Rerun: What is gamification?

for you. Brand new episodes will be coming soon. But today we're going to listen to a classic episode that originally published way back on June eight, two thousand eleven. It is titled what is Gamification? And this is a concept that has become an underlying principle of tons of different businesses. It was a huge thing back in two eleven. It's still a big thing today. So what is it? Well, Chris Poulette and I are going to tell you. Enjoy.

We're going to talk about gamification today, which is kind of a buzzword right now. It's been a buzzword for a couple of years, particularly in the tech industry, but it extends beyond just the tech industry. Oh yeah, yeah. This is Uh, it's funny because it's it's not really a tech topic in a way, because uh, this is a this is a human engineering or you know, cognitive engineering. Short, it's not it's not so much related to a specific type of technology, but I think in a lot of

ways it can be traced back to technology. Yeah, basically what gamification is and you can probably figure it out just based on the word. It's applying game thinking and game mechanics to tasks in order to kind of create an extra layer on top of those tasks. And there are a lot of different examples. In fact, we've talked about some of them already. We have indeed, sure like

um like geo cashing. Geo cashing, I would argue, is a kind of gamification to take a basic basic activity, which in in geo cashing, you could call it either hiking or if you wanted to, even exploring, and then

you add a game element on top of it. In this case, it might be things like the you know, you have a set of coordinates and you follow it, and then when you get there, there's a little cash of of goodies that's inside a box at that particular location, and then you get to take something and maybe you leave something behind as well, and that's the game element

to it. And as you continue to geo cash, you accumulate these little tokens or whatever, and you leave your own possibly personalized calling card behind at these various geo cashes, so that other people who are following they may say, Hell, hey, this guy, I've seen this guy's stuff before. This guy was at this other geo cash before. I don't know who he is or or I don't know who she is, but I know that they always leave, you know whatever, like a Smurf figurine. You know. So that's that's an

example of gamification. It's adding this element of gameplay on top of another activity. Yes, see, I I blame Mary Poppins. She did say that in every job there must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap, the job's a game. Well, actually that was pretty wise because it's it's everywhere these days. It's easy to see, uh in games. You know, and a lot of our listeners are very serious video play, video game players, video play gamers, um. But sometimes I would not put

it past them. But yeah, all those achievements that you unlock, um, you know, you unlock a new character in the game, you unlock a new scenario, you get a badge for running fifty missions, that's that stuff is gamification, and that's and it's weird to think of gamification on top of games, but it is adding another element, for example. And the purpose in technology generally tends to be one of two things.

You're either trying to teach a concept and you're using gamification to entice people to learn about that concept by by creating a sort of a reward system really for them to participate, and the reward system keeps them going. And the other related idea is engagement. Now, engagement is one of those terms you're gonna hear a lot in

technology companies. Engagement is this elusive thing everyone's going after, and that is not just attracting an audience, but keeping that audience and keeping them coming back to you and and to have them invested in your product over a long term. Because if someone just comes to you once and then they never come back, then you know you only benefit from that relationship the one time. So what you really want to do is you want to create an experience or a product that has people coming back

to you over and over again. And uh, this can be hardware, it can be software, it can be a service, it can be an activity like I said with geo cashing. Letter boxing is another great example. Letter boxing again is treasure hunting, and there's a whole range of game systems that are put on top of letter boxing that that make it really an engaging activity for people who get into it. And so gamification, it's it's something that people

have been doing for centuries. I mean, they've been throwing games on top of stuff for as long as there have been games, really, but it's only been in the last couple of years that that's kind of become a buzzword where people are concentrating on ways to create game elements on top of whatever it is they're offering in order to get that level of engagement they're looking for. Um. Yeah,

and they're they're all kinds of applications for this. I mean, um, some of you who have mobile devices like to check in on things like go Wala or four square or Scavenger if you like, and scavin you know, let's let's start with four Square then of the Scavenger, because Scavenger is kind of like a very specific twist on four square. Well, it's funny because um, these these I don't know, they're really not technically games. Um, they're badges that you can

