Using Gamification in Startups - Now you’re playing with power

Using Gamification in Startups - Now You’re Playing with Power

Dudi Peles

July 2013

About Me

Founder of Jivy Group, Playful Shark

Advisor & Mentor for Startups

Teacher: Beit Berl, Kibbutzim Seminar, TAU

PhD student: STS @ Bar Ilan

Active & founding member in GameIS

Blog: www.dudipeles.com

Mail: dudipeles@gmail.com

Let’s look at some successful “startups”

Sold to Google for $1.1B

Founded in 2008, Raised $6M on 2010 Most popular site for programmers with over 1.7M registered users

Raised $5.8M on 2013 20 million pageviews and over 100 million Facebook and Twitter impressions monthly

Founded on 2011, Raised $12.5M on 2012 Used by over 1M users to learn to code

On 2011 raised $50 million on a $600

million valuation

Increased Facebook likes & shares by 92%, Tweets by 68% in just a few months

What do they all have in common?

They apply the basic elements that make games fun and engaging to

things that aren’t games

How do we measure startups success ?

Let’s dig deeper…

Only 2 ways: 1. Users pay 2. Someone else pays (mostly advertisers)

How do apps or sites make money ?

Let’s dig even deeper…

Why do users or advertiser pay money ?

3 main reasons: 1. There are lots of users 2. Users spent a lot of time and return 3. There is a service or content worthwhile paying for

And deeper…

Value = (Conversion + Virality) * Retention * Monetization

So what's the bottom line?

3 main things to work on: 1. Convert user better, Bring more users 2. More… time on site, page views, returning users 3. Charge more for more

So what does it have to do with game elements?

Goals, Points, Levels, Discovery

Points, Status, Leaderboards, Badges

Points, Badges, Progression

FLOW, Points, Badges

FLOW

Points, Badges, Discovery, Status, Leaderboards

Points, Badges, Leaderboard, Goals

Value

FLOW Points Status Leaderboards Badges Progression Goals Discovery Levels

Conversion Virality Retention Monetization

Make your user do what YOU want him to do

Now you’re playing with power

Games can change the world

There are thousands of failing apps and sites that

are doing the same

What's the Problem?

The Problem with games

• Most games are bad (4 out of 5 AAA games fails)

• They end

• New content keeps the players, not game mechanics

The Problem with good games

60 70 80 85 90

The Problem with extrinsic motivation

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars (Alfie Kohn 1999)

Value for User

Value for Your Business

The Problem with gamification

There Be Dragons: Ten Potential Pitfalls of Gamification, by Sebastian Deterding (2011)

Value for User

Value for Your Business

Foursquare

There Be Dragons: Ten Potential Pitfalls of Gamification, by Sebastian Deterding (2011)

We give you points

You Check in

Value for User

Value for Your Business

Stack overflow

There Be Dragons: Ten Potential Pitfalls of Gamification, by Sebastian Deterding (2011)

We give you a reputation (and build our content)

You answer questions

• Improve conversion rates

• Increase virality

• Increase user retention

• Increase user monetization

• Use the product

• Self Improve (learn)

• Status / Recognition

• Fun

Make your users do what you want while giving them what they want

Value for User Value for Your Business

So how do I do exactly that?

Games are fun

For the past 40 years game designers

turned fun making into science

Become a game designer or advise with a game designer

My Gamification Experience

Making things more fun

• Mobile Marketing platform • Mobile Recommendation app • Bank site • Diet web site • Resume writing services • TV Rating app • BI systems • Crowd funding site • Sport content site • Social virtual environment app • Navigation app • Programming Course

Video games Design and Development program in Bait Berl, active since 2005

Introduction to video games programming

Introduction to video games programming

Introduction to video games programming

Introduction to video games programming

Introduction to video games programming

Was it worth it ?

Students Emersion: Attendance: 68% -> 98%

Exercise submitting: 44%* -> 86% Student Mail Interaction: 300% raise

* Students needed to submit only 70%, taking this in consideration the 44% will turn to 63%

Was it more fun ? When asked to pick the 3 most fun

courses out of 12, 50% of the students chose the programming course !

Thank you

For any question just mail me: dudipeles@gmail.com