Gamification and How It Works in Different Niches

Last Updated on October 10, 2022 by Andrew

People love to play. According to statistics, most people, when they come home after work, play computer games or get involved in a game with a child. The process of playing a game or betting at a Tonybet sportsbook can be not only a thing to relieve the brain but also help to increase work efficiency, add motivation and increase sales.

What Is Gamification

Gamification is the application of game techniques and principles to non-game processes: work, learning, business and everyday life. It allows you to increase sales, employee loyalty, customer retention, and learning and development with more engagement.

As early as the early 2000s, designer Nick Pelling was saying that products could sell better if gamification techniques were applied. Gamification takes advantage of the natural human urge to compete, compete and want to be the winner. The technique is to engage employees, customers, and students in a process using game principles. Gamification tools are, for example, passing levels, rating and rewards for completing a task. Such elements of games are implemented in business, educational processes, customer attraction and retention, and marketing.

The gaming approach is more effective for a new generation of workers and customers – millennials and zoomers. This is due to the fact that they are accustomed to computer games since childhood, so game-based learning methodology becomes habitual for them and easily fits into their lives.

Gamification Types

There are different classifications of gamification:

• Internal gamification is used for employees of one company. It allows you to increase working efficiency and productivity, increase sales, unite the team, create a healthy competitive atmosphere, provide adaptation of new employees and decrease staff turnover.
• External gamification is aimed at consumers of goods and services and at potential clients, i.e. the process is used to solve marketing tasks. This method will help to attract customers, increase brand or product awareness and increase sales. Gamification method gives a large set of tools to stimulate a purchase, and also allows you to analyze the understanding of customer motivation.
• Behavioral change gamification is used to form new habits of participants. It can be used for both company employees and consumers, as well as for any participants. For example, this type of gamification can help shape a healthy lifestyle, or change children’s attitudes toward school.

Principles of Gamification

Implementing gamification will help increase the quality and enjoyment of your work. For the technology to work, it is necessary to use its basic principles:

• Motivation. To keep participants playing, you need a certain goal. This is what will allow them to move forward. In gamification, this principle is also important. For example, you can introduce a bonus system for employees, charging rewards for completed levels. In marketing, you can increase the discount when you buy the second or third thing, that is, the bigger the purchase, the bigger the benefit.
• Competition. People have a competitive spirit and a desire to be first. The desire to bypass a competitor, to get a higher rating also contributes to increased motivation. If you introduce competition between departments for the highest performance, the effectiveness of the entire team will be higher.
• Status. When passing a game the number of levels passed by a participant grows, he becomes stronger. Gamification technology also implies that participants will strive to raise their status. As an example, to get recognition from their peers or a promotion. A status system also works in marketing; you can grow from a bronze to a platinum client in banks.
• Rewards. This is one of the main principles of gamification. When you pass levels in games, you are rewarded with diamonds or coins. The higher the level, the higher the reward. Sometimes employees lose interest in their work, even with a high salary. In such a case, an additional reward in the form of a cash bonus when a certain amount of work is done can help. In sales, the customer can be attracted by cashback on the card or by additional discounts.

How Motivation Works in Gamification

The motivation of employees may have both tangible and intangible basis. The greatest effectiveness is achieved when both types of motivation are combined. Employees between 21 and 35 don’t have high performance with financial incentives alone.

Generations Y and Z value not only a high salary but also the opportunity for self-actualization, personal time, and a comfortable atmosphere in the office. For these employees only financial motivation – bonuses, salaries, fines – doesn’t give high performance. That’s why gamification of employees has become actively implemented in work with personnel.

Game mechanisms make it possible to turn some of the work tasks from a boring routine into an entertaining process. Thus, it’s possible to satisfy the need of employees for non-material encouragement. Gamification in work will help to solve the tasks assigned to the employee with more enthusiasm, which will allow to achieve better results. Intangible motivation can also help to change the atmosphere in the team, to make the team more cohesive and productive.

How Gamification Is Useful

Gamification helps to unload the human brain. It’s much easier to get involved in a game than in a work process. That’s why gamification of work processes allows you to create higher engagement, and therefore an increase in productivity. Scientists’ research on the work of the human brain and the mechanisms of reward and motivation allows us to say with certainty that gaming methods work in all spheres of life. That is why elements of gamification are already being used by advanced companies and are beginning to be implemented in many industries.

Daily tasks of employees no longer seem so boring, because for their performance employees can get an additional bonus or raise their level. Customers will be interested in a company that offers a progressive discount system or the accumulation of cashback on a discount card when buying goods. Learning with game elements will be more interesting and productive, especially for children. In addition, implementing gamification helps to meet deadlines and bring tasks to completion.

Gamification in work or in training allows not only the benefits but also the enjoyment of the process. Teamwork improves team relations, increases productivity and mutual support. If gamification includes an element of competition, it adds more emotion to the learning or work process and helps to complete the task faster.

Where Gamification Is Used and Why It’s Popular

Today our lives are directly connected to the digital world. Children from an early age use a smartphone, teenagers and adults often spend their free time playing popular video and computer games. People’s dependence on cell phones is increasing, which can’t help but affect new ways of selling, teaching or holding a person’s attention.

Game mechanics in training, sales, business projects, and social life are being applied by more and more organizations because it’s really effective. Elements of gamification can now also be found in everyday life, for example, when buying tickets or sorting out garbage. Scientists and developers are increasingly talking about the benefits of computer games. The principles on which the developers create games can be applied in everyday life, they are universal and are based on human psychology. That’s why game mechanics in gamification are used in different spheres of life.

Gamification in Business

Game elements in business are now being introduced more and more. They allow you to involve your employees in everyday activities, turning them from a boring and complicated routine into an interesting task. An example of using game technology: you can set up a competition for the sales department, assigning a bonus for more sales. Employees will be more motivated and interested, hence productivity will increase. Gamification of business helps to almost double the productivity and engagement of employees.

The advantage of game techniques can be attributed to the reduction of stress in the work, especially for perfectionists because to lose in the game is not so scary – you can always start again. During the game dopamine – the hormone of happiness – is produced, so employees go to work with great pleasure. In addition, there is less staff turnover. In many American companies gamification is implemented very actively – software solutions are used that visually show tables of leaders, levels of goal achievement and everyone’s rating.