The word GAMIFICATION is one of the hottest buzzwords these days. It is the concept of applying game mechanics and game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more engaging. Technically speaking the process of game thinking and using game mechanics in non-game scenarios or contexts to solve problems and engage users is called gamification. This is used in processes that aims to improve data quality, user engagement, timeliness and very probable of all, learning. They are used in processes like liking a comment or joining an event in Facebook to uploading any pictures or videos from YouTube.
It is our nature to play. We are programmed to do it since birth. Playing helps us to learn and explore new things, stretches our abilities, helps us to adapt. But as we grow older we stop playing and the very phrase “playing games” is replaced by various other aspects of life. But by applying Gamification to their websites, Web developers and designers can be able to create fun and engaging experiences, converting ‘’Users into Players’’.
By adding elements of game design to their website and social media profiles, website developers and designers can gain new customers and inspire loyalty in the ones they already have. For example, LinkedIn provides a progress bar that indicates how much of your LinkedIn profile you’ve filled out. They’ve found adding the progress bar greatly increased the number of people who filled out their entire profile. Another example is the location services company Foursquare. They use badges and other game like rewards to increase the number of times users enter their location data. Crowd Tap allows users to level up and earn money for doing surveys and other activities.
Applications of Gamification
Above is already written few methods of gamification that had helped the world. Now a day’s gamification is used by website product managers and marketers for not only encouraging website usage behavior and tool for customer engagement but also for helping people understand to withstand the basic forms of work through a very energetic manner as all the boring works stacked together and packed in a fun basket. Gamification is the life of social network sites. The social network sites was earlier on a place for humble and serious work for professionals only but the advent of Facebook, Twitter, My Space etc. through the use of gamification made them a place not just for professional but also for youthnesia who are more and more engaged into it through the process of gamification in modern day life style. Red Critter Tracker incorporates gamification elements such as badges, rewards, leader boards, and ribbons into project management. This is a business application and the idea of gamification booming in this field too.
Gamification is also used in stack overflow and question and answer sites for programmers or in carrier sites. The users of this application receive badges or points to deal with much variety of actions. As the users reputation increases special badges are provided as they reach a particular point or prestige level, the person may gain additional privileges to enhance the reputation of his site. This is a very subtle method for a user having particular knowledge in say a topic, can flow his wisdom to it or reflect many ides to it to earn as many points as possible and mark his site on that topic to a higher level. Then again, points or badges generally do not carry over to other sites owned by the same person because his expertise may very much vary over different topic or subjects. For example the user may have high expertise on topic A but may lack concept on topic B or C but he may have sites on three of them (i.e. A, B & c). Still there is an exception that the user gains 100 points on joining or linking his account to another sister site given the fact that any one of those sites have at least 200 points.
Australian broadcast and online media partnership Yahoo! 7 launched its Fango Mobile App, which allows TV viewers to interact with many gamification techniques like badges and check-ins. Gamification process used in satellite TV like the process of proving several applications like playing TV games, watch weather, see for video on demand or arrange channels in the likeable patterns like all the cartoon channels or sports channels can be arranged in a single or similar groups.
Gamification is used by marketers and website product managers as a tool for customer engagement and encouraging desirable website usage behavior. One site, DevHub, increased the number of users who completed their online tasks from 10% to 80% after adding gamification elements. Applications like Fitocracy, Nike and Quentiquse, gamification to encourage its users to exercise more effectively and improve their overall health. Users are awarded varying numbers of points for activities they perform in their workouts and gain levels based on points collected. Users can also complete quests (sets of related activities) and gain achievement badges for fitness milestones.
New report says, online shoppers can also be motivated by Gamification. Market research firm Interpret released the report called “gCommerce: the “Gamification” of eCommerce” that says gamers are 20% more likely to be an online shopper than the average non-gamer and 50% more likely to be influencers among their friends.
Through gamification we can also exchange rewards with actual value for rewards with social value and link recognition not just with rewards but also with core motivation. The process of gamification finds its use in health care, financial services, government employee training, transportation and other activities. Gamification is used in some technique that a number of extremist websites such as stromfront and various terrorist related sites are used to the enhancing loyalty and participation. Still gamification sometime misses the elements like experiences and storytelling which is used to miss the game effective or the gamification has faulted the addition of points for the application of the desirable game mechanics.
However, what’s interesting to note is that gamification is simply a set of tools within Interaction Loyalty.
Some other applications of gamification include:
Employee training programs.
Financial services websites.
Primary education
Extreme sports.
Project management.
Science
Social Networks.
Surveys.
Sustainability.
Call Center.
Market Research.
Competitive Intelligence.
Gamification is happening in many places. Actually, it is like familiar frequent-flyer awards programs, but usually with more fun elements.
Nowadays, many companies are implementing gamification with the help of other companies such as big door Media, Bunch ball etc.
The bottom line is playing is one of the part of human’s makeup. By adding game mechanics and game-design thinking to sales processes, interactions, services or solving complex issues, website developers and designers can surely achieve far greater results and engagement. And that makes them the Winner of the game of Life and hence the ultimate game mechanics is the Gamification.
