Gamification. Say what??!

Kraig L. Marini Baker

This week we presented a ZINO Society Business Insights luncheon entitled:  Gamification, Designing Fun into Everything!  The featured expert presenter was Kraig L. Marini Baker, a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine who is the Chair of the Technology, e-Business & digital Media Practice; and Co-Chair of the Games Practice. 

What is Gamification?  According to Gamification.org, Gamification “is the integration of game mechanics into non-game material to increase user engagement, loyalty and fun.”

According to Kraig and the guru of gamification and world-renowned game designer, Jane McGonigal, Gamification makes technology more appealing by encouraging desired behaviors, while taking advantage of our psychological predisposition to play. While Gamification may encourage users to actually enjoy performing chores they would ordinarily consider tedious, broader trends  are showing us potential applications in nearly every industry, from education and health to social investment and work.


Kraig shared three categories of gamification:

• consumer engagement - to draw consumer eyeballs and sell more goods and services
• employee incentives - increase productivity or encourage training completion
• social change - using game mechanics to work social change 

He said the advantages of using gamification are accelerated feedback cycles, clear goals and rules of play, a compelling narrative, and useful for tasks that are challenging but achieveable.   He also talked about the allure of people responding to rewards and that cash isn't actually considered that good of a reward.  Instead, he said that people respond to rewards in this order:

• status
• access
• power

• stuff

Unfortunately, I had to leave for another meeting before the conclusion of the session so hope that someone that did attend the full session will add comments to this posting that include any additional "a-has" that you may have taken away from the presentation.