RIP Gamification

You may want to sit down for this, but gamification… it’s dead. Buried beneath a pile of points.

 
 

I know it’s a shock, but when you think of what we asked of it, it’s hardly a surprise.

I mean, we’re fighting for employee mindshare against attention-sucking behemoths like mobile devices, heavy workloads, and social networks, and we really thought a few drops of gamification could turn the tide? I like leaderboards as much as the next whitepaper, but there’s just no way a little ping and bling was gonna trick employees into thinking training was fun.

We truly believed gamification could change everything, but the results just didn’t back up the claim. 42% of employees describe the training they get as boring and useless. [1]

I think the rest were too sleepy to answer

 
 

Now I know what you’re thinking: I saw the graphs! There was a spike in engagement whenever we rolled out a new feature! But there’s a big difference between curiosity and long-term success. And gamification was only ever delivering jolts of curiosity.

Take badges: badges are fun! Here, you get a badge, you get a badge, everybody gets a badge! Gamification worked its proverbial fingers to the bone handing out badges, never really understanding why.

But leaderboards! Everyone loves leaderboards! Or at least the people in the top 3 slots, anyway.

Gamification gave out so many points, the numbers stopped having meaning anymore. I got a point for not accidentally closing a window once. I still don’t know if I should be proud of that or not.

And that’s the problem gamification was facing: you can bury users under a mountain of trinkets, but if your underlying content is still a chore, it won’t fix a thing. You can’t put lipstick on a pig. I mean you can, but please don’t. Swine fashion is a slippery slope, and a whole other blog post entirely.

Where was I? Oh right: solutions. 

Gamification coulda been a contender, but we let it down. The answer was never in gluing gimmicks to the same old training content, it was in making an actual game that helps people learn through play.

It’s called game-based learning. Think of it like a cake: sure, it’s got icing on top, but it’s also got layers of deliciousness, and all kinds of sweet surprise hidden inside. Gamification is just icing on asparagus. It’s ooo and then ew.

The base of any good game-based cake is something we call a Booster Game — designed to do the heavy lifting gamification never could. To hook and hold for a more fulfilling engagement. A good Booster Game should be designed for your employees, so they:

  • keep coming back regularly;

  • learn about your overarching business;

  • engage in “microlearning” experiences that dig deeper into targeted subject matter;

  • actually have, you know, fun.

With a Booster Game in place, we’ve solved the biggest question gamification never could: why? Now we can layer in all kinds of microlearning adventures that add information and context in ways that make sense. Good microlearning modules…

  • can be games, or really any other kind of content that makes sense;

  • affect the player’s progress in the Booster Game — you do well here, you do well there;

  • should include multiple types of games, technology/software/app simulators, or role play scenarios;

  • do not involve pigs.

Once you have all these things in place, employees will have the context they need to really want to engage in training, and be ready for the rewards that come with it. That’s the secret to great training experiences: making sure your games are — wait for it — games.

The numbers speak for themselves. Just look:


1. Game-based learning takes employees an average 5-10 hours to complete vs 53 hours via the pig method[2]
 
2. Students of swine suck at knowledge retention: 5% vs 70% [3]
 
3. Yoinks! Game-based learning averages a per-employee cost of $31-$68 [4]
 
4. Engagement plus: 106% increase in voluntary participation and 266% increase in repeat engagement.[5]
 

The Bottom Line

I mean, not to speak ill of the dead, but it’s a good thing lamification (oh snap!) is gone. Lipstick on a pig just doesn’t cut it anymore… you can’t just dress farm animals up and expect them to train people like in the old days. 

No, you need a full experience that’s impossible to ignore, stuffed with Booster Games and micro-learning games and all kinds of goodness! Then, and only then, can you start picking out shades of lipstick. And probably a nice hat. 

After what you’ve been through, you deserve it.