The Games People Play

Learning a language or meeting a long-term fitness goal can challenge even the most committed individual. As days morph into weeks or months, the ability to stay focused and engaged is critical. Badges, medals, leaderboards, rankings, and prizes all have served as motivational tools.

Yet, digital technology has been, well, a game-changer. It makes it possible to plug in huge amounts of data, track performance on a large scale, zero in on habits and skill levels, and personalize messaging and rewards. As a result, gamification has taken root in smartphone apps, schools, workplaces, marketing programs, healthcare environments, and even in government services.

“Gamification is used everywhere,” said Adrian Hon, author of You’ve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All. “It has become a standard way to learn, interact, and improve at things.” In some cases, it can make a task more fun and boost engagement. Yet, “It can have negative consequences, and it often falls short of achieving its stated goals,” he explained.

Added Richard Landers, John P. Campbell Distinguished Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, “Gamification doesn’t always lead to the desired outcome, and it doesn’t consistently lead to better results. While it can serve as a powerful tool, people often use it very badly.”

Motivation Matters

As computers, mobile phones, smart watches, and other connected devices have proliferated, businesses, educators and others have adopted gamification techniques to influence human behavior. In the U.S. alone, it’s now a $15-billion market, and it could hit $49 billion by 2029.

Language apps like Duolingo tap gamification. Fitness devices like Apple Watch and Fitbit rely on gamification. Educational software and workplace applications often incorporate gamification methods to boost learning and productivity. Even rewards programs use gamification techniques, such as stars or points that add up to a free coffee or burrito. In every instance, the focus is on keeping people engaged through daily streaks, badges, trophies, and points.

At their best, “Games can make repetitive tasks more bearable and even fun,” Hon said. “Gamification can help people focus and maintain good habits. It can promote positive outcomes for businesses and consumers. Yet because someone spends more time using an app or engaged in an activity doesn’t mean they will learn more effectively or complete tasks better. It may not lead to better results.”

In fact, a 2022 study conducted by researchers in the U.K., Australia, and the Netherlands found that gamification produced little or no performance improvements across domains such as fitness, dieting, and finance. Another 2020 meta-analysis of research on the topic found that while participants in educational settings sometimes enjