GSummit Global 2013: Key Points from Jesse Schell, United Capital and more

We learned a ton from GSummit Global 2013 last week. For example, World of Warcraft isn’t necessarily the best template for teaching database administration; some accountants despise video games; and pairing chocolate with cottage cheese is just wrong.

Alas, we can’t possibly cram this story with all the goodies we gleaned from the gamification conference, which melded expert webinars and virtual panel discussions with a live Toronto workshop on Nov. 21. So here are four key takeaways from this year’s event:

Gamification isn’t for everything

Let’s start with Jesse Schell, author, Carnegie Mellon University professor and CEO of Schell Games. He addressed the myth that gamification can (and should) be used everywhere. Since most people seem to like playing some form of game, a popular assumption is that most people will like any gamification application.

“It’s sort of like if I said, ‘Hey, have you heard about this thing out there called chocolate?’” Schell mused. “People say, ‘It’s really good. I’m gonna put it on everything. It’s perfect! We’re gonna do chocofication.’ And I say hold on, because it might not be great on everything.”

Chocolate, for example, isn’t so great on cottage cheese, Schell pointed out, making the case that gamification isn’t so great in every situation either. Which leads us to our next lesson from GSummit 2013.

Fun can’t be the only focus

According to Schell, most people assume gamification works “because games are fun…They go, ‘That’s it, we just need to get the fun in there.’”

Fun, however, does not always equal motivation for every person in every situation, he said. People are motivated to play games for many reasons besides fun, including status or prestige, a sense of competence or accomplishment, and the chance to connect with other people, Schell said. Focusing solely on injecting fun into gamification ignores other motivational factors that affect its chances of being applied successfully, he concluded.

The same idea was echoed by United Capital CEO Joe Duran. Boldly stating right off the top that his industry is “historically, incredibly boring,” Duran explained how his firm used two fun, online games to engage customers by making investing more interesting and understandable. But fun is a fine line to tread when it comes to managing people’s money, he noted.

“The major challenge is how to you take a subject that’s quite boring and make it fun,” Duran said. “But how do you do it in a way that doesn’t compromise the seriousness of what you’re talking about?”

And just because something is gamified doesn’t mean it has to be frivolous, he said, particularly if it’s a business application.

“It should also not be cute and fun for simply the purpose of being cute and fun. It should have a purpose that is more important than simply entertaining.”

That takes us to our next GSummit point…

Put business before pleasure

It’s tempting to build a super blinged out, gamified app first … and then build a business case for its existence later. That doesn’t fly, however, with Phaedra Boinodiris, serious games program manager at IBM Corp.

“Always start with the business case,” Boinodiris advised during a virtual panel moderated by Canadian author (and Waterloo alumnus) Gabe Zichermann. “You determine what are the (ROI) measurements you’ll need to see” and then you design the game and delivery platform around those business goals, she suggested. If you focus on fun before business goals, she warned, management may drop your gamified app because no matter how cool it is, it doesn’t contribute to the bottom line.

Fellow panelist Ross Smith agreed.

“We start with a very specific, measurable business objective,” said Smith, director of test at Microsoft Corp. If you don’t, he added, “you get lost in not accomplishing anything.”

As Boinodiris put it, “I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked to do things like build a game like World of Warcraft to teach database administration.”

Gamification needs personalization

As noted earlier, fun isn’t the only type of motivation that must be considered in gamification design. In addition, not everyone has the same idea of what’s fun. Schell illustrated this by mentioning that his friend, an accountant, would gladly do tax returns before playing any video game on the market today. So for Schell’s buddy, his idea of fun is the complete opposite of how most people define it. We’re not all the same; therefore, using the same gamification approach on all of us won’t work, either. Thus, you must personalize what you gamify.

“You’ve got to figure out what motivates the individuals,” said Schell. “You just have to ask yourself these simple questions: given what I know about my guests, why will they like this experience – and how can I get them to like it more? If you do those things, you’re in pretty good shape.”

For more from the academic side of gamification, read CommerceLab’s complete coverage of the Gamification 2013 conference in Stratford, Ont.