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Why Opt for a White Label Solution to Create Your Own Game?

Why Opt for a White Label Solution to Create Your Own Game?
Why Opt for a White Label Solution to Create Your Own Game?

From gamification marketing to learning and healthcare solutions, using the user-centric concepts of games into non-gaming, day-to-day activities are gaining traction nowadays. To gamify different aspects of their business, organizations are often turning to white label solutions. But why would you want to follow suit and leverage white label platforms to build a highly customized, gamified app for your purpose? Read this article to find out.

What is a White Label Platform or Solution?

Any solution, product or platform created by an organization to sell or lease it to its customers who can then rebrand it for their purpose can be termed white label. However, keep in mind that the company that makes this product remains responsible for any support and troubleshooting.

A simple example of white label products would be the stuff you see in a supermarket sold as their in-home-brand moniker. These are often made by third-party vendors and branded by the supermarket chain to look like their own.

Why Building a Gamified Solution for Your Business from Scratch Might Not be the Smartest Idea:

Many entrepreneurs or start-up owners might take it upon themselves to design or create the perfect solution to gamify their processes. Unfortunately, while the approach is commendable, this try-to-do-yourself solution has many pitfalls, including:

Trying to build a solution similar to others already present in the market is akin to reinventing the wheel – something that causes a lot of wasted effort, cost and time.

Gamification marketing and gamifying other processes are still niche and may require your organization to step out of its core competencies to develop. The increased learning curve also lengthens the time-to-market of your gamified app or solution, negatively affecting your business.

Going out of your comfort zone also means you miss out on already available expertise in the market while developing a focused, gamified solution.

Last but not least, learning new technologies and developing highly customized solutions that gamify your non-gaming standard business processes cost significantly more than using an already available white label solution.

Benefits of Using a White Label Solution While Gamifying Your Business:

White label solutions by their generic, rebrand-able and re-sellable artefacts come with many benefits. 

Quick n’ Easy branding: White label products are often offered as fully integrated suites and ready-made solutions. This makes branding them to your business very easy. You do not need to develop or modify code to ensure your branding and identity is present across your gamified marketing campaign or app. This saves you both time and money that you would spend on research and development otherwise.

Saves time and money: Developing a customized gamified solution from scratch for your business is financial, human capital, and time intensive. While many organizations prefer to build their own products, the time to architect, design, build and test the solution can take a significant amount of time and cost a lot of money. 

Especially if you are looking for faster time-to-market, white label solutions are invaluable. They rid you of the complexities of building and maintaining a product, and are more cost effective, both to buy and in long-term ownership.

Retain your focus on the core competency of your business: More often than not, investing in research and development to gamify your business may fall outside your areas of expertise. It bodes well to pay heed early to compare the gamified solution you need – be it in marketing or to gamify your learning – to the competencies of your available resources to understand the level of time, effort and cost required. 

On the contrary, white label solutions are built by companies with strong expertise in that field. Leveraging one of these solutions lets you avoid similar pitfalls that others have made earlier and use a trusted, stable platform. Moreover, troubleshooting, support and maintenance headaches are also offloaded from your org to the supplier org.

Happier Customers: When it comes to deploying your gamified solution – speed is the name of the game. The more delay you make to deliver your product, the more chances there are that your customers may end up looking elsewhere. On an average, gamification creates 6x more new business users for a business. If you want to tap into this potential, prepackaged white label solutions grant much faster time-to-market for your business, even with your org-specific customizations.

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More and more companies are taking advantage of the universal appeal of games to implement their mechanics into their daily processes. For example, Starbucks and Deloitte have all but pioneered the modern gamification bandwagon, with the former redefining marketing via their gamified rewards and the latter introducing gamified learning. White label solutions not only take away the pain of developing a gamification solution for your business, but they also are easier to own or leverage. Moreover, white label gamification platforms cost significantly less and have a faster time-to-market, making them a win-win across all accounts.

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What Squid Game Can Tell You About Gaming and Life

Squid Game
Squid Game


According to Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos, “There’s a show on Netflix right now that is the number one in the world. Like, everywhere in the world. It’s called ‘Squid Game,’”.

Sarandos is not exaggerating. Squid Game is Netflix’s most-watched series to date. At this point, to call it a viral sensation is actually an understatement. Unsurprisingly, this series about a deadly game has resonated with viewers because of exaggerated and fantastic metaphors for particular life experiences. Additionally, the fact that it exploded in popularity despite very little marketing also gives us a little insight into how things really work in the real world. 

So what does this show about a game (that we hope no one ever has to play) tell us about gaming and life? 

Let’s find out. 

Lesson 1: If people like something enough, you won’t have to spend on marketing

When compared with other popular shows, Squid Game has virtually no real marketing support beyond Asia before appearing on Netflix. And yet, it has become an entertainment icon. Word of mouth was more than enough to make it a wild success.