earn in four square. For example, Yeah, that and and uh, that would be I would say the oldest of the three four square. You know, once you count create an account on four square and you have a GPS enabled phone. Um. Basically you're asked to check in when when you go to someplace, so you know, you get to work. Um, you say, okay, I'm here at work, um, and it will tell you, for example, how many of your how many people are there, and how many people possibly who

they are? Yeah, if you if you're friends with them, I will tell you if your friends are there. It may even tell you if your friends are nearby. If they're not like right where you are, but they're in the area, it might tell you that. It gives you an opportunity to share that on Facebook and Twitter. It gives you opportunity over time to become the mayor of

a location. So that's the first layer of gamification, right there, is becoming the mayor, because then you have us You have attached a status to this service, and status is really important to people. People like having high status. It's good to be the king. Yeah, it makes you feel important, right, I mean, it's it's we all get this like it it just if it feels good. So the mayor idea makes perfect sense. You you know, you could argue, yeah, it's just it just means that you have a smartphone

and you've been here a lot. It doesn't that's all it means. But you could say, yeah, but you know, I've achieved something. I am a mayor here. And then then they have these badges that they have all four square that you get. You you earn these badges by checking into specific types of locations, or perhaps the location you're checking into has a particular feature, Like there's one that if you've you've checked into at least three places

that have a photo booth, you get a certain badge. Um, there are there are badges where if you check into a place that has a lot of other people, they have swarm badges and they have different levels of swarm. So the more people who are there, the Like if you have like two hundred or five hundred or a thousand people, you'll get a different level of swarm badge for checking in. So if you guys want swarm badges,

here's where you gotta go. You have to go to either South by Southwest or c E S. And I guarantee you because that's where all the tech people are and they all love to use these things. That's where you're gonna get the best chance to really earn one those badges. You can also earn them an other like really popular places like say Disney World or Disneyland. Yeah.

Actually that's that's a good point. Go Wala has a feature on it that allows you that where in which they have certain tours where you collect if you go to someplace like disney World, Um, you're supposed to. If you go to all the different places, they'll have like a subset of badges there and it's sort of like a can you collect all twelve of these locations? You know, see if you can check in at all these different spots, um and then and that really can do that. Yeah,

it really drives engagement. Like we said, like if four Square did not have the badges and did not have the mayor element to it, then there would be I'm sure there would be a significant drop off of the number of people who would use the service a couple of times and then we'll just never come back to it. There would be a lot more of those people right,

and they're there already are those people. And it's not like we're saying that these things make you stay, but they are incentives for certain people to keep trying to use this this uh um service. I know as as mayor of how stuff works. As of the recording of this podcast, I get really really cheesed off when Brian steals my mayorship. And that's gone back and forth between the two of us at least five times already. Brian

and I we tend to steal this. I become mayor, then like a week later he's the mayor, and then I'm the mayor again. And I mean there is a there's a definite competitive element to know you want to become the mayor, Like there's a there's a certain level satisfaction of stealing the may air from someone else. Yeah. Yeah, um And uh Goala also offers uh something, a little something that four Square doesn't that I think is kind of cool. Um. The company that makes uh Goala is

called Alamo Fire. They're based in Texas, and they have a They also if you've ever played the Facebook collecting game pack Rat, they also do that. They have some pretty cool art and that's one of those things. That's really neat because they come up with UM badges for certain locations, certain stores and other places. So it's kind of fun to collect those stickers because they may be sort of unique. And you like geo caash and you

drop and pick up items when you go places. You might know, if you go to a bookstore, you might get a typewriter or what they call a page turner a book um, and it has a collector's number on their number, you know, one thousand and fifty four, um, so you know when they launched that particular item, and so you uh, that kind of keeps you going because you go, okay, well I've gotten these things, or hey, look at that they made a new one for for

