What is Gamification?
Gamification is the process of applying game mechanics into non-gaming activities to achieve extraordinary results. Gamification is used by brands to motivate employees, create healthy competition among teams, generate buzz or social proof, and encourage customer loyalty, among other benefits. Gamification can also improve all forms of learning and communication if done with the right strategies and skills sets.
Examples:
Verizon Wireless ramped up customer engagement with some gamification tricks in Verizon Insider, a community hub where users can get exclusive offers, participate in online and real-world events, and engage with the community through writing reviews and other interactions to earn points. Samsung gets social and creates user-generated content by rewarding users for getting engaged with the community, participating in Q&A discussions with other users, watching videos, reviewing products, and other activities. Even the U.S Army has been using games for training purposes, but now it’s using gamification to attract new recruits and generally promote awareness of the U.S. armed forces. America’s Army has attracted millions of potential new recruits.
What is the Compulsion Loop?
Compulsion Loop is a construct designed to keep someone engaged by marrying their actions with an appropriate level of reward. Compulsion Loop is also a common game designing tactic meant to draw people into an experience and deliver the right value and rewards to keep them playing. Different mediums achieve it in their own way, but all essentially reward for attention and effort and when this equilibrium falters the loop dissipates.
In order to create a Compulsion Loop we need to understand what keeps people compelled beyond the moment.
There are 3 compulsion loops engaging us at the same time, tapping into desire for different kinds of gratification in the short, medium and long-term.
The most compelling experiences keep on giving through all these frames allowing people to form a deep and lasting attachment, a quality that society and all of us individually cherish in an experience.
Why Is Gamification Important?
For a generation reared on the Internet and video games, concessions are being made to accommodate millennial attention spans and learning styles. Forbes has been reporting on so-called “gamification” for months now, describing how many of the world’s largest employers are using video game models to increase recruitment, training, and on-the-job productivity. Gamification has become nearly essential in most aspects of our lives, especially those of young people. This is no truer than in the realm of personal finance.
In the decades past, we were in the realm of pencil-wielders, willing to read, research, and exploit advantages discovered through experience. The winners were those most obsessed with finance as a discipline. While this won’t be changing soon, we might start to see more people investing than in the decades past, Thanks to digital tools meant to help novice investors learn the ropes in what is for many an intimidating facet of personal finance.
How Does Gamification Work?
Betterment is a company that has emerged to make it easy for new investors to take their first step. Because very few people ever begin investing in their lifetime, anything that can spur people to action is good. Betterment is the essence of simplicity, getting new users set up in minutes, investing the users in ETFs according to the users risk tolerance. As dividends are earned, they are reinvested to keep users’ selected stock/bond ratios in place. The formula to do so is simple, and you don’t need to pay Betterment to do it for you. Everyone could just go on Vanguard, as Betterment does, and buy ETFs. But the thing is, most people don’t do this. If people and services like Betterment can come along and make an already easy process easier, so much so that a lot more people begin investing, then it is performing a social good.
Lending Club is another similar example. Gamifying Peer to Peer lending strategies that would attract people. Using a reverse-auction format, new investors can bid on a loan proposal. Like Betterment, Lending Club is usable through web and mobile applications. The platforms are slick and simple to use. In many ways, these services are “gamifying” personal finance and investment; the way the aforementioned retailers are gamifying what it means to be an employee.
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