Game developers know how to create an immersive, engaging game experience. Why not use these same game mechanics to create an immersive and engaging customer experience?
Juho Hamari and Vili Lehdonvirta of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology studied game mechanics in virtual economies in “Game design as marketing: How game mechanics create demand for virtual goods.” They looked at the the rules and mechanics that developers build into Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) to encourage virtual purchases. What they discovered is that traditional marketing and game design already have shared design principles: progressions, levels, prizes, collectibles, memberships and points, among others. But traditional marketing is too simplistic, and thus fails to engage the customer. “The game fails to engage for more than a short period of time, the game is too easy to provide excitement or too difficult to be rewarding, or the marketer’s commercial motive is blatantly obvious, preventing immersion in the game.”
They recommend marketing managers approach marketing “as a serious game design challenge: to hire professional game designers, to consult the large body of literature on game design, and to strive to create engaging games around their products and services. The whole customer relationship, from acquisition through retention to monetization, could be modeled as an interactive game.”
Gabe Zichermann calls this Funware. In The Engaging Web Gabe writes, “Funware is differentiated from games primarily in its objective. While games’ primary purpose is fun, Funware applications serve two masters: business objectives and enjoyment. Funware is also differentiated from Serious Games in that Funware applications need to be enjoyable for users, whereas serious games – such as military simulations – care much less about how participants’ feel about the game’s amusement level.”
It’s about using all the behavioral science that’s packed into compelling game design to engage and motivate your customers and create customer loyalty. “Promotions are a cold start each time,” observed Bunchball’s Rajat Prahari at the recent Engage!Expo. Promotions create loyalty to the promotion. A better offer and the customer is gone. Game mechanics create loyalty to your brand. So get serious about marketing and have a little fun.
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