this intation. Um. You might say, though, what's in this? Why why would anybody do this? Well, companies, uh, these stores, for example, have realized that they can offer people using these services a little something extra. You might find if you're using four square uh a coupon. Yeah. Uh. You know they go to this hotel and tell us that you saw this special on four square and we'll give

you ten percent off your stay. Yeah we um. I went to a restaurant at Universal uh the Universal Islands of Adventure Properties, and they had it where if you showed that you checked in on four Square that you would get a free cocktail. Interesting free my tie and uh, it's a problem for you. Yeah, I don't drink. For for folks listening to the podcast, I'm not a drinker at all. So my wife got to my ties and because she checked into four square and I checked into

fourth Square, and my wife was very happy. At the end of the dinner, she said it was the best dinner ever. Um, getting around of the fountain was a bit of a challenge. But no, I'm joking. I'm joking. I love you, Rebecca. Guys have just wrote doubles. It means that I'm gonna have to lose a turn. So while I'm waiting for my turn to come back around,

let's let's take a break and think our sponsors. There's this element of tempting people to come into places by having this this special deal, right, that's one way you can you you as a as a vendor, as a as a retail operator or restaurant operator. That's one way you would you might want to leverage these services or that this gamification is that it's a way to lure

people into your your place. Uh, Scavenger, Like you were saying, Scavenger is kind of an interesting thing and that it adds another level level of gameplay to to checking into locations. I first started using Scavenger at CS so this past the e s as of the recording of this podcast.

And you would go to a booth and you would you know, I went to a booth and they had me sign up for Scavenger and they said, all right, now walk around the booth and you're gonna see different tasks that you need to complete in order to win points. And then at the end of the day there's gonna be a drawing for a prize, and the number of times you're entered into the prize will be dependent upon how many points you burned, so the more points you

are and the more chances you have to win. And it was things like find out how many uh how far down this waterproof watch can go before before it's no longer rated for that depth, stuff like that, where is John Cameron Swayze when you need him? Right? So you would have to go over to that part of the booth and find that device and learn you might even have to talk to one of the one of

the representatives there to get the information. Then you have to go into the app and text that in for nation in for it to be verified so that you would get those points. Or it might be get a picture of this one gadget, uh that's located somewhere in the booth and you would have to go through the booth and find it. Well, for those people, the people at that these booths, every time you're going through and completing one of these tasks, now in your mind you're thinking,

I need more points. I need to get more points because then I can win. Uh. What they're thinking is by making you go to all these different sections of the booth, you are building more awareness of their brand and that you might not be very conscious about it, but that you're gonna take home this experience. You're gonna think, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that that laptop. I remember I saw it at such and such booth because I played that game. And for them, that's where it pays off.

It's like marketing, right, it's a way to build awareness. And they didn't have to buy a commercial. All he did was put this stuff into an app and they let you do all the work, and because there's that reward system, because there's points involved and there's a competition, everybody really comes out a winner because the user gets the feeling of accomplishment as they build points, and the vendor gets the feeling of hey, we've got a successful

marketing campaign. It's not like one of those things where you know, you feel I wouldn't think that as a user, I would feel like I was quote unquote used right because I got something else out of it. It wasn't just you know, having to walk around. I was doing it voluntarily because it meant that I was earning points. And that's a lot of Uh, that's that's one side of gamification is really you know, you've designed this this level of games to to reward people but also to

keep them coming back to you. But there's another level of gamification too, there's a problem solving and learning side of gamification. Oh, absolutely, absolutely, um the In fact, there have been some projects that have been using gamification as a way to in as an incentive for other people

to participate. We've talked about crowdsourcing some on the on the show, um where basically, look, I've got a lot of stuff to do for example the cety at Home project as as an example we've used before where UM scientists were collecting a mountain of information through radio telescopes and they just didn't have the computing power to process it all in a timely manner to see if there was any kind of discernible signal in all the noise they were getting from space. Um, So they enlisted the

