I once heard that early in his career, Sonny Rollins would simply walk off stage if he wasn’t feeling inspired. Startups should take this lesson to heart.
A multitude of sites/apps now employ “game” layers. Armed with a reductionist view of human psychology, these apps assume that the prospect of escalating one’s points will arouse people to compete towards some indeterminate goal.
The idea is to create a quasi-competitive environment, where people are incented to do things on the site, with the prospect of being rewarded with some arbitrary point system. Rate more things, invite more friends, generate more ad revenue –> get more “points”!
Sites with network externalities that rely on user-generated activity are particularly egregious offenders. It seems more emblematic of their insecurity about getting people to use their sites than any genuine conviction that the “game layer” is essential to the idea itself.
There are places where gamification works. Obviously ideas that are explicitly a “game” such as outright gaming sites, or ideas such as SCVNGR create no issues with disingenuous gamification layers. FourSquare, a founding father of contemporary “gamification” certainly does it well, particularly on the incentives side. The specter of becoming a “mayor” of an establishment conjures imagery of being showered with free champagne, compliments, and personal theme music upon entry. Fantasies aside, as mayor you have a very real prospect of getting a percentage discount. Also, there can only be ONE mayor of any given establishment, which imbues the designation with intrinsic value.
This is the crux of why gamification isn’t working for most sites.
Points and “badges”* across the spectrum have depreciated the “currency” of online point currencies. Whether you are offering ukuleles, “street cred” or shmeeples, you should probably think about why anyone cares.
WARNING: Jazz Analogy
I once heard a great anecdote from one of the tenor sax guys from Wynton’s band at the Lincoln center jazz orchestra. He had heard this amazing line**, and spent the afternoon transcribing it. When he finally nailed it down to the exact phrasing, he was underwhelmed (and perplexed as to why). His wife, who was not particularly into jazz, commented that it didn’t sound as cool because the intention wasn’t there. The soloist who originally played the line had a genuine place for it in the context of his solo and story. Simply taking that line out, (no matter how cool it is structurally) and playing it without the intention, robs it of its impact.
I can’t help but feel most sites are slapping on the game layer as an afterthought perhaps as a last ditch viral marketing effort, or simply because it sounds cool when “played” by someone like FourSquare. In fact, the game-layer without genuine intention (or relevance) falls flat.
CONCLUSION: Games have their place, if you insist on gamifying something ungamifyable, at least try to make sure the reward is meaningful.