When designing your product, be it an app, website or even a consumable product, keep this in mind. Focus on making the customer happy, and the marketing will take care of itself. A large part of Squid Game’s popularity was generated by the memes that cropped up after it appeared on the platform. People loved it so much they just had to spread the love. And said love spread all the way until it turned the show into a household name.

Turns out, an easy way to get people to like your app/website/campaign is to gamify it. Make it fun for them to engage with what you’re offering, and they will like it enough to spread the word and boost your product’s popularity.

Lesson 2: Think Outside the Box

In the Honeycomb game, players licked the honeycomb so that it became easier to cut with a needle. Sounds like a creative solution? That’s because it is.

In life and especially in gaming, innovation pays off. With users bombarded with content every time they look at their smart device, your product needs to find ways to stand out, distract, enchant and engage. Gamification of apps and websites can contribute to this significantly, given that game elements are designed to provide users with excitement, anticipation, escapism and good ol’ fun.

Lesson 3: Your weakness can help you winn

In the tug-of-war contest, each competitor was assigned a role based on their strength. The losing team had 10 strong men while the winning team hada, among others, three women and an elderly man. So how did they win?

They took advantage of their opponents’ underestimation of them. The 10 strong men did not expect that the other team would be a challenge, and this notion is what caused their defeat.

In life, do exactly the same. If someone underestimates you, use it to up your games and achieve a surprising victory. Winning is always easier and more satisfactory when no one expects you to win.

Lesson 4: You can finish last and still win

Think of the Glass Bridge game. It was only possible to win it after watching how everyone else played, and avoiding their mistakes. This is a valuable lesson for life.

When it comes to life and gaming, watch those who come before you. They might be racing ahead at the moment, but if they make mistakes and endure failures, you will have the advantage of knowing what went wrong, and avoiding those mistakes.

For example, during a gamification project, do the research. Study what your predecessors did, what your competitors are doing and where they may have previously failed. Don’t offer discounts if a certain target audience has been shown to not care about it (such as people in very high income groups), even though gamification manuals use discounts as a major reward.

By not repeating mistakes made by others, you will be saving yourself time, effort, money and other resources. Once you know what doesn’t work, you can focus on what works.

Lesson 5: Slow Down

In the show, whenever anyone is in a hurry to get through the ordeal, they lose or at least, end up regretting that decision. This is just as true of real life.

Don’t rush through anything, especially important decisions and tasks. You’ll end up making mistakes, overlooking significant requirements and providing shoddy results. Real life isn’t fun and games (and neither is the show) which means you’ll have to approach it with a calm, turbulent-free and analytical mind. If you don’t, things don’t usually turn out too well.

Squid Game’s popularity is not just the result of a great script and excellent cinematography. It reflects important issues plaguing human life today (debt, capitalism, economic divide). The struggles of the characters and especially the protagonist ring true for millions of viewers, mainly because Squid Game is quite a treasure house of lessons about the complicated games we must play to live. 

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What is Gamified Marketing?

Gamified Marketing
Gamified Marketing

The term refers to utilizing strategies and components from games within marketing campaigns and instruments. This process seeks to play on fundamental human impulses that seek challenge, accomplishment and rewards, in order to capitalize their attention, interest and hopefully, their purchasing power.

As early as 1896, S&H Green Stamps  sold stamps to retailers who used them to reward loyal customers.The method has stood the test of time, and is probably one of the most effective ways to communicate creatively with potential customers. Unsurprisingly, marketers across industries are ever eager to use gamification-driven techniques to supercharge their campaigns and get the most out of their investments. 


Benefits of Gamified Marketing

Why does Gamified Marketing work? It’s easy to answer this question once you look at the many advantages provided by this phenomenon.

·  Makes things fun: The entire point of a game is to be fun. No game, in all of human history, was played just because it was informative or educational. We come to games for fun.

Gamified Marketing zeroes in on exactly this intent. Human brains are wired to seek out pleasure, fun and rewards – fundamental components of every game. Gamified Marketing makes marketers think of people as purveyors of games, and thus designs campaigns to be as enjoyable as possible.

Above all else, fun is marketable. By making a campaign enjoyable, it has a much higher likelihood of actually cutting through the noise and being seen and heard.


·  Fosters engagement: Given that users actually have to participate with games, they require a level of engagement that cannot be matched by text or video. Furthermore, a game cannot just barge into a user’s feed and try to get their attention. Users actually have to actively play the game, which means that their engagement will be proactive and intentional.

When you gamify marketing campaigns, you interact with people who are focused and looking forward to the next stage in the game. Brands and businesses can display their messages throughout the game to already interested users. They don’t have to worry about people looking away, as they do during TV commercials or skipping intrusive ads before Youtube videos.

Gamification offers people a few moments of stimulating activity, an escape from an otherwise mundane day. By associating a brand with this good feeling, marketers can create positive product and brand awareness – the first step towards inciting an eventual purchase.