help of many, many people. Hey, look, we've got a little application that you can install on your computer. It will help us crunch the numbers that we're getting back from space and in the background, you don't have to do anything. Yeah, and and it was a pretty cool screen saver as well. UM. So it looks like it's doing something really cool. And basically when you share the information back with them, it's it comes to them in a form that they can use and quickly scan to

see if there's any value in it. Um. Also, hey, a little bit of gamification. Before gamification was a word, UM, I think. Uh, they offered you the chance. They said, hey, look, if we find somebody out there, uh, you know, you'll have some credit for that. So you you do get a little something. You get a share in the prize it's I guess it's not a prize problem. You essentially your name is associated with what could arguably be the

biggest scientific discovery since ever. Yeah, but they're doing that with all kinds of other projects now too, where they offer you the opportunity to participate in the project and they'll give you a badge for getting a certain number of units turned in and and uh, you know, other kinds of things like that. And there's talk of even turning using gamification and designing educational courses, so you know, you create a game playing element in learning, and you

have created a new way to encourage students to learn. So, you know, one of the big challenges of of being a teacher, and there are many, Being a teacher is an incredibly challenging and so I'm sure many people would argue a very rewarding occupation. I certainly am very thankful that both of my parents are teachers, because they they

taught me a lot as a by extension. But yeah, there's there's this this idea of throwing game elements into education and turning education into more of a game so that students are are enthusiastic about learning, they're eager to learn, because it means that they get points, they get to move ahead. It's it's it's kind of just taking the whole concept of grades and turning it into more of a a game. And you could you know, we've been

doing this, like I said, for decades. I mean, you know, when I was a kid and you did something really well, you'd get a gold star. Like you know, that's that's a level of gamification. It's a reward system that's kind of like a game. Like you did well on this test, you get a gold star. Um, it's just taking that and and making it a little more sophisticated it and

a little more integrated into the educational system. And it's still very early days for that kind of of widespread use of gamification, but uh, there are a lot of people who are really interested to see if this will pay off in the long run. Um. And I actually have an interesting kind of example of this that I would like to talk about just for a second if I might. Okay, have you heard of a man named

John Hunter? John Hunter. John Hunter is a teacher in in Virginia, and he came up with a game that he calls the World Peace Game. And there's a documentary film about this. It's called World Peace Game and Other Fourth Grade Achievements, which is a great title, right, So yeah, he has he teaches fourth graders and he's a he teaches gifted students, so it's a it's a specific program here. The kids are given an interesting task. They have a

a map that has four layers to it. It's actually like uh, levels of of plexiglass and plywood, all right, So you've got the top level is space that kind of represents space, so it it's where satellites are, It's where spacecraft are. That's the top level. The next level is airspace, so we're talking like clouds, weather patterns, planes, that sort of stuff. The base level is ground and sea level that's where all your your land based in

water based units are. And the level below that is under the sea, so it's things like submarines and uh undersea oil drilling that kind of stuff and crabbing a little mem and there's this. The purpose of the game is that the they have I think it's four nations that are not representative of any particular real world counterparts phoe nations, and the students even get to name the

nations that they've along to each nation. The teacher comes up to students that he thinks would be particularly well suited for the role and approaches them and said offers them a chance to become prime minister of one of those nations. The prime minister in turn gets to a point from the class UH different cabinet level positions, and these fourth graders end up taking over these nations that all have various economic powers, military powers, UH. They have

various complicated relationships with one another. UM, there's a whole element of of competition for resources, there are differing political ideologies, and the goal of the class is to go through this program and by the end of the program achieve world peace while dealing with all the other issues that nations in the world have to deal with. Chris and I have a little bit more to say about gamification in just a moment, but before we get to that,

let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. So he has a thirteen page UH document that has all these different elements to it, all of which are are somewhat interconnected. So if something changes on one, it's going to change everything else too, and and so things like there may be various crises like ethnic disputes between different groups. Uh,

