Gamification is serious business

In May 2011, German automobile-maker Volkswagen invited consumers in China to help the company develop new versions of “the people’s car”. Contestants were given a tool to design the vehicle and post it for others to review. Almost a year later, three concepts came up – a two-seater zero emission Hover car, the music car and smart key. The concept of the hover car was turned into a video that represented how it would work. The video went viral and the rest as they say is history.

Using these game-like elements into a business environment, as Volkswagen did, is called gamification. Wikipedia defines gamification as “use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems. It is used in applications and processes to improve user-engagement return on investments, data quality timeliness and learning.”

According to research analyst Gartner’s Gamification Report 2011; by 2014, more than 70 percent of Forbes Global 2000 organisations will have at least one game-based application. And by 2015, half of all companies that manage innovation processes will have “gamified” them.

Simply speaking, gamification might not have anything to do with games. But it incorporates the essence of games – purpose, challenge and reward – to make concepts of leaderboards and awards work towards enhancing customer loyalty, motivating shoppers, amongst others.

Games for recruitment

In India, gamification is at nascent stages with a handful of companies waking up to its potential. “This is the same paradigm that existed 5 years back on hiring through social media. Today it (hiring through social media) is an integral part of every function,” Naveen Narayanan, Global Head, Talent Acquisition, HCL Technologies said. HCL Technologies, for example, is one such company where games are used for recruiting talent. According to Narayanan, gamification is a method to manage engagement of candidates at various levels.

“The most notable one is post offer where we want candidates engaged and having access to information so their anxieties of shifting jobs / geographies is managed well,” he told Business Line in an emailed response. HCL Tech, however, does not reveal the number of recruits through gamification. This apart, the company has also begun experimenting with gamification in various parts of the employee life cycle.

IT company Zensar is the other one which claims to have an in-house game where it promotes the company values through the games. Recruitment, however, is not through tools.

Global hospitality major, Marriott, for instance, has a Facebook game, My Marriott Hotel. Available in several languages including Arabic, Spanish, English, French and Mandarin, it follows a concept similar to Farmville. Aspirants try their hand in managing the hotel’s kitchen operations – albeit virtually – and earn or lose points depending on customer satisfaction.

Cosmetics maker L’Oreal is the other company which has an online game “L’Oreal Reveal” for business management aspirants. Apart from this it has “Brandstorm”, an offline game, for recruiting marketing professionals. Close to 30 per cent of the company’s managerial cadre is recruited through gaming channels, a L’Oreal official had said in an earlier interaction to Business Line. According to market sources, there are games that are used to judge aptitude. For example, several companies are known to use the problem solving game “FLOW”, available on iOS. The game tests how quickly candidates can solve the puzzles and whether they improve or decline as they progress through the game.

“Globally, the gamification industry is just coming out of its nascent stages. As compared to the West, India is a year or so behind in terms of how corporate perceive and adopt it. This gives us an advantage as we can learn from early mistakes,” Vikram Parekh, Founder Dierctor of Mumbai-based Optic Bridge Technologies, told Business Line. Optic Bridge is a month-old gamification consultation company.

In India, while MNCs have some basic awareness, it is not so for most operating even if they are operating in Teir I or Tier II cities.

“Indian companies are interested in quicker returns. But in most cases it takes around 6 months for the impact to show up,” Parekh adds.

Usage in other forms

But it is not just in recruitment where gaming concepts are used. Successful usage has spilled over into ensuring customer engagement or solving complex problems. Foldit is a shining example of using games to solve complex scientific challenges. Developed by the University of Washington, the online puzzle game aims at understanding the structure of proteins. In 2011, players of Foldit helped decipher the crystal structure of an AIDS causing monkey virus in a three-week period. Obtaining the accurate model had stumped researchers for over a decade. (A fact reported in International media.)

Another usage had been in increasing user adaptability of a technology. Microsoft in 1990 introduced the Solitaire game to familiarise users with its ‘click and drag’ option in its Windows 3.0. (Click and drag wasn’t the best option then. Scrolling was still popular)

New Challenges

And moving into the digital era, the challenges are manifold. It has extended to TV channels who are fast trying to refrain users from switching channels during an adv-break.

Commonly called a second screen concept, it refers to an additional electronic device (tablet or smartphone) that allows the TV audience to interact with content like TV shows, movies, music or video games. Extra data is displayed on the other devices that are synchronised with the TV. Canada-based LVL Studio is working on solutions focussed around the second-screen concept.

Pitfalls

Gartner in a recent report on gamification has said that 80 per cent of gamified solutions will fail in reaching business objectives by 2014 due to poor design.

Parekh points out that a classic example of such failure is a newspaper house which implemented a similar concept to their online edition. Readers would get points and badges for reading articles or sharing it within their social networks. People would be tracked on a leader-board. After some initial excitement it died off with people just doing so mechanically.

“I think rather than just gamifying, what is important is to judge the importance of the offering to the end-user,” he maintains.

abhishek.l@thehindu.co.in