·  Wide, multi-generational appeal: The mobile gaming industry alone made 77.2 billion U.S. dollars in revenue for 2020. There’s been no sign of any slowdown in 2021.

Additionally, 35.4% of gamers in the US are in their late 20s and early 30s. The 18-24 age group counts for 24.9% and the 35-44 age group counts for 23%. About 80% of smartphone users play games on their phone. 50% of them play for about 1-2 hours each day.  That means people in key spending groups are deeply invested in games, which makes their attention highly desirable for marketing campaigns.

As mentioned before, when playing games, people are engaged in a way they are not when watching video or reading something. They have to constantly participate to progress, which means they are not zoning out. Consequently, brand messaging in games is more likely to be perceived positively and with more attention. This also stands true when you actually gamify the campaign itself.


·  More effective data collection: In the digital realm, data is gold. The more marketers know about their target audience, the more they can appeal to their preferences in order to sell a product.

However, collecting data that actually matters can be difficult if users are not actually interested or engaged with whatever digital avenue they are handling. Therefore, by generating interest through gamification, marketers can inspire users to engage. By building positive brand association through gamification (ideally through some kind of reward), users are more likely to give accurate and useful data, which helps with better understanding them.


·  Increased conversion rates: As users continue to interact with gamified elements of a brand, there is a much higher chance of clicking on or responding to a CTA. Traditional banner ads and other common marketing methods are known for being notoriously ignored. However, creative and interactive gamification strategies give users a real reason to take action. Needless to say, this will improve conversion rates.

Imagine that you are offering a 20% discount on a brand-new product if users take a quick 2-minute quiz about themselves. Users are far likelier to answer those questions, grab that discount and actually use it. So, not only will marketers get information about them, but will also end up making a sale.

To gamify campaigns is to empower them in unique ways. By using techniques that make games endlessly fun and addictively engaging, gamified marketing has the ability to supercharge it’s impact and gain results unimaginable by traditional marketing tactics. 

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5 Ways to Drive Engagement with Gamification

How Gamification Can Increase Engagement
How Gamification Can Increase Engagement

A recent study by Microsoft concluded that the human attention span has dropped to eight seconds – shrinking nearly 25% in just a few years. Keeping users engaged with any content has become quite a difficult task, especially when it comes to digital content. With smartphones or laptops in hand, people have so many options for entertainment or education, that they often switch between them in a matter of seconds. 

To retain user attention, an increasing number of digital avenues (both apps and websites) have resorted to gamification.

In 1998, British professor Matthias Koepp studied how games influence the human brain. He found that as the players progressed through the game and encountered more difficult challenges, their brains released more dopamine. 

Gamification leverages this instinct in the digital realm. By incorporating elements of online games to an app, developers stand a greater chance of keeping users interested and invested in the app at hand. 

However, gamification must be implemented with a strategic approach. This article will discuss five game mechanisms that should be included into any gamification blueprint in order to improve engagement: 

Gamification and user engagement
Gamification and user engagement

·  Drive action: Motivate users to undertake some kind of action on a regular basis. If individuals actually have to take an action, they are more likely to pay attention to the content of an app. An effective example of driving action would be Facebook’s notifications on memories – older posts from the same dates in past years. By asking users to share older posts, the platform doesn’t just cause them to take action, but also formulate an emotional connection on the basis of nostalgia.
Another example would be how the language learning app Memrise notified users that they are on a rampage for a certain number of days (if they complete daily lessons for those days), and that they shouldn’t stop. This generates a sense of personal accomplishment, and motivates users to keep going back and making progress.


·  Offer rewards with an element of uncertainty: The brain’s reward system is closely linked to dopamine. Neuroscientific studies suggest that a variable rewards system triggers dopamine secretion. Essentially, people’s attention and motivation is commanded not so much by the actual moment of reward/pleasure, but rather the expectation and anticipation of reward.
When you gamify an app, there are multiple ways to leverage this instinct. It could be something as simple as showing the number of unread messages waiting for a user. It could even be displaying how many people viewed a profile (people love to feel seen and heard).
Think of how headlines work these days. Successful articles, like the ones on BuzzFeed, offer a gist of the article with eye-catching, usually long headlines that capture attention and build anticipation. Some examples – This Girl Matched On Tinder With An Olympic Athlete And Here’s What Happened Nextor 19 Things Only Women Who Lift Weights Will Understand. It doesn’t give away the story, but it creates curiosity, and leads people to click and engage.
Essentially, don’t start with offering obvious rewards (badges, points, actual money/products). Try to tease and interest them first. Make them want it.


·  Incentivize user participation: Coding app SoloLearn encourages users to participate by giving them points/XP for every lesson they complete and every exercise they correctly solve. These points can be used to unlock more practice exercises (important for complete beginners). Users can also participate in coding projects/contests where they can display their work, communicate with other coders, and get their names on a leaderboard based on their performance.These elements improve engagement by incentivizing users to keep crossing hurdles and progressing. It gives them a sense of accomplishment, which keeps them coming back to the app to get more of the same feeling.


·  Use visual and sonic appeal: The Duolingo app uses cute animated pictures, videos, gifs and upbeat sounds to help users learn. When you gamify an app, literally make it a game. Engage the eyes, ears and curiosity of your user.
Above all, make it fun. With a million distractions at hand, no one will bother to interact with your content.


·  Utilize existing trends: The Pink Nation app asks shoppers to pick products and decide if they “want” or “need” the clothes in each day’s showcase. Users have to swipe right or left, Tinder-style, to indicate their interest or lack thereof.
In this case, to gamify is to tap into an already popular user action. By now, swiping is a common occurrence in most people’s lives. Incorporating it into a new app brings familiarity and ease to the user journey. Much like Tinder, Pink Nation is easy and fun – essential elements of gamification.


The role of gamification to improve engagement is beyond question at this point. Utilise the ideas here to give your app a greater likelihood of keeping users hooked, interested and fascinated with what you have to offer. 

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Advantages of Using Games as a Marketing Technique

Why Opt for a White Label Solution to Create Your Own Game?
Why Opt for a White Label Solution to Create Your Own Game?

Games have emerged, in recent years, as the dominant app category across all platforms. Their proliferation has led to massive revenue gains. A 2020 study valued the mobile gaming market to a staggering $98 Billion, with a forecast to reach $272 Billion in 2030. Companies have started to gamify their marketing campaigns – though many are still struggling to recognize the incredible potential of gamification marketing. 

Large organizations like Starbucks, Deloitte, and Chipotle have already used gamification in their marketing to reap rich dividends. For example, Starbucks’ gamified rewards program has been a big hit among its customers, while Chipotle promoted its sustainability initiatives via interactive games. With platforms like Goama providing easy-to-use solutions to gamify any app, using the power of gaming to turbocharge your revenues is super easy.

Gamification of an app or gamification marketing has a few benefits that you as an organization should know and leverage, including:

  1. Incredibly High Engagement

People engagement is one of the biggest plus points of marketing gamification. Marketing via interactive games holds the attention of customers almost 3x more on average. In addition, the audiovisual nature of games is an essential factor in engagement and user retention.

  1. Fun Without Using Pop-up Ads

Gaming is fun, and fun is marketable. Interactive games that most gamified marketing techniques utilize focus on the fun quotient to attract potential customers. Gamification marketing also benefits from not being annoying like a traditional pop-up or banner adverts. These conventional methods have caused more adoption worldwide for Ad-Blockers, causing millions of dollars of lost revenue for organizations.

Fun, quality content in a gamification marketing campaign increases brand loyalty as well.

  1. Increased Quality of Content

Games are near the top when it comes to content. In a world where more users are young and tech-savvy, furnishing marketing via interactive games increases the quality of the advertised content. The audiovisual nature of games is an important factor in engagement and user retention.

  1. Platform Independence

Gamified marketing techniques can be applied irrespective of platforms. With users split evenly between mobile platforms like Android and iOS, similar gamification procedures can be replicated to reap dividends. Be it smart devices, laptops, or desktop machines, games are universally accessible. As a result, your marketing campaigns or strategies can be aligned to provide a seamless customer experience everywhere.

  1. Increased Affordability

Traditional marketing budgets can reach an astronomical value depending on the brand’s requirements and reach. However, the linear nature of these marketing techniques means that they are not easy to configure according to changing trends and organizational needs. Platforms like Goama can help keep the costs down by using a pay-what-you-need approach and granular levels of customizability. The cost-measuring controls are driven by analytics, presented in an easy to understand dashboard to clients.

  1. An Interactive Way to Tell the Story of Your Brand

Gamified marketing techniques help tell a brand’s story in a more effective way to its target audience. Interactive games require active participation from the users, making them feel like a part of the story being told. Brand storytelling benefits from gamification marketing’s ‘personal’ approach – and results in piquing more interest about a product or a brand. 

  1. Greater Message Retention

From time to time, an organization may choose to create awareness across its user demography of its goals and commitments. Gamified marketing techniques help achieve a wider reach for these kinds of campaigns. Chipotle’s 2013 environmental marketing campaign is a prime example of this. Gamified marketing led the organization to receive worldwide acclaim for its sustainability message.

  1. Easier Collection of User Data for Analysis


Games that are run by gamified marketing techniques can collect user data via interactive surveys and other methods. User data can be analyzed to attract your products towards demographic needs further. What level of data is collected can be customized, and additional security measures to safeguard the data can be applied.

  1. Wider Market Reach

The multi-generational appeal of games has made marketing through them incredibly effective. According to a recent study, games account for 43% of smartphone usage, something that gamified marketing techniques employ to increase their market reach. A global phenomenon, gaming can help your products reach previously impenetrable markets.

  1. Community-Focused

Successful marketing techniques that employ a gamified approach often cultivate a sense of community across its users. Social, multiplayer games are among the top played gaming categories in the world today. In addition, human-focused design elements in gamified marketing campaigns promote social drive in consumers and better the community outlook of a brand. 

Gamified marketing continues to be a hot trend. A 2019 study by Forbes showed that gamification marketing boosted the registration of new users by 600% every month. Nevertheless, many organizations are still in the dark about the positive results of gamifying their marketing. Intelligent, modern gamification platforms like Goama can help your business grow manifolds, gain new customers, and open newer horizons. Gaming has a universal reach – and teaching the power of games in marketing techniques can make the difference between your business and the competition.

If you want to find out more about how Goama can build a game for you to use as marketing or for branding check out our page here.

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How To Gamify Your App

How To Gamify Your App
How To Gamify Your App

Here’s an interesting stat: in 2019, 79% of employees claimed that gamification of activities resulted in increased motivation and purpose in their workplace. In addition, studies have shown that gamification increases customer interactions and employee productivity. Gamification is most apparent in mobile apps – since smart devices have emerged as our preferred choice of content consumption. Gamified marketing is another hot trend – a 2019 study by Forbes shows it boosts newly registered users by 600% monthly. 

All this hoopla around gamification, however, may confuse organizations trying to join the bandwagon. So, in this article, we’ll discuss ways to gamify your app and how new gamification platforms can help achieve that faster.

What is Gamification?

Gamification is the process of improving systems, services, organizations, and businesses to create gaming-like experiences to motivate and engage users. Organizations utilize gamification as a tool to encourage application participation, develop programs, and even reward employees. Gamification in marketing focuses on bringing in more customers by gamifying a non-gaming context and incentivizing specific actions.

Many experts believe that gamification has more to do with the analysis of the human psyche rather than technology or methods. Some have even linked it to theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: physiological, security or safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. As a result, more organizations are saying yes to gamify their regular apps or super apps to increase traffic and engagement.

Several key industries have adopted some form of gamification in their products, with key ones being Learning and Healthcare. Gamification in the education market is poised to grow to a staggering $1.8 Billion by 2023, at an annual growth rate of 23% between 2018-23. Badges, leaderboards, and points-and-scores systems continue to increase in popularity in many market segments, including the Corporate sector.

How to Gamify Your App:

There are some rules that every organization should follow while gamifying their apps. Gamification rules often are more psychologically attuned rather than relying on technological standards.

  1. Setting Clear Objectives:

As with marketing an app, gamification requires proper reasons and a well thought-out plan behind it. Organizations must not be swayed by the increasing trend of gamifying applications or non-gaming contexts. Instead, they should focus on clear objectives that gamification should aim to fix.

Gamification techniques can be used for benefits like community-building, user acquisition, engagement, and retention. In addition, it can be used as a morale-boosting mechanism in employees. Gamified marketing has often been behind some of the most viral social loops in recent years. Defining a clear objective of why you want to integrate gaming dynamics into your app is the defining factor between the success and failure of that effort.

  1. Adding Value:

Gamifying your app should provide its users with tangible values. For example, the sense of accomplishment plays a vital role in customer engagement and retention. This is crucial in organizational apps intended for employees. For example, 72% of employees believe that gamification in the workplace inspires them to work harder, according to a 2018 Medium survey.

  1. Ingraining with the Ecosystem:

Incentives that a gamified app provides must be in line with its core intention. Deciding on what type of rewards your gamified app should provide as users pass milestones should be ingrained in the app ecosystem. That way, users get a seamless experience that connects between their actions and their rewards.

  1. Keep it Simple and Entertaining:

Gamifying your app need not be a daunting task. Often, simpler gaming apps engage more users. The entertainment quotient increases the retention potential for an app. Mixing these two key aspects results in a winning formula for the app. This translates into gamified marketing campaigns as well. My Starbucks Rewards is a good example of this.

  1. Build Sharing Loops:

A key rule while gamifying your app is to incentivize customer gratification. In this day and age of social media, sharing one’s achievements is key to getting brownie points. Social media looping is a popular way that superapps like Uber use to generate hype for their array of products.

For example, Cred, the credit card payment app, has easy sharing user-earned badges on various social media platforms.

  1. Quick Rewards:

Almost all good gamified apps and marketing campaigns break down the prizes milestone-wise. A grand reward at the end of the complete experience is a surefire way to attract users. But smaller, gradually increasing incentives at the completion of smaller milestones while leveling up through the app creates more user engagement.

Smaller rewards like new badges, unlocking additional levels or content and app currency payouts drive curiosity among users. Microsoft’s learning platform, MS Learn, provides users with points upon finishing a topic. These in-app currencies can then be used to unlock paywalled content.

Conclusion – Platforms that Can Help:

Superapps from tech giants like Facebook, Amazon & Google have all but skyrocketed the hype around gamification of apps. The projected total market value is projected to be $12 Billion by the end of 2021, causing more organizations to come on-board. While opting to gamify your app, consider the goals carefully and integrate it closely with your ecosystem. Gamification platforms like Goama can simplify the migration procedure. Goama offers various features, like lightweight integration, customizable UI and advanced security features to name a few. With instant gratification among the key behavioral patterns of this decade, gamifying your app may be the level-up your organization needs to tap into that potential.

Don’t forget to check out our video below for more info on what happens when you gamify your app!

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Webinar: How To Transform Your App Into A Gamified Powerhouse

Calvin Lee, the VP of Sales & Marketing of Goama along with Wazir Aziz, the Head of Marketing for Goama, presented in a webinar hosted by Common Ground Coworking Space to talk about "How To Transform Your App Into A Gamified Powerhouse".
Calvin Lee, the VP of Sales & Marketing of Goama along with Wazir Aziz, the Head of Marketing for Goama, presented in a webinar hosted by Common Ground Coworking Space to talk about "How To Transform Your App Into A Gamified Powerhouse".

Calvin Lee, the VP of Sales & Marketing of Goama along with Wazir Aziz, the Head of Marketing of Goama, presented in a webinar hosted by Common Ground Coworking Space to talk about “How To Transform Your App Into A Gamified Powerhouse”. In this webinar, you will get insights on what gamification really is and how to use gamification to increase user acquisition and retention, open up revenue streams for your app, and increase user engagement.

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The Rise of Esports as Casual Games

esports

The world of esports has expanded massively over the last decade. Once considered a niche among gamers, esports now has an estimated revenue of $1,084 million in 2021, a staggering 14.5% increase over last year. Esports, or electronic sports, has emerged as a contender to traditional sport leagues like the NFL or Major League Baseball. Industry experts even believe the viewership of esports will likely surpass these traditional offerings pretty soon.

What are Esports?

In short, electronic Sports, or esports, is an umbrella term covering any competitive games or gaming events. This can be anything from casual games to mobile gaming to games on PC and Consoles. For example, Newzoo, the premier source for gaming analytics worldwide, defines esports as “professional or semi-professional competitive gaming in an organized format (tournament or league) with a specific goal/prize, such as winning a championship title or prize money).”

Esports is the most-watched collective phenomenon worldwide, with a viewing audience predicted to be at 728 million. Believe it or not, the history of esports started with casual games back in 1980. The Atari 2600 Space Invaders Championship in New York City had over 10,000 participants. The competition, centered around the Atari classic Space Invaders, was won by Rebecca Hieneman. This was followed by the 1982-83 CBS game show Starcade, where participants faced each other in arcade games. The second pilot of this show had a then-young Alex Trebek playing the host.

In contrast, the largest gaming event in 2021 had over 5.41 million viewers, and the largest esports championship pool was an eye-watering $34.3 million.

What is a “Casual Game?”

A casual game is, by definition, something that one plays in leisure and does not have a steep learning curve. Puzzles, Trivia, Scrabble, Arcade, Card-based games are some excellent examples. Over the past few years, mobile gaming has dominated the casual games scene, and understandably so. With smartphones being our primary content consumption devices, games like Candy Crush, Temple Run, Angry Birds and Subway Surfer have gathered a worldwide cult following. This increased player base has sometimes caused controversies as well, like the recent Pokemon Go debacle. In 2021, 2.6 billion mobile gamers exist, most of them into casual games. Often tagged as means to pass the time rather than a means to compete, these casual games are now the most played game type across all age groups, according to Limelight’s 2020 report.

A casual game has a few aces up its sleeve. First, it should not be too difficult to learn. Second, it should provide enough incentives for a novice, casual player to be invested to continue playing it. Third, it should not deter players by excessive ads or paywalls. The best casual games do this by creating game mechanics that are easy to learn but hard to master. The experience, coupled with this hook, creates a comfortable yet engaging space for casual gamers and brings them back for more.

How Did the Worlds of Casual Gaming and Esports Collide?

An increase in accessibility via mobile devices has skyrocketed casual gaming. It has also broadened the term ‘gamer’ – usually meant for hardcore, more involved participants, ‘Casual gamers’, people who do not identify as normal gamers, are on the rise. A recent survey in 2019 found two-thirds of Americans fell under this category. Yet, the study also revealed, these people were playing mobile, casual games 4 times a week on average. This placed them right in the vicinity of their more traditional fraternity.

Over the past year and a half, due to strict lockdown mandates, the world of gaming has almost exploded, and casual gaming has moved up a notch with it. Casual, single-player games have topped the download charts in all mobile platforms. Candy Crush is a prime example of this – a 2019 report by Niko put it as the top choice of casual, female gamers. The report also highlighted that more than 60% of female casual gamers spent at least seven hours per week playing. Google for Games’ insightful, vibrant 2021 global insights report states that 1 in 4 casual gamers spent more money in gaming during the pandemic. One does not need more reasons to understand why these games have seen billions of downloads.

This unique proliferation pattern has started turning the tide for casual gaming towards being a viable esports contender. 

Goama Games Hyper Casual E-sports

What Does the Future Have in Store for Us?

Reports show that over the past year, people have increasingly preferred playing games over streaming shows or watching movies over the past year. Given these statistics, it is highly likely that casual games will be hosted in esports tournaments in the near future. Casual esports engagement engines like Goama have already taken a step in that direction. Goama’s proven gamification models, presence in leading apps worldwide, and a laundry-list of veteran clientele, bringing esports experience for an app is just minutes away.

“Casual games” are not so casual anymore. So, next time you tune in to a live, big gaming event, don’t be surprised if you see competitors playing Temple Run.

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What are the benefits of Gamification?

benefits of gamification

As discussed in a previous piece, gamification is the practice of incorporating game elements, mechanics and principles and introducing them to non-game environments in order to engage users more effectively. It takes the fun, engaging parts of games and applies them to real-world, non-game activities.

But what are the major benefits of gamification? What justifies the financial and manpower investment into gamifying a digital platform?

Key Benefits of Gamification

  • Higher Engagement: Turns out, even when the TV is on, millennials are focused on their phones. It is safe to assume that they aren’t watching commercially too carefully when they could be playing Grand Theft Auto on their phone.

    Games engage users in a way video cannot. It draws them into a participatory, interactive relationship. By actually undertaking steps to advance through levels, overcome obstacles and communicate with other players, individuals have a much deeper emotional resonance with games. Compare this with the one-sided viewer-video relationship, and you can start to imagine why gamification drives engagement.

    Whether targeted at employees of a company or potential customers of a brand, gamification actually entertains the target audience. When having fun, individuals are a lot less likely to see the content as study material or marketing collateral. It provides them with a burst of stimulation and attaches positive emotion to the brand and the gamified material itself.

    To quote Gartner, “When successfully designed, gamification apps enhance user engagement and drive customer acquisition and retention.”
  • Fosters better learning: According to game developer and author Jane McGonigal, “By 21 years of age, many males will have spent over 10,000 hours immersed in online gaming”  She has also explored the science behind “why games are good for us–why they make us happier, more creative, more resilient, and better able to lead others in world-changing efforts.”

    Individuals are geared to respond positively to the challenge-and-reward structure inherent in games. If utilized in learning modules and classrooms, gamification has the potential (and proven ability) to encourage more investment in the lessons, provide a sense of achievement and nurture healthy competition between students.

    The same results can be replicated in workplaces when it comes to training new employees or upskilling existing employees. Gamification can help them connect to the material, retain more knowledge and develop a sense of pride in mastering new ideas and skills.
  • Offers Instant Feedback: A key aspect of game dynamics is to offer instant feedback. When people tend to know how they are progressing with an activity, they will care more about the outcome. They will also put in more effort to do well, in an attempt to receive positive feedback at the end of each challenge/quest/mission. This encourages, once again, deeper engagement, higher retention and recall.
  • Encourages behavioural change: As the pointers above demonstrate, gamification has the ability to change behavioural patterns, at least while someone is actively communicating with game mechanics. By leveraging this ability to influence behaviour, gamification can be used to promote better learning, greater focus and more positive, people-based outcomes. Anything from a more attentive student to a more productive employee can be the result of an efficiently gamified app.

Examples of Gamification in Action

  • Tinycards by Duolingo: Tinycards takes the old concept of learning via flashcards and makes it interesting. Just pick a subject, and the app will initiate a learning process with flashcards.

    A couple examples of gamification: as a user goes through a deck of flashcards, the progress bar reflects their advancements and eventually awards them with various accomplishments. Users can even get creative and craft their own flashcards.
  • Memrise: A gamified language app with a plethora of game-derived elements, Memrise is known for its fun and easy-to-use interface. Users take the form of astronauts, off to outer space on a journey to pick up a new language. They learn, advance in levels and while doing so, are accompanied by a similarly evolving pet alien.
  • SoloLearn: SoLoLearn uses gamification to teach code. It hosts player challenges, a Code Playground for players to display their code and gather feedback, as well as a leaderboard that celebrates the best coders. You can build your own code and apps, present it on the Playground, and have others on the app upvote it, use it and provide instant feedback.
  • Goama: Goama gamifies other apps to increase user acquisition and retention, engagement, and open up even more revenue streams. We do more than just badges, leaderboards, and points when we gamify app, we actually turn your app into a place where users can enjoy games and win real rewards. You can learn more on how we gamify apps here.
Goama Games

As these examples depict, the benefits of gamification are established and impossible to ignore. They give users a reason to care about a website or app, and actually pay attention to the content being displayed. It has tangible effects on users’ brain chemistry, behaviour and eventually, real-world action.

The very real benefits of gamification make it a sound and future-proof investment for any organization that wants to get people interested, engaged and retain their mindfulness. In an age of lower attention spans, instant gratification and agility-as-priority, gamification promises to become a best practice rather than just a fascinating novelty.  

Want to know more about gamification and how we can gamify your app? Contact us here.

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What is Gamification?

gamification
Gamification concept. Integrating game mechanics into website or app design. Customer engagement. Idea of competition. Isolated flat vector illustration

Gamification is more than just points, badges, and leaderboards. It refers to the practice of incorporating game elements, mechanics and principles and introducing them to non-game environments in order to engage users more effectively. In other words, it takes the fun, engaging parts of games and applies them to real-world, non-game activities.

Websites, online learning modules, organizational intranet, and numerous other digital avenues use gamification to inspire more focused interaction with the content, as well as collaboration and sharing of data among users.

When asking “what is gamification?”, think of how you feel when playing a game like Angry Birds. You were focused on the game, distracted from everything else in the world, and time passed by faster than you thought. Every level you cleared by winning gave you a little thrill of accomplishment. 

Gamification aims to generate that feeling while people engage in more productive, sometimes mundane activities – online learning, recruitment, training, reorienting organizational productivity and more.

Why does gamification work?

The question “what is gamification” doesn’t make much sense without a bit of a deep-dive into why gamification is successful in the first place.

To quote Yu-kai Chou, “Good gamification doesn’t start with game elements; it starts with our core drives.” These core drives, as outlined in his blog, are summarized as follows:

  1. Epic meaning & calling: Give people the sense that they are part of something bigger than themselves.
  2. Development & accomplishment: Caters to the human desire to overcome a challenge and obstacle, achieve progress and be rewarded for it.
  3. Empowerment of creativity & feedback: Allow people to express themselves creatively and see immediate feedback on their efforts.
  4. Ownership & possession: Make people owners of what they do, which drives them to get better at it.
  5. Social influence & relatedness: Incorporate social elements fundamental to human behaviour – mentorship, acceptance, social responses, companionship, as well as competition and envy.
  6. Scarcity & impatience: Give people something they can’t immediately haven thus making them want it more.
    To quote Yu-kai, “This is the Core Drive utilized by Facebook when it first started: at first it was just for Harvard. Then it opened up to a few other prestigious schools, and eventually all colleges. When it finally opened up to everyone, many people wanted to join because they previously couldn’t get in it.”
  7. Unpredictability & curiosity: Leverage the human curiosity and anticipation that comes from not knowing what will happen next.
  8. Loss & avoidance: Utilize the human desire and instinct to avoid negative outcomes.
Gamificatoin - Octalysis Framework

Essentially, gamification is “Human-Focused Design,” as opposed to “Function-Focused Design.”  To gamify a digital platform, developers, testers and other stakeholders have to ask themselves “What will motivate human users to interact and engage with our content?” They can no longer just prioritize efficiency in order to get the job done. They have to care about what people enjoy, and what causes them to emotionally respond to the content at hand. 

Common Terms Associated with Gamification

Game Mechanics: This term refers to principles, guidelines, rules and rewards that show up on a digital platform to drive user behaviour. Mechanics may comprise levels, badges, progress trackers, missions, quests, certificates, etc. They are the components via which individuals exist with the gamified interface, advance and receive feedback.

Game Dynamics: This refers to the behaviour, emotional responses and desires that the game dynamics intend to elicit within the users of the gamified app or website. For example, competition can be encouraged  between participants through individual quests or collaboration between them through team missions. Badges and coupons can be useful for raising individual or team morale. Game dynamics are the aim that game mechanisms intend to meet when implemented in the gamify process.

The Value of Gamification in Business 
When leveraged effectively, gamification can influence human behaviour, motivate them in specific ways and drive desirable business results. By facilitating easy and eager participation with business initiatives (sales training, upskilling within the company, etc.), an organization can encourage their employees to operate at their creative and productive best.

Additionally, gamified platforms can be used to drive higher engagement and positive brand associations from customers. If people have more fun when they are exploring a brand (whether just visiting their website or making an actual purchase), they are likely to think well of it, buy it’s products/services and recommend it to someone they know.

Furthermore, engagement with gamified portals generate significant data points that can, in turn, be used to optimize content strategies, performance marketing strategies and campaigns. Whether employee or customer interaction, gamification steps can be used as parameters by which to get more specific data points about what end-users like and are willing to put money and effort into.
For any organization seeking a robust digital presence, to gamify is to be future-forward. Within ever-dwindling attention spans, it is difficult to keep people interested in content that is not entertaining or compelling in some way. Implementing gamification is an effort-intensive but rewarding work-around, with advantages for everyone involved in the process.

Want to know more about gamification and how we can gamify your app? Contact us here.

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