Major Issues of Gamification - Literature review Example

?Gamification Gamification is the act of integrating the dynamics and mechanics of a game into a non-gaming scenario. This practice has now become common for a large number of firms belonging to different industries. Companies use this strategy for improving their performance, increasing their profits and modifying the purchasing behaviour of customers. Gamification offers different benefits to organizations. Through this strategy consumers can be directly involved in the process of gaming, due to which their experiences and views can be closely studied and monitored by the firms. The players are bound with various predetermined rules of the game and are required to follow the rules for their own gains. This often leads the customers to act in such a way that under their motivation of earning benefits, they actually work in favour of the firms’ objectives. Different companies use different ways to gamify their non gaming applications. Organizations develop their own customer response measurement criteria on the basis of the gaming mechanics. These criteria help in assessing the level of customer engagement and evaluating the success rate of the gaming program. Table of Contents Gamification 4 Uses of gamification 5 Examples of gamification 6 Response of target group 7 Reference List 9 Appendix 11 Literature review Gamification Gamification is a concept that is sued for a variety of purposes in businesses. According to most scholars, there is no standard definition that would be appropriate for defining this term. However, it has been generally agreed that gamification “refers to the design process of taking things that are not games and trying to make them feel more like games” (Molesworth and Knott, 2013). In terms of marketing, gamification might be reflected as an art or as the science of converting the everyday interaction of the customers into games in such a way that the new design would be beneficial for the business. Gamification effectively integrates the mechanics and dynamics of games into various non-gaming applications such as, community building deeds, employee training programs, websites building and maintenance as well as marketing procedures or customer service (Happiest minds, 2012). Characteristically, as the name suggests, gamification is the process of applying gaming pattern of thinking to applications that are not games, so as to make these applications more fun oriented and for engaging higher number of customers towards the company providing the service. Industry experts claim that in the modern day business atmosphere, gamification has become an important trend which possesses huge potential for the future (Otnes and Tuncay-Zayer, 2012). In the era of technological advancement, gamification has been considered as one of the most important emergence that can be applied to most growing firms in various industries. The process involves the creation of fun applications that would engage customers in the form of players. The experiences and views of customers would be used by decision makers in businesses for the improving their business performance. Gamification aims at incentivising consumer engagement with the enterprises and invoking loyalty towards organisations (Martinez, 2012). This is done in the form of launching games, customer interactions as well as membership benefits. It has been argued by various researchers that the prime objective of gamification is to maximise the concerned company’s share in the total expenditure made by consumers. It is aimed at ensuring that consumers express a specific bias towards some particular organization while making purchasing decision of some product or service. Uses of gamification Gamification provides various benefits to the firms. These benefits are enjoyed by firms according to the extent to which the gamification practices are implemented. One of the most important benefits earned by firms is higher profits. Besides, this process is capable of increasing efficiency of the firm while reducing costs incurred in the long run. Firms therefore, use this process of gamification for reducing costs by increasing efficiency. Since consumers are directly involved in the process of gaming, they are engaged strongly with the firm and affects the firm’s decision making process (Xu, 2012). Gamification is used for a better and more customer-oriented service. Customer engagement is one of the biggest motivations that push firms to adopt gamification strategies. In order to understand the uses of gamification, one has to understand the relevance of game theory in business perspective. Game theory forms a method of mathematically understanding the motivations behind the choices made by individuals in various occasions when they are faced with gain or loss situation. Game theory helps to understand whether and how the decision of one individual affects the decision of other individuals related in the game. Hence, the ambition of firms behind adopting gamification strategies is to involve customers in such a way that they participate in certain activities because the activities interest them or allows them to have a feeling of gain (Evans, Jamal and Foxall, 2009). In turn the customers’ behaviours might be modified in favour of the firm. In the field of marketing, gamification initiatives address the emotional aspects of the target groups and utilize their cognitive behavioural traits. Customers are treated as participants and they are indulged in becoming involved in a set of prefixed rules following which they would be greatly rewarded (in the form of points, memberships, badges, or other facilities). Participants are encouraged to play on so as to win something of high value (Jacobs, et al., 1991). Examples of gamification Gamification has become one of the most appealing methods for modern day enterprises. They have recognized this process as not only appealing but also addictive (East, Wright, and Vanhuele, 2013). Power of games can be used to modify the motivation and shape of behaviour of participants. The game mechanics and method of game designing has found special interest and usage particularly from the non-entertainment perspective (Accenture, 2012). According to Xu (2012), one of the major motives of gamification is to make a blend of the real world with the virtual world. A game has been designed to explore a real world problem at greater depths with the real consumers. At present, scientists and scholars have hypothesized that the world might run out of the reserve of fossil fuel in the future. Hence, an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) had been designed and it has been named ‘World without Oil’. Participants in this game were made to face a virtual world that is very similar to the real world and they would be required to find a solution for the problem they face in the gaming world. The thoughts, views and experiences of the gamers are recorded for qualitative analysis. It has been found that in the critical situation gamers come up with various creative solutions that might be modified for implementation in the real world to deal with problems (Drolet, 2010). When in the game, participants are also motivated to learn or adapt to various new behaviours or environments. Business enterprises often use the process of gamification in the real world through the social media platforms (Close, 2012). The figure 1 in Appendix presents some common examples of gamification. Cafeterias often provide rewards and prizes to customers that frequently visit the restaurants. The rewards are earned in the form of points that might be used later on for purchasing some food item without payment of money. Starbucks offers the ‘Mayor offer’ to the most frequent customer. In laundries, customers are offered with special gifts that develop a bias in the minds of customers in favour of the particular dry cleaner service. On the social media such as, LinkedIn, profile holders are encouraged to fill up and update their profile details and there are options to make various surveys. These attract members towards the paid service offered by the website. On becoming a premium account holder the customer would be further facilitated with more options (Huotari and Hamari, 2012). Response of target group Gamification invests organizations with the power to read the mind of its target customers and modify their behaviour to suit the business objectives of the enterprise. However, the power of the game revolves around the experiences, emotions, and views of the player. These three factors also depend on the personal strengths and networking capabilities of the player as an individual real world customer. Responses of the target group also depend on the rewards assigned to the customers, either real or virtual. According to Edmonds (2011), companies use gaming dynamics to encourage customer engagement in some activities, which might become monotonous and therefore might not interest customers. Marketers have realized that responses of customers are dependent on the rules personal capabilities of the individuals and also the rewards provided to them at each stage of the game. Hence it is necessary to strike a perfect balance between the challenges presented and the rewards provided on achieving the target at different levels of the game. These gaming programs are also termed as loyalty programs, since they invoke loyalty of customers towards the firm. Therefore, there should be perfect balance in customer experience among the four stages of gaming in order to receive the most desirable customer response. These stages are “iteration, prototyping, play testing and balancing” (Esslinger and Combs, 2013). Edmonds (2011) distinguishes from other toys or playful designs and claims that gamification uses only few elements of game mechanics. He explains that the elements of the make-believe world are crucial in this game since it would encourage participants to make their decisions, which would be later on tallied by organizations to relate to the strategies to be adopted in the real world. In the game world, players are challenged with their own utility maximization exercise and also the pre defined rules of the games. In response players (or customers in real world) take resort to certain tactics that help organizations to modify their strategies and improve their services (De, 2010). Organizations conduct various games through online channels or in their stores. Depending on the pattern of gaming mechanics, organizations have their own response measurement criteria to assess the level of customer engagement, to evaluate the success rate of the gaming program and the extent of change in customer behaviour. According to Koenig-Lewis, Marquet and Palmer (n.d.), the gamified marketing procedures are much more influential than the normal marketing techniques. Reference List Accenture, 2012. Scores, Badges, Leader boards, and Beyond. [pdf] Accenture. Available at: < http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Gamification-Sustainable-Behavior-Change.pdf > [Accessed 15 October 2013]. Close, A., 2012. Online consumer behaviour – Theory and research in social media, advertising and e-tail. New York: Routledge. De, M., 2010. Consumer behaviour and culture: Consequences for global marketing and advertising. London: Sage. Drolet, A., 2010. The ageing consumer, perspectives from psychology and economics. New York: Routledge. East, R., Wright, M. and Vanhuele, M., 2013. Consumer behaviour, applications in marketing. London: Sage. Edmonds, S., 2011. Gamification of learning. Training and Development in Australia, 38 (6), pp. 20-22. Esslinger, B. M. and Combs, R. D., 2013. Deeper Customer Engagement through Gamification and Gift Cards. [pdf] First Data Corporation. Available at: < http://www.firstdata.com/downloads/thought-leadership/3690-Gamification-WP.pdf > [Accessed 15 October 2013]. Evans, M., Jamal, A., and Foxall, G., 2009. Consumer behaviour. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. Happiest minds, 2012. Enterprise Gamification. [pdf] Happiest Minds Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Available at: < http://www.happiestminds.com/sites/default/files/Enterprise-Gamification.pdf > [Accessed 15 October 2013]. Huotari, K. and Hamari, J., 2012. Defining Gamification - A Service Marketing Perspective. [pdf] Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT. Available at: < http://www.hiit.fi/u/hamari/2012-defining_gamification-a_service_marketing_perspective.pdf > [Accessed 15 October 2013]. Jacobs, L., Keown, C., Worthley, R. and Ghymn, K., 1991. Cross-cultural colour comparison: Global marketers beware! International Marketing Review, 8 (3), pp. 21-30. Martinez, P., 2012. The consumer mind - Brand perception and the implication for marketers. London: Kogan Page. Molesworth, M. and Knott, J. D., 2013. Digital virtual consumption. London: Routledge. Otnes, C. and Tuncay-Zayer, L., 2012. Gender, culture and consumer behaviour. New York: Routledge. Xu, Y., 2012. Literature Review on Web Application Gamification and Analytics. [pdf] Yongwen Xu. Available at: < https://csdl-techreports.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/techreports/2011/11-05/11-05.pdf > [Accessed 15 October 2013]. Appendix Figure: 1 (Source: Huotari and Hamari, 2012) Read More