynamics to persuade users into meditating more and more to better their mental health.
Advergame: Do you remember the PlayStation 1 single-player endless runner game called Pepsiman? It was Pepsico’s strategy to raise brand awareness and familiarize the customers with its products and services.
Summing It Up
From being a rap cipher activity to skyrocketing into a billion-dollar industry, gamification has changed the way we used to learn things. Besides, it has also diversified into a key strategy for companies to use to educate their target audience about their business objectives.
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