Attended a dynamite workshop this week on Gamification, run by Gabe Zichermann.  He’s written a book on it, is consulting for Google about it, and is doing a video and another book on the topic for O’Reilly, the well-regarded tech publishing house (responsible for my beloved Head First HTML/CSS book, highly recommended to anyone looking for a basic primer on website building blocks). 

The workshop was on game mechanics.  Now, I am not a big video/computer game fan.  When I first encountered this topic, it sounded pretty dry and irrelevant: “I’m not building a game,” I thought, “so I can’t see how this will be of much interest.” 

Wrong!  The workshop that Gabe put together is not about how to build actual games.  It’s about Gamification:  in his words, “the use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems.”

Engaging users, ey?  Don’t know of a single consumer web startup that doesn’t struggle with this (instagram maybe). 

Gabe’s idea is that most of consumer software is headed this way, and while we know about the white-hot growth of Zynga, an actual gaming company, and are familiar with the badges and game-like experience of Foursquare, Gabe contends that non-game sites like Facebook and Twitter have used gaming elements to great effect as well.  I’ll probably post more about this, because by the end of the workshop I was totally fascinated with gamification as it applies to not only consumer internet, but any sort of product design.  

A teaser for now: one concept central to game mechanics is the idea of loyalty and rewards.  And studies have shown that the order in which players (that would be “customers” for most of us) actually value rewards is thus:  

Status - ie: Platinum Elite in frequent flyer programs.

Access - ie:  Gilt Noir members get access to sale items 15 minutes ahead of everyone else.

Power -  ie: After a certain level of achievement, the player gets “power” over other players, like power moderators on Craigslist.  

Stuff - ie: Buy ten coffees and get one free.

The best thing about this revelation is that this is the exact OPPOSITE order for which it costs to provide these rewards.  Stuff is the most expensive, yet garners the least loyalty from users.  The moment someone’s gotten his free cup of coffee, he no longer needs to be loyal.  Providing Status, however (ie: Platinum Elite or virtual badges), is pretty cheap and scalable.  So with that knowledge, how would you design your loyalty program?  

For a taste of the entire workshop, check out Gabe’s Google Tech Talk about mastering gamification: Fun Is The Future.  The whole multi-hour workshop is top notch, but he covers many of the concepts in this video as well.  Highly recommended.