Podcast 38: What is a gamification strategy?
Welcome to this week's question of gamification. My name is An Coppens. I'm the show host for this podcast and the CEO and founder of Gamification Nation. A question we get always or regularly asked, maybe not always, is what is a gamification strategy and why should I have one? Well. It's one of the first things we will embark on with most of our clients.
Whether you design a serious game or design a gamified process. In effect, we always start with a strategy and some of the key questions we want answered in the strategy is why did you choose gamification? Now, strategies typically sits as a direction setting tool. Something that shows what's the roadmap. What's the thinking? Where are we going with this and why does it matter? So gamification strategy is no different.
So if you are for the first time going to be using games or, gamified processes, then the question is, why did you choose that tool of communication as opposed to other tools of communication?
Why did you eliminate the other tools? And. You know, what's your thinking behind that? So we want to know what drove you to the up decision and why do you want to do that?
Very often we hear or we want to appeal to the younger audiences, so therefore we need to include games and gamification. It's a good enough reason to include games and gamification if your audience is indeed of that generation, and if they are the kinds that actually do play games because believe it or not, although games are played by nearly 80% of the population these days and that's including board games, sports, etc. As well as the digital video games, computer games, that we probably think of when we talk gaming, we also know that the average gamer is about 35, is probably male in some countries, female, but the split is, is 52-48 either side of the gender fence.
So it's not something that is that much geared towards the younger generations. When we are saying, games are sort of the language young people speak, we do know that a young person today is likely to have played more games than they have actually done homework or studied for their courses. So there is a pinch of salt be with that.
Why is that? Because it's much more accessible than let's say, when I was a kid. I'm a generation X'er so if anyone wants to know. So in my days the games I played were competitive sports. A lot of games at parties, which could have been board games but also physical games. I remember my birthday parties being very much driven around crossing obstacles in the garden.
And if you wanted to be safe to the other side, you went through a little puddle pool or other obstacle for that matter much to the enjoyment of some of the parents of older children that attended my parties. So you know why, why using a game is an important question to answer as part of your strategy.
I would also say, how does it then fit with the other strategies you have for your business? And if it is to attract younger audiences, yes, games can work. If it is to engage or retain more of the right people, whether that's the right customers, the right clients, or the right employees. Games can be a good differentiator on that because you can basically build challenges into games and gamified processes that you wouldn't necessarily find in traditional onboarding of a new client or onboarding of a new employee.
Games can work on multiple levels too. Give you insights that you wouldn't get from regular communication patterns that exist in the market today. So, and it can be in a neat little test of how willing is your person to engage in play and does that fit with your culture.
And that brings us onto to an important point. Culture is important. So if this is your first venture into games or anything gamified, then I would say where does it fit in the longer term view strategy? Is it the start of more games and more gamification, or is it a once-off. It's important to know which it is.
If it is a once-off,
Whether you design a serious game or design a gamified process. In effect, we always start with a strategy and some of the key questions we want answered in the strategy is why did you choose gamification? Now, strategies typically sits as a direction setting tool. Something that shows what's the roadmap. What's the thinking? Where are we going with this and why does it matter? So gamification strategy is no different.
So if you are for the first time going to be using games or, gamified processes, then the question is, why did you choose that tool of communication as opposed to other tools of communication?
Why did you eliminate the other tools? And. You know, what's your thinking behind that? So we want to know what drove you to the up decision and why do you want to do that?
Very often we hear or we want to appeal to the younger audiences, so therefore we need to include games and gamification. It's a good enough reason to include games and gamification if your audience is indeed of that generation, and if they are the kinds that actually do play games because believe it or not, although games are played by nearly 80% of the population these days and that's including board games, sports, etc. As well as the digital video games, computer games, that we probably think of when we talk gaming, we also know that the average gamer is about 35, is probably male in some countries, female, but the split is, is 52-48 either side of the gender fence.
So it's not something that is that much geared towards the younger generations. When we are saying, games are sort of the language young people speak, we do know that a young person today is likely to have played more games than they have actually done homework or studied for their courses. So there is a pinch of salt be with that.
Why is that? Because it's much more accessible than let's say, when I was a kid. I'm a generation X'er so if anyone wants to know. So in my days the games I played were competitive sports. A lot of games at parties, which could have been board games but also physical games. I remember my birthday parties being very much driven around crossing obstacles in the garden.
And if you wanted to be safe to the other side, you went through a little puddle pool or other obstacle for that matter much to the enjoyment of some of the parents of older children that attended my parties. So you know why, why using a game is an important question to answer as part of your strategy.
I would also say, how does it then fit with the other strategies you have for your business? And if it is to attract younger audiences, yes, games can work. If it is to engage or retain more of the right people, whether that's the right customers, the right clients, or the right employees. Games can be a good differentiator on that because you can basically build challenges into games and gamified processes that you wouldn't necessarily find in traditional onboarding of a new client or onboarding of a new employee.
Games can work on multiple levels too. Give you insights that you wouldn't get from regular communication patterns that exist in the market today. So, and it can be in a neat little test of how willing is your person to engage in play and does that fit with your culture.
And that brings us onto to an important point. Culture is important. So if this is your first venture into games or anything gamified, then I would say where does it fit in the longer term view strategy? Is it the start of more games and more gamification, or is it a once-off. It's important to know which it is.
If it is a once-off,
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