there may be a resource shortage, there may be environmental disasters. Uh, there may be um like a massive storm takes out resources in one part of the world, and the students have to keep working together to work through these problems in order to achieve world peace. Well, this is gamification of a of lots of different issues, things like every he tackles stuff like global warming, you know, political sign it's um, environmental concerns. I mean, there's all these different

elements that go into this game. And the the amazing thing is that I think he I think his classes have a perfect record of reaching world peace by the end of the program. And he's been doing this since I think nineteen seventy seven, so it's a pretty phenomenal uh lesson there and he and he actually says he has a talk, Ted Talk that you I would recommend looking this up, the Ted talk and there's also the documentary film as well. Both of them are are great.

I do recommend them. Um. But he he talks about how at the very beginning of the project, he admits to the students, I don't have the answers. I don't know how to fix the world, that's what you have to do, and here's the game. Yeah. But that's the thing is that it gets these kids thinking, and because it's in a game format, it gets these kids thinking in a way of how do I solve this this obstacle? How do how do I get around this obstacle to

achieve my goal? And then the hope, of course is that they'll carry that experience with them to actually apply the lessons they learned in that that game in real life,

which is again pretty phenomenal. We should see if we could get an interview with Ian Bogosts from Georgia Tech, the Georgia Institute of Technology, who UH also has a UM, I don't know if you'd call it a company, but he also has a book called Persuasive Games and the website based on it and the idea he he has a number of games that look at social and political topics. UM basically, how you can generate a discourse around our discussion around these topics through using games and how you

can investigate that. That's sort of a side topic to gamification, because I mean, it's it is gamification, but it's kind of not UM. Also Budget Hero on Marketplace, UH the public radio program marketplace dot org. You can find the budget Hero game. I think I posted it to our Facebook page a long, long, long time ago. But yeah,

basically it's a way to balance the budget or um. Actually, I don't know if you had these, but when I was in junior high school, we had the stock market game where they were trying to teach us about economics. But what they would do is say, Okay, we're gonna as a class, everybody gets two fake dollars to invest

in the stock market. Now you guys have to go look at the market and based on what do you know of these companies, make some fake investments, and by the end of this, we'll see who has the most money and who has the least. Yeah, I actually won that. I actually failed miserably. I want it, and I gotta tell you my team used the throw a dart at it strategy. I mean that works for people in real life. Because that's the sad thing is that that was a

case where gamification did not teach me. But there are different levels of amification because sure, sure, and you can and you can use it in your daily life. To um. I was while Jonathan was talking a minute ago was frantically, Um, I prefer molten peanut butter enough. The uh um iPhone and iPod app um epic Win. Have you heard of this. It's a it's a really cool little app um and it's uh it's not free. I think it's two in the app store as of right now when I happen

to be looking at it. I learned about it a few months ago. Um. But yeah, it's a it's a to do list and so you write down the stuff you have to do and they give you little badges and things when you actually check stuff off your list, and you level up after a certain amount of time, and there are new characters and things. So it's um. Uh. It's gotten mixed reviews, I would say mostly positive. I've heard people talking about it in a in a kind

of cool way, and um. There are other forms of gamification too for companies now when they're trying to encourage human resources people to sign everybody at your company up and uh. It allows people to give other people a pat on the back in a game. In the game, say hey, you want to badge because you really turn that job around for me really quickly, and I appreciate it.

