March 3, 2022

Gamification: Are you ready to play?

Gamification and Mobile App Design

Statistica: There are over 1.6 M active mobile gamers worldwide.
Games is the most searched category in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store
Gamification:
- At its core, Gamification is a Marketing Tool for increasing product adoption and user engagement and retention
- If you need more evidence that Gamification is a marketing tool you need only look at its alternate name Incentive-Centered Design – Which name do you think will sell better?
- Gamification is a User centered approach to mobile and web application development based on some very simple psychological principles.
  - A positive experience elevates dopamine levels in the brain which can cause the users to want to return to your app over and over again
  - Gamification can also be used to create a sense of community for your target customers – a community centered around a good experience with your brand
- Popular elements of gamification include
  - Leaderboards
  - Certifications
  - Rewards
  - Unlocking Items or features
  - Quests
  - Stories
  - Badges
  - To-Do Lists
Gamification Strategy
- Challenges and tasks need to be appropriate for your audience.
- Make sure that your users do not get bored, working towards something or unlocking something creates excitement
- Create some mystery – make users curious and also surprised by the conclusion of tasks and competitions
- Everyone that engages needs to feel the same engagement, excitement and reward not just the top performers
- Rewards are part of the strategy for sure, but they can not be the corner piece of the strategy.
  - It is not possible to continuously provide bigger and better rewards over time
Gamification is not always a good idea
- It is important to have a gamification strategy that focuses on the positive
- Surfacing data to the user through gamification that provides negative feedback or makes them feel depressed is not a good idea
- Similarly, giving users a reward that has no meaning or value to them will likely result in a reduced level of engagement over time
- Gamification is audience specific. That is, not everyone is going to be motivated by the key features of a gamified mobile app. Know your audience!
According to Gigya, Gamification of your mobile app can:
- - Increase user interaction by 33%
  - Increase content visibility by 68% and
- Increase shares on social media by 22%.
What does this mean for your business
- Greater Brand awareness which can lead to an increase in active users of your mobile / web app
  - 34% of businesses surveyed believe that “number of active users/day & month” is a more revealing growth statistic than revenue per user (11%)
- Can translate into a higher ranking on search engine results
- Can lead to a self sustaining social media presence for your business
- Of course, none of these things are a guarantee of increased revenue, but in today’s digital world you likely will not see an increase in revenue without them