“If you build it, they will come.” As cliche as it is now, the saying is a good metaphor for the business strategy of gamification. Making fun and engaging products ultimately leads to success – because people want to continue using them. Look at these two companies: Amazon and Facebook. They’re both mobile apps and websites that function very much alike in that they involve an exchange of goods or services for other goods or services or even money. Think about how you got hooked on each of these platforms. It’s not like you can label them as “entertaining,” but they both had some aspects that made you want to come back every day, didn’t they?
The idea of ‘gamification’ of products or services has come into being due to the increasing popularity of free-to-play games. Companies are increasingly improvising their reward scheme to appeal to customers and have them stick with the product for maximum profitability. Nowadays, you also get many gaming design tools for free or at some cost to integrate this.
How does gamification add value to any business?
It is a technological trend that social media platforms use to make sure people often return to them and not miss out on the latest updates from their friends. Its design and integration can make people feel like they should constantly access the platform for new content, whether it’s new statuses or photos, regardless of whether it’s important to them. Rewarding users for engaging with an app also creates a great incentive to return daily, such as through badges, achievements, and similar things. This way, users return more often than not just to check for these new interactive elements.
How to leverage the concept of gamification in different non-game environments?
With VR being the new frontier in gamification, training companies are exploring the benefits of this technology. VR frees you from the constraints other more traditional methods have. It ultimately leads to an improved experience and ability to learn more specific skills using VR instead of more conventional forms of learning like reading documents.Tommy Shek reveals that gamification allows a company to include games to teach specific skills or tasks. For example, gamification can help train new staff, communicate policy information, and even reward employees for reaching goals at work.
While about everyone can agree that gamification technology has the power to be a much-needed boost for employee engagement, it’s also important to remember that not all plans will work for every organization because each business is unique. Some might struggle more with implementing gamified tactics than others. Earlier, there was a lack of absolute clarity – what gamification entails and how it can help an organization in their specific situation. But the issues have improved due to a great deal of research done by some specialists.
Tommy Shek says, it’s even better as most gamification strategies give people the sense of control over their tasks and show them the progress they have made so far, a clear map towards future actions they could take, and awards they could win at the end of it all as prizes.