And you know there there are elements of gamification that have been in the workplace for a while to like, um, like, whenever you have those team building retreats, that's kind of a gamification thing because again, you're you're you're doing the team building so that you can, in theory, at any rate, apply those team building skills you you you learn on

these retreats to actual work in the office. But in the case of the retreats, it's to build a team to do things like get across a an obstacle course, you know that kind of stuff, or you know, everyone is linked together by this one rope and you have to find how to get free of the rope in the smallest number the fewest number of moves possible, that kind of thing, and it's all problem solving skills and teamwork that are part of it. But uh, you know, the goal isn't just to have a good time and

and you know, to get across an obstacle course. The goal is to build the skills that you're going to need to successfully work your way in that office. So uh yeah, I mean that kind of gamification has been around for for ages and ages, and it's just now we're getting to a point where the layer is more obvious. It's it's more incorporated directly into whatever it is we're doing. And we're gonna see lots of this, I think, for

at least a year. Um. And if it proves like to truly be a success, we're going to see it from here on out. If people get bored of it, then we'll move on to the next thing. So that, I've seen people criticize gamification to say that, well, one, it's been around forever, and to it's a fad um or a buzzword. But we'll see, well it is. It

is a buzzword. It's certainly something that people have been studying as what it is sort of a hey, would you look at that, um, and how can I make use of this in training or education or you know, getting my employees to feel better about themselves or getting more customers in the door? Um, you know we have. I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of my favorite How stuff Works dot Com authors, Stephanie Crawford, who has an article on the side how Gamification Works

that highly recommended. It's an excellent article, and she mentions people who have been influential and sort of creating, you know, establishing themselves as experts in the field. Like Jane McGonagall. Yeah, she gave a keynote presentation atself by south West, which I hear was amazing. Yeah yeah, um and um oh, I'm just trying to find the other person's name. There are several other people who have been really uh it

was Gabe Zickerman. Who who was I've seen there's a couple pieces on O'Riley the a tech publisher, UM where you can there's I think a webcast and some other things that you can go check out if you're interested in it. UM. But you know, they're they're really sort of studying this now and and finding ways that people

can incorporate it. So I'm I'm inclined to say. I mean, if it makes the stuff that we do every day a little less boring, um and makes people more likely to be engaged, I don't I don't see it going away anytime soon. I certainly think that it's uh, it certainly works on me every time I, uh, you know, get stuck in some zinga thing where I have to plant something and be back in twenty minutes. Otherwise it fails miserably, I go, I am such a sucker. Well,

and I mean, I'm still using four square. Uh. That was one of those you know, when I first started using Twitter. I've said this told this story is several times of the podcast too. When I first started using Twitter, I use it for about a month and then I stopped, and then about three or four months later I picked it up again, and then I've been using it ever since. Uh.

Four square. There was a good ants that I was going to I installed it, I used it for a couple of weeks, thought it was kind of interesting, and then just sort of forgot about it. And it wasn't until I think I managed to become mayor of a local theater in Atlanta, Stage Theater, and that's when I the bug bit me and Uh. It also helps that actors are, by their nature, very competitive, and so I and my fellow actors I do acting occasionally, but I am my fellow actors now try to become the mayor

of various UH stages around town. And by the way, this runs the family. My sister is the mayor of a local theater in Atlanta too, Because when I got there to check in, I said, oh, she's she's the mayor, and I got a little upset actually, because it was one of those places that had a special where you could get a discount off your tickets. Well, she was performing in the show. She wasn't buying. She couldn't even

take advantage of the offer. She was in the That's why she had become the mayor, because she had been there for all the rehearsals and the performances. I love you, says yeah, I have to say that all the time. Like I love my wife and I love my sister. The women in my life are wonderful. I'm I'm very happy with them. Please don't beat me up, don't make a game of it. And that wraps up this classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you enjoyed it. I have

a lot more to say about gamification. I'm sure I'm going to do a follow up on this particular topic, because there's a lot more to say post two thousand eleven about gamification and how that has played into different arenas in the tech space and as well as business in general. And we can also look at how certain uh strategies in gamification have created sort of a backlash against it. So I plan on doing a follow up episode to this topic in the near future. You should

be getting brand new shows next week. I hope you guys enjoy them. If you have any suggestions for future topics, future co hosts, future you know, vacation destinations for Jonathan Strickland, let me know. You can reach me on Facebook or Twitter. The handle for both is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.

For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.