In my podcast, "Gamification Station" , the concept of gamification and the way it works is laid out, defined, and basically is attached to a pitch of why gamification would make the world better. The thing is: it actually will. To understand why though, you first have to understand what gamification actually is. So... what is it?
Video Games
Video games are in the business of engagement. If players aren't engaged in their game, if they are not motivated to keep player, the video game makers don't make money. Over the years, in order to keep their base of players motivated and engaged with their games, designers had to dig deep and really understand human psychology, what made people engaged and motivated?
Well they did just that, and perfected different strategies in order to achieve high retention, motivation, and engagement rates. Video games have mastered it so much, that there are tons of people that are craving to get off their computer at work, stop crunching numbers, and get home to... get on the computer... and press buttons all night for a game.
What you're doing, moving your fingers, isn't that fun. It is actually the same thing you do at work. But video games understand psychology, and what is on the screen they have perfected. How?
Engagement and motivation
Gamification legend Yu Kai Chou digs deep into the concept of gamification, and really tries to understand people. What is it that is so addicting about video games? He breaks down their elements, and the effect it has on people, to understand what actually is going on to make the game engaging.
Over the years, he began to understand that humans have core drives, 8 different areas and reasons people are motivated and engaged. He understood that some of these reasons are white hat, motivators that make you feel fulfilled, satisfied, or powerful. And then there are black hat motivators, those that make you feel anxious if you don't perform actions.
He placed all these 8 core drives in a chart that is simple to understand, called octalysis:
Above is an image of Octalysis along with some strategies within each core drive.
Each core drive has an endless amount of strategies to hit and satisfy that core drive. AND, each and every core drive can be paired with another to make even more strategies. It is endless. I will dig deep into each different core drive in a different blog post, but knowing that there are 8 different core drives to motivate and engage humans is a great thing to understand. And there are reasons to hit any specific one. It really is a science!
Application into life
So games know how to keep you glued to a screen, and get you thinking about the game even when you are not playing it. So what?
So what is, we know that it's possible. What if we took the same mechanics games used and applied it to WORK. Imagine being glued and happy to WORK. Thinking about it all day long, cannot wait to get back to it. Or education, instead of avoiding homework like the plague, kids flock to their homework folders like they do Fortnite.
Overall
It goes so much further than that. EVERYTHING can be gamified. Stairs to make them fun, drive thrus at coffee, everything. The world can be fun. Understanding what makes humans happy, motivated, engaged, is the first step to making the world more fun.