Gamification is everywhere

Part 3 — Case Studies

This article focuses on the several examples and case studies that have successfully integrated gamification into their app/platform to elevate the experience for the users. Gamification is a basic concept it involves leveraging the fundamentals of games and extrapolating it to real life experiences (read more). Starbucks is a prime example of how gamification can be used to drive value to business (read more).

“When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.” ― Jane McGonigal

That being said, here are a few examples of day-to-day apps that have well and truly made the most out of the concept of gamification. [Note that most of these examples involve an application or platform wherein the context of gamification is being applied]

Gamifying Payments: Google Pay

In November 2019, during the Diwali season in India, Google Pay had particularly leveraged the Gamification concept and harnessed it to drive immense engagement on the app.

The users were needed to collect ‘stamps’ through various actions — spend through the app, request a friend for a stamp, share a stamp, and so on. Upon collecting all the stamps, the user would be rewarded a prize of INR 251.

This strategy boosted app traffic by approx. 40%. It did tick all the boxes that are required for implementation of a good gamification strategy.

Google managed to deliver a tangible reward in terms of money to all the users who managed to collect all the stamps. But the other users were not left disappointed either, as they ended up earning a smaller cash reward or some coupons that they could redeem during the festive season.
It was a win-win situation for all players involved.

Gamifying Health: Fitbit

Fitbit is a great example of gamification in health. The app allows users to set health goals — steps per day, weekly goals, weight goals and ensures that the wearer reaches those goals through gamification.

It helps the user set challenges in such a way that they are achievable and ensure to slowly raise the bar to make the game feel challenging enough without making the experience monotonous.

Fitbit also allows users to set-up groups and to chat and compete with Fitbit equipped friends and family. It then sends a reminder to get-up and go for a walk every now and then, or a notification that a competitor has just nabbed the top spot of the leader board

To finally make the game rewarding, Fitbit rewards the users with badges for completed goals and motivational messages to keep the user at it, at all times.

Gamifying Productivity: Todoist

Todoist is a productivity app that enables users to track everything from work tasks to everyday and household chores. The app uses gamification to prompt users to complete their tasks by rewarding them with karma points.

The concept is fairly simple — if the user completes the task on or before time, she/he wins Positive Karma points. If the user does not complete or postpones tasks or pushes tasks beyond the deadline, she/he gets Negative Karma points.

As the user collects more points she/he progresses up the levels from a ‘Beginner’ user to an ‘Enlightened’ user. The user can also share the score to her/his social media channels giving this gamification a competitive edge.

Gamifying Learning: Byjus

Byju’s is an e-learning app being used by school children in India. They are an Indian educational technology and online tutoring firm which is now poised to be the worlds most valued ed-tech firm.

They have made the app interactive, which allows the users, the target ones being children here, to view their goals on a map or a path. As they complete each goal, they progress along the way and earn badges or level-up.

Byju’s takes gamification one step ahead by including fun video tutorials and lessons and later asking some fun questions and games.

Byju’s leveraged the essence of gamification by adopting the concepts and baking them right into the learning experience. Their learning model keeps growing with their growing base and with the advent of distance learning, we are yet to witness the real outcome of this exercise.

Gamifying Work: SAP

If you are from the technology sector then you’re probably not a stranger to SAP. SAP is a German multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations.

SAP has managed to gamify work by introducing an app called Roadwarrior. This app facilitated training and improvement for employees in the Sales and Customer-facing teams. All the employees needed to do was consume the training content (articles, videos, sales kit, etc.) on the app and answer quizzes. The points they earned, rewarded them with badges and a place on the leaderboard.

The end result — the sales executives did not just gain deeper insights about the customers, but SAP, witnessed a boost in their productivity, they had higher levels of motivation and confidence and the entire exercise was well received overall.

Gamifying Bill Payments: CRED

CRED is an Indian fin-tech company that aims to make the credit card bill payments experience simpler and rewards users for doing so.

Among their other initiatives, the rules of the game are fairly simple. A user pays his bills through the platform. The user earns points, the user spends and redeems points on other things she/he wishes to purchase. That’s it! simple!

These are just a few examples of gamification. While this concept is not remotely new, but the way various apps, platforms and experiences are leveraging this in an innovative manner intrigues me.
(Note: Examples and images published here are from the respective websites and sources.)

If you liked this article and would like to learn more about gamification — please read my first article on the basics of Gamification. If you would like to learn more about Design Thinking or Storytelling please feel free to read them as well.