Harness the power of games to create extraordinary customer engagement with Game-Based Marketing. Gamification is revolutionizing the web and mobile apps.
Innovative startups like Foursquare and Swoopo, growth companies like Gilt and Groupon and established brands like United Airlines and Nike all agree: the most powerful way to create and engage a vibrant community is with game mechanics. By leveraging points, levels, badges, challenges, rewards and leaderboards – these innovators are dramatically lowering their customer acquisition costs, increasing engagement and building sustainable, viral communities.
Game-Based Marketing unlocks the design secrets of mega-successful games like Zynga’s Farmville, World of Warcraft, Bejeweled and Project Runway to give you the power to create winning game-like experiences on your site/apps. Avoid obvious pitfalls and learn from the masters with key insights, such as:
- Why good leaderboards shouldn’t feature the Top 10 players.
- Most games are played as an excuse to socialize, not to achieve.
- Status is worth 10x more than cash to most consumers.
- Badges are not enough: but they are important.
- You don’t need to offer real-world prizing to run a blockbuster sweepstakes.
And learn even more:
- How to architect a point system that works
- Designing the funware loop: the basics of points, badges, levels, leaderboards and challenges
- Maximizing the value and impact of badges
- Future-proofing your design
- Challenging users without distraction
Based on the groundbreaking work of game expert and successful entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann, Game-Based Marketing brings together the game mechanics expertise of a decade’s worth of research. Driven equally by big companies, startups, 40-year-old men and tween girls, the world is becoming increasingly more fun.
Are you ready to play?
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xiii
Foreword Robin Kent xv
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The Argument for Loyalty 9
‘‘Stickiness’’ Is Loyalty 13
Playing with Loyalty 14
The Future of Loyalty—Frequent Flyer Games 16
Communities of Influence: Flyertalk 18
Funware: Putting Fun into Everything 19
Chase ‘‘Goes Dutch’’ 20
The Value of Prizes 23
Game Mechanics 25
Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game 28
Chapter 2 Passive Play 31
The Incidental Games We Play 33
Latte Leaders: Status and Levels 34
Black Cards and Red Carpets 36
Keeping Score 38
The Subway Scrum: Rules of Play 39
The Bar Brawl: Demonstrable Status 41
The Components of Funware 43
Chapter 3 Social Networks and Leaderboards 45
Social Network Clutter 47
Marketing with Social Networks 48
Orkut: A Case Study in Leaderboard Effectiveness 48
Funware at Work: Facebook Friend Games 50
No News Isn’t Good News 51
Leaderboards in Business 52
The Jigsaw Example 53
Correctly Using Leaderboards 55
Points Proxy: Masking and Directing Behaviors 57
Wal-Mart and the Theory of Relativism 59
Leaderboard Levels 61
Leaderboards: The Top 10 62
Chapter 4 Funware Mechanics: Points and Beyond 65
Making Points the Point 68
Point Mechanics and Branding 69
Virtual Economics 70
Virtual Currency 71
Real-World Value versus Virtual Value 72
Creating an Easy and Effective Virtual Economy 73
Badging Players 74
Newbie Badges 77
Building Levels 77
America’s Army 80
Defining and Meeting Goals 81
Bringing Players into the Game 85
Tracking Behavior 87
Meaningful Status Displays 88
Chapter 5 Prizes and Games of Chance 91
The Ansari X PRIZE: The Power of Games to Change the World 93
Can’t Buy Me Love: Choosing Prizes 95
Games of Chance 97
Games of Chance and the Law 98
McDonald’s Monopoly Game: A Case Study 99
The Value of a Prize 102
Long-Term Motivation and Customer Loyalty 104
Gaming the System 105
Amazon Reviews: Community Policing at Its Finest 106
Using Sweepstakes to Fight Gaming 107
Virtual Points and Prizes 108
Chapter 6 The Ultimate Funware: Frequent Flyer Programs 111
Frequent Flyer Programs Take Off 114
What Business Are Airlines In? 114
Designing the Frequent Flyer Massive Multiplayer Online Game 117
The Power of Points 119
Getting There without Points 122
Real-World Redemptions: Do They Matter? 122
The Solution Is Virtual Goods 123
But Does Redemption Matter? 125
Levels and Badges in FFPs 126
Throwing Your Weight Around 127
Benefits of Status 129
The Level Error of FFPs 132
Going Above and Beyond: The Boss Level 133
Challenges and Contests 135
United’s Team Challenge 137
Making It Work for You 138
Chapter 7 Know Thy Player 141
Bartle’s Player Types 144
Achievers (^) 145
Socializers (˘) 146
Explorers (¯) 147
Killers (¨) 147
The Naı¨ve Player 148
Competitiveness: The Most Important Motivation? 150
Closing the Gender Gap 153
Nike+: Early Adopter Advantage 154
Fahrvergn€ugen’s Failure 156
The Wrap-Up 158
Chapter 8 The Future of Gamers: Generation G 161
A Generation Gap 163
What Makes Generation G Special? 164
The Trends 165
Smith & Tinker 166
The Gulf Is Real 171
The Effect of Games: Tetris, Team Building, and Tug of War 173
The Character of a Generation of Gamers 174
Conclusion: Successfully Marketing to Generation G 177
Chapter 9 Motivating Sales with Funware: Getting Employees into the Game 181
Front Line and Top of Mind 183
Bitten by the Achievement Bug 185
Mary Kay: Generating Loyalty 187
Trust and Motivational Funware 188
Sales Teams and Customer Trust: Pep Boys 190
Making the Corporate Personal through Games 191
Funware at Work: Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island 192
Playing Together 194
Chapter 10 Everyone Wins: Games in Your Business 197
Product Power 199
Advergames and In-Game Advertising 200
Pursuing, Engaging, and Rewarding Customers: The Business of Lifestyles 202
Arming Your Business 202
First Steps Are the Hardest 203
Do It for the Children 204
Funware on the Rise 205
References 207
Index 211
