Being able to properly motivate and encourage people to engage in various types of activities has been a problem for many disciplines such as fitness and education for a long time. Gamification of these activities is a way to encourage people to engage in these activities beyond their own internal motivation to do so. With gamification becoming more prevalent across many different industries, what is it and how does it work?
Just about everywhere you look, elements of gamification have found their way into our lives. In work, entertainment and education, gamification is changing how we interact with these disciplines. The incorporation of techniques that most typically can be found in games, such as tracking progress, challenges and rewards, are helping people to find motivation to engage more in various activities throughout their lives. This article will cover what exactly constitutes gamification and how it works, then touch on a variety of disciplines that are successfully seeing ever-increasing levels of gamification.
What exactly is gamification?
Put simply, gamification refers to any techniques normally found in games when they are used in a context not normally considered a game to encourage people to interact with something more. Any system of points or rewards that in some way tracks progress towards an eventual goal is a classic example of gamification. Setting goals and challenges that push people to work harder to reach those goals or fulfil those challenges is another common type of gamification. Lastly, leaderboards and tracking the points or progress between different people in order to get them to compete and give them something to discuss is also a commonly used type of gamification.
While these techniques have some crossover, the one thing they all have in common is that they seek to tap into subconscious desires that we have as people. The desires for accomplishment, enjoyment and recognition are all played on by these techniques, which help otherwise uninteresting activities, seem much more rewarding and worthwhile. This might seem like a bad thing, but gamified activities are usually entered into willingly and it can be a great source of extra motivation to complete exercise or learning activities.
Gamification in games
It should be no surprise, but gamification often occurs in the entertainment and, particularly, the gaming industry. Streaming platforms, mobile gaming and entertainment apps all use heavily gamified systems to keep people logging back in. Player retention is never higher than when there are daily logins to collect, leaderboards to dominate and achievements to earn.
One place in the gaming world that is often heralded as the originator of many gamification techniques is the online casino industry. These platforms, which allow real money gambling for UK players, often use different gamification techniques to make the experience of playing feel more engaging and rewarding. By creating systems around the games that people are playing that are themselves gamified, even a loss can feel like a step towards an eventual reward and the act of playing itself becomes a more dynamic experience.
Fitness as a game
Fitness is often an activity that people quickly find they lack the motivation for. With long-term benefits often invisible or difficult to see initially or at all, gamification can greatly help people stay motivated and keep exercising. There are many fitness apps that make use of gamification, Strava and MyFitnessPal, to name just a couple, make use of leaderboards, streaks and other gamification techniques.
You might not be able to see the pounds melting away or your muscles tightening up, but you can see the streak badge you earned in your fitness app. These apps also typically have features like leaderboards that lend themselves towards community engagement. Social features like this that are tied into gamification have a dual purpose, driving people to compete, but also discuss each other's progress, which is another great motivational tool.
Learn to play, play to learn
Similar to fitness, education can be a difficult activity for many people to stay motivated about. Apps like Duolingo make use of gamification techniques like streaks and progress tracking to motivate people to keep up with their education. Duolingo attempts to make the activity of learning a language as fun as possible and by gamifying it seeks to get people to actively participate and enjoy themselves in the process.
With more formal education, classroom tools like Kahoot! can be useful to help drive up the engagement of board students. Additionally, using tools like quizzes and rewards can help to create a more engaging and interesting learning experience that students will be more willing to participate in actively.
Where does all this lead?
It seems likely that the gamification of our lives is here to stay. Technology like smartphone apps are perfect vehicles for gamification practices and the apps that best use gamification often end up being the most successful ones in their categories. As the trend of gamified services continues, it is likely that more awareness of that gamification will spread, which could lead to some people wanting to opt out of those techniques.
To conclude, the key to gamification is that people enter into activities that are gamified willingly, and it helps to make those activities more entertaining, rewarding or enjoyable. Being aware of psychological motivational triggers and using them to motivate us to exercise more and engage more readily in learning is a good thing and no amount of gamification is likely to convince people to adopt activities that they find unenjoyable to begin with.