The Gamification of Everything

Today’s blog post comes from Chad Otis, executive creative director here at Smashing Ideas.  Chad and a few others from Smashing Ideas spent part of last week attending the Casual Connect conference here in Seattle www.seattle.casualconnect.org.  Check out Chad’s thoughts about the show:   

This is the second year I’ve attended Casualconnect.  If you’re in the casual game industry this is a must-do event.  Whether you have a  Lostpinkcow, want to be the Mayor of Starbucks or can’t wait to see how many comments your latest  Facebook post garnered, you’re playing a game.  If there was a meta takeaway for me at this year’s Casual Connect Conference in Seattle, and there was, it was meta gaming.  Don’t know what meta gaming is?  Well, as usual, there were varying definitions offered from speakers at the conference.  Amy Jo Kim, PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience, author, and game designer who has offered her talents on projects like The Sims, Rockband and a few other games you might have heard of, was part of a panel at Casual Connect discussing the topic of Gamification.  She explained it as the layering of a rewards and advancement systems on top of, well, anything.  Things like Farmville make clear use of these elements.  It’s a game after all, and the success of games like Farmville – with 85 million players at its peak- is what’s getting the attention of marketers and entreprenuers everywhere.  So, how about applying these addicting elements to non-games? 

Let’s look at Foursquare.  It’s the most talked about location-based mobile app right now.  Sure, Foursquare could simply let you do what it’s fundamentally designed to do – check in at a location so your friends know you’re there and can then meet you if they happen to be in the neighborhood.  But, how fun is that?  How motivated are you to continue using the app for weeks, months or years?  Now, let’s say you got a virtual badge for checking in for the first time ever and, should you check in more than anyone at any one location,  Mayoral status?  Not just Mayoral status, but more importantly, Mayoral status that everyone else can see.  It turns out that things like bragging rights are the sort of engaging social touch points that people just can’t get enough of lately.  If you don’t happen to be a Socializer according to your Bartle Quotient, there are other ways to make sure you don’t feel left out.  Achievers, explorers and killers can be pandered to equally when it comes to metagaming.

Aside from the metagaming discussion, there were a lot of numbers on a lot of slides (these people are very interested in numbers and monetization).  I’ll share the two biggest numbers.  The casual games industry is expected to be a $2.5 Billion industry in 2011 and the mobile games market is expected to reach $10 Billion by 2013 .  There’s a big market.  It’s still early.  Monetize away.

There was a lot of speculation on the future of games for Facebook, Google, iPad, mobile, motion sensor consoles (like wii, and Kinect), and independent game developers.  The consensus, in short, seemed to be a prediction of growth in all areas.

Now you’ve earned 5 million Experience Points for reading this.  Tell your friends.

–Chad Otis

Achiever, Socializer, momentary Mayor of Benaroya Hall, and Executive Creative Director / Smashing Ideas