September 5, 2013 by Paul Sloane http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2013/09/05/what-game-will-engage-your-customers/
What Game Will Engage Your Customers? Gamification is the use of game methods and game thinking in order to engage users or solve problems. It is an innovative crowdsourcing technique which is gaining increasingly widespread acceptance in business, education and research. For example Cancer Research UK has launched GeneGame, a smartphone app that challenges users to form the best combinations of genes – aiding research in the area in the process. It was created by games developer Guerilla Tea, at a Cancer Research UK hackathon. Researchers have reams of data about genes and their role in diseases such as cancer. In order to produce reliable results from these datasets, it’s necessary to combine at least 25 different variables each time for each human gene – of which there are around 20,000. Rather than leaving this job up to researchers alone, the GeneGame app turns these combinations into winning ‘hands’
that the player has to build using their knowledge or searching the web for answers. The best players get to show off their knowledge through league placings, which researchers can then use to find out the players that are producing the most
It is used by over 10,000 schools and 3.5 million students aged from 5 to 18 from around the world. It tailors the games to the individual strengths and weaknesses of the student.
more efficient structures. According to the science journal Nature, Foldit’s players delivered better results than computer generated outcomes.
Restaurant.com is a dining deal website. It has developed a game called Restaurant.com Rewards . According to Chris Kohn, President of Restaurant.com, ‘customers earn points, badges, and rewards for completing specific tasks and missions. For example, our most popular badge is the “Sherlock Holmes,” which customers earn simply by searching for a restaurant. The most popular mission is “Creatireliable datasets. More de- the University of Minneso- on Station” that challenges tails from Springwise. ta’s School of Nursing have members to create an accollaborated with the tech- count, visit our home page, Dacadoo and Fitocracy are nology company, VitalSims, and search for a restaurant sites that use gamification to launch web-based inter- to earn rewards for completo encourage users to im- active games that challen- ting all three steps.’ prove their general health ge nursing students with with exercise contests and real-life scenarios. Gamification can increase games. traffic to your website and The University of Washing- improve user engagement. Mathletics is a site which ton developed a game cal- More importantly it can be encourage students of all led Foldit, which encoura- used to answer important abilities to learn and enjoy ges players to compete in questions and solve probmathematics by taking part science puzzles such as lems for your business. in games and challenges. manipulating proteins into Health Care educators at