We recently had a chance to talk to someone who literally wrote the book on using game mechanics to increase user engagement, Gabe Zichermann, co-author of the book Game-based marketing.
Tell us about your background and what led you to write “Game-based Marketing”?
In 1998 I left the networking industry (Cisco, Checkpoint) to pursue my passion - video games. I joined the CMP game group (Game Developers Conference, Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra.com) as the Director of Marketing and fell in love with the industry and all the amazing people in it. So in 1999 when the opportunity came along to join the founding team of Trymedia I took it. We built the first successful digital distribution and consumer-friendly DRM system for games and sold the company to Macrovision (Rovi) in 2005. Thereafter, I moved to NYC (my partner is a fashion designer) and started thinking about what’s next. It seemed obvious to me and a handful of leading edge thinkers at the time that something big was coming on the edge of traditional games. So in 2006 I gave my first speech on gamification, and have been talking about it ever since. With the launch of my book, Game-Based Marketing (Wiley, 2010), I’ve tried to create a gamification “bible” of sorts to help all of us understand this unprecedented opportunity.
In Game-based Marketing you describe Funware as “an application of game mechanics to everyday situations”. What game-based marketing campaign do you enjoy playing the most?
Funware applications - or those that use game thinking and game mechanics to engage and grow their communities - can range from the banal to the sublime. I personally love the understated impact of Swoopo (a bidding/social shopping site) - that is trying to bring some fun to online commerce. Similarly, I continue to be impressed with the simplicity of Foursquare’s solution: using game thinking to solve the “empty bar” problem may be one of the most insightful product designs of the last decade.
Many of your examples of Funware games, such as Frequent Flyer Programs or Coke Rewards have real world benefits like prizes or cash. How important is a material benefit for a player of Funware?
Cash prizes are much less important than most people think. In the case of airline frequent flyer programs, redemption is frequently the least important actual factor in a users’ stickiness or engagement. Things like priority services and auto upgrades - neither of which deplete a point balance - drive the majority of engaged players. If you’ve ever tried to redeem your points for a flight to Paris in the summer, you know what I mean. But a more exacting way to explain the relative value of cash rewards is this: if your rewards have low dollar value, social/virtual rewards may perform equally well and will provide an intrinsic platform for viral growth. If you have major prizes to offer, I suggest continuing to do so, with the caveat that sweepstakes and redemptions are not intrinsically social/viral - so you’ll need to market them in a brute force way. And, of course, if your competitors are pursuing a virtual rewards strategy, they are likely to have superior economics.
Is game-based marketing appropriate for all markets? What is an example of a bad way to implement gaming in a company’s marketing strategy?
I frequently get asked when are game mechanics inappropriate. I even wrote an interesting blog post on the subject recently on FunwareBlog.com. My experience has been that there are few scenarios under which game mechanics would not be appropriate. One of the core benefits of ramification is to align the behavior of users (or players) with the game’s designer. So if we wanted to gamily cancer treatment, let’s say, we could use techniques like badges and points to incentivize positive behaviors such as drug plan adherence, doctor attentiveness and wellness. In short, the use of incentives and rewards to motivate desired behavior isn’t constrained by the thematic context.
You have a new book coming out, “Funware in Action/The Engaging Web”. Can you tell us more about what is planned for this book?
I’ll have more to say about future publications very soon, but we continue to be impressed by the performance and reception for Game-Based Marketing and the demand for gamification media from all corners!
