Thursday, February 17, 2011

Gaming Based Marketing


More of a book for MBAs new to the idea of gamification than for designers.

I wonder whether if we'll one day become immune to gamification. When we've got points, awards, and progress bars for everything we do, we will probably become selective of the carrot and sticks we're presented with.

I think school, test scores, and grades are indicators that gamification is not an end all be all. It's not like kids don't know what the repercussions of failing out of school are (the end goals of getting good grades), the fact is they simply just don't care.

If every other company were to practice the same few contests & loyalty programs described in the book, I think customers will in the same way start filtering them out. I suppose the question is whether the engaged customers will become more engaged? Or the standard for customer engagement just went up?

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