Gamification: How I became addicted to Google Maps

Gamification is the deliberate application of game design principles in non-game environments aimed to improve user experience, value and retention.

In 2018, 97% of teens reported that they play games regularly, and the average American dedicates 10,000 hours to gaming by the time they are 21. Gaming isn’t a young person’s phenomenon though; the average age of a gamer in the United States is 35 years old.

Contrary to what our parents may have said, research has been unable to supply a strong link between lack of intelligence, laziness, and aggression or other negative traits in lifelong gamers. However, I am not here to convince you to play video games, but rather to elaborate on the ways in which we can harness video game design to improve other software. To understand how to draw from elements of game design, we must first understand why we should.

Games are inherently social activities. From soccer to hockey to Counter Strike, one aspect of a game remains consistent: you have to play with others (well, you could play alone, but it wouldn’t be much of a game. Would it?). There are many games that use AI to simulate other players, and others designed purely for solo play; we typically refer to those as puzzles or puzzle-games.

Even when players don’t directly play with or against one another, it is natural for a community to build around the game. Take the Solitaire Reddit for example: Players are constantly sharing their experiences, working together to develop strategy, and creating a meta–game that shapes our views of the game itself. At the core of the gaming experience, we find socialization and unity.

Our natural instinct is to play games with others, an effect of our deep attraction to the interleaving of cooperation and competition. As sure as the sun will rise, humans and animals alike compete to survive. To enjoy — no, strive for — competition is an evolutionary mechanism that has in no small way allowed us to evolve this far and still seek more. Competition in games mimics real life by simulating ancient experiences imprinted on our DNA.

Look no further than the time you turned a mundane task into a competition and were suddenly having fun. Games capture our attention as we yearn to win and grasp the satisfaction of mastery, oftentimes only for the simple reward of saying “I did it!”

Historically, one of the greatest strengths of the human race is our ability to communicate and cooperate with one another. As such we tend to pair up to accomplish our work or play, and form social bonds that help us succeed. Gameplay lets us flex our teamwork skills in a low-stakes environment with friends, and this cooperative element feeds directly into the communities we build around the games we play.

How many times have you played your favorite game? Dozens? Hundreds? How many matches of Call of Duty have the top players played? Hundreds of thousands or more. Sure, there are a plethora of variables that can change from match to match — but another, deeper drive is the reason we replay games so much: We satisfy our desire to improve our skills over time. Every time we play we get slightly better, learn new things about the game, and evolve our strategies.

Our brains’ internal systems have evolved to reward us for these behaviors: Socialization, self improvement, competition, and cooperation all trigger endorphin releases that encourage us to repeat them — both as individuals and part of a community. Now that we have established what it is about games that attracts so many of us to play for so long, we can discover what it is about them us designers can harness for non-gaming applications.

Competition and cooperation between individuals breed productivity like none other. In the year 1997 Philips launched its first consumer-level flat plasma TV. They marketed it as the first TV flat enough to hang on the wall “like a painting”. It was a 42.8 inch flat (flat wasn’t taken for granted back then) display with a price of… $22,924. Fast forward twenty years to 2017, Philips is irrelevant in the TV market because they were lost in the storm of competition that followed in the coming decades. LG and Samsung took competition seriously, the former of which sold a 55 inch OLED TV for $2,300 ($1,500 on black friday that year). Plasma screens haven’t been manufactured for years at this point because the displays are so outclassed by the modern OLED, a smaller, higher resolution screen with less burn-in, it’s more reliable and cheaper. While being a better product, the OLED comes in at $1.78 per square inch, the Plasma was $30.45. A true testament to improving the lives of everyone through the increased productivity of competition and cooperation.

Humans stay more engaged with gamified systems. While there are other strategies to increase retention in consumer software, the specific combination of competition, socialization, and learning that games provide the player (user) keeps them engaged and coming back for longer. Not only do we want a user that is efficiently maximizing value, but one who will return to do it again and again and again.

When a common mapping application incentivizes users to spend time contributing to the map for free, it’s obvious the Maps team at Google has their finger on the pulse. Local Guides is a prime example of leveraging our natural inclination to compete, cooperate, improve, and socialize. Game design theory is no longer limited to entertainment, but has made its way into all software to enhance user experience and retention.

Gamification is the bedrock to a software’s ability to hold user attention and continually deliver a quality experience. Plus, as users yearn for a strong sense of community around gameplay, gamification encourages them to bring their friends into the fold.