Book SummaryActionable Gamification, by Yu-kai Chou

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Actionable Gamification

Gamification consultant Yu-Kai Chou explains that games have the power to unlock deep reserves of motivation and potential while making seemingly mundane or repetitive activities enjoyable. Consider how much willpower and effort it takes most people to get through their workday, finish their chores, or stick to an exercise routine. Now reflect on how little effort it takes someone absorbed in a game to continue playing—they repeatedly overcome difficult challenges for no other reason than that they enjoy it.

This is why so many businesses are trying to incorporate game mechanics into their product, marketing, or management. By understanding what motivates people to play, business leaders can harness that motivation to grow their companies to new heights.

However, many businesses' gamification systems end up failing. In Actionable Gamification, Chou explains why. He argues that the key to creating successful gamification systems lies in diversifying and balancing the types of motivation players use throughout the experience. Our guide will...

Actionable Gamification Summary Part 1: Create a Gamification System for Your Business

Gamification is the use of techniques developed by game designers in non-game settings—such as pursuing personal goals or furthering business objectives. These business objectives could be anything from getting customers to engage with a company's social media, getting users to make an app part of their everyday lives, or getting employees to hit productivity targets. Chou explains that gamification systems may include creating a point system, offering prizes, or setting milestones for desired behaviors and achievements. In this section, we'll explore opportunities for gamification in business and the basic components of a gamification system.

(Shortform note: Chou's book makes it clear that gamification can be put to a variety of uses, including gamifying your lifestyle—for example, creating a fun reward system for completing household chores. However, most of the book focuses on applying gamification strategies to business objectives, so we have zeroed in on these strategies for the guide.)

Where Can You Use Gamification?

Chou identifies three main areas where business leaders can use gamification to motivate people and further their business goals.

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Actionable Gamification Summary Part 2: Diversifying Motivations

While gamification has a lot to offer businesses, Chou contends that most gamification efforts fail because people design superficial games. Many designers believe that by adding a point system and a leaderboard, they can make any activity fun. However, Chou explains that the most engaging and long-lived games are ones that diversify the motivations players draw on while playing. Diverse motivations lead to a richer and more dynamic gaming experience that players will want to keep coming back to.

Chou posits eight key strategies that motivate people to continue playing a game, which we’ve synthesized down to six strategies based on the following motivators: cultivating a sense of purpose, reinforcing growth and achievement, tempting players to own and accumulate, encouraging relationships, allowing for creativity, and enticing with randomness and mystery. In this section, we'll explain these motivations along with Chou's tips for incorporating them into your gamification system.

Strategy #1: Cultivate a Sense of Purpose

Chou’s first motivation is a sense of purpose. **Games motivate people by making them feel like they're doing something meaningful and...

Actionable Gamification Summary Part 3: Balancing Motivations

Chou explains that diversity of motivations by itself isn't enough for an engaging gamification system. You also need to balance these motivations and consider how they work together. Chou identifies several categories of motivation that need to be in balance to create an engaging gamification system for your business: Internal motivations need to be balanced against external motivations, and positive motivations need to be balanced against negative motivations. In this section, we'll explore these categories and how to balance them in your gamification system.

Internal vs. External Motivation

In planning your gamification system, Chou explains that you'll need to balance external and internal motivations.

External Motivations

Chou defines external motivations as drives to obtain rewards outside of the activity itself. For example, trophies, points, lottery payouts, and other prizes may motivate someone to overcome a challenge they wouldn't otherwise enjoy or find rewarding. External motivations include those we discussed such as owning, accumulating, and achievement. In your gamification system, these could be rewards for customer loyalty,...

Shortform Exercise: Design a Gamification System

In this exercise, you'll have a chance to brainstorm your own gamification system from scratch using Chou's strategies. Each step will guide you in creating a gamification project for your business.

Discuss the goals of your gamification system. What is the ultimate objective? What are the actions players will need to take to achieve it?

Shortform Exercise: Balance Your Gamification System

Now that you have some core ideas for your gamification system, you'll have a chance to balance the motivations using Chou's recommendations.

How can your game make use of internal motivations? Recall that these include: creativity, relationships, or randomness and mystery.