Ok, that’s wrong, it does. But it doesn’t work the way everyone seems to wish it did. I learned a lot about incentive systems during my long career in games, but when I branched out into non-game applications, I saw that many of the people who were pushing layer upon layer of gamification systems seemed to think that adding a “gamified” mechanic to their app automatically made their feature or app sticky and addictive.
It doesn’t. What many people forget about product management and feature design is that you can’t trick someone into enjoying something they don’t enjoy. Incentive-based systems are nudges pushing users towards particular ways to achieve their goals, or to particular behavioral patterns that are in support of their main motivations. They do not usually replace those motivations themselves.
For example - the gold standard of “gamified” success stories: airline miles. Having airline miles in a particular airline doesn’t make you want to take a flight you weren’t already planning to take (unless you have a free flight already). It just affects which airline you might take when a flight becomes necessary. It nudges you to a preferred option once the choice has already been made to take an action.
So what’s the difference? Why do these systems work so well in games, but have so much less impact on user behaviors in non-game apps?
The main difference is that games have a game loop which, if well designed, places obstacles in the way of what the player really wants. Similar to how it’s screenwriters’ job to put obstacles in the way of their movie’s protagonist, many game systems invent systems that get in the way of the player’s ultimate goal. These systems can then be used as incentives to change a player’s behavior.
For example - perhaps there is a crafting system in the game, and in order to craft a rare potion, I need an even rarer material. It’s important to note that the motivation of the player is not to craft a rare potion. It’s to achieve the result they hope that potion will bring them. Maybe they want to get higher on a leaderboard during a limited time event. Maybe they want to get past a difficult boss they just can’t figure out how to conquer. Their motivation is about their end goal - the potion is a means to an end.
But, we can take those rare materials and now place them behind another mechanic we’ve designed. Let’s say for example that we’ve added a farming mechanic in the game and we want people to use it, because these sorts of mechanics are highly retentive. But no one seems to like farming on its own. One thing we can do is make farming an important part of the game loop. Now the only way to get those rare potion materials (and probably other materials for crafting) is by leveling up your farm and spending time farming.
This will not make people love farming. But it will get more people to engage with the system, giving you a better chance to convert those users to the behavior you were hoping for. I think of it like an imaginary formula: the amount of frustration you make a player go through must be less than or equal to the motivation the player has in achieving their end goal. If getting the potion done or winning the limited time leaderboard suddenly doesn’t seem worth all the work you’ve put into it, the player will abandon the mechanic.
So, back to non-game apps. The central problem is that most of these apps do not have these levers as an integral part of their loop. Imagine an eCommerce app that gives you ShirtPoints every time you make a purchase of over $30, and if you get 100 ShirtPoints you can redeem a free keychain! I mean… I’m not here for a keychain. I’m here to buy a shirt. These points don’t matter to me, because they are not in my way towards getting what I want. I can go in, buy a shirt, and these incentivized points have absolutely no impact on my decisions, because I do not care.
Well, for our online shirt store, what would work? We can’t gate the purchase of a shirt behind a certain number of points, can we? Well… we could. But ONLY if that shirt has a high enough perceived value to make the effort of obtaining 100 ShirtPoints worth it. Imagine limited edition sneakers for sneakerheads being gated behind a number of repeat purchases - sure, that could increase the usage of these ShirtPoints, for at least a small number of diehard collectors. In games, this is one of the player archetypes, collectors - people who want to catch ‘em all. It’s great to build mechanics around them, but you have to know that not everyone will be a collector. So in this example, you’ve designed a behavioral loop that can work: purchases > ShirtPoints > (Repeat) > final reward. But, this only works for the marginal number of your users who really want that collectible. A gamified solution needs to have a particular user segment in mind, and if you’re only targeting your diehard fans, your whales and high spenders, this can work fine. If however, you want a broader impact, you might need to rethink your incentives.
Honestly sometimes the simplest things work the best. I want to buy a shirt. Inherently I want to spend the least money I can. Perhaps I can simply trade ShirtPoints for discounts. Notice though - this won’t make people buy shirts they weren’t going to buy anyway. It might only incentivize them to buy them from you, instead of the other store they sometimes go to. This feels like an underwhelming solution - stores have been doing buy X and get Y% off deals forever. But the issue is that you have no other levers in your system to pull.
There are no other things you can put in the way of the user that then becomes valuable to them. You could add complicated missions to get ShirtPoints, Gacha mechanics to get ShirtPoints, free wheel spins on your fifth login to get ShirtPoints, but it doesn’t matter. These ShirtPoints will never significantly change the user’s motivation, because it violates the truism I listed before: the amount of work, or frustration, or money the user must put in to benefit from the system far outweighs the benefit of the reward towards their initial goal.
So - for those people seeming to amplify their apps with gamification, I encourage you to examine how the incentives you plan to offer have inherent value to your user journey. As most businesses won’t really benefit from adding complex game mechanics to their offerings, I would also encourage you to expect the result to only be a nudge. And a nudge is sometimes great - it’s wonderful for an airline to capture the loyalty of their fliers and give them reason to select them when they have decided to fly. But that airline shouldn’t expect that the number of flights booked will dramatically increase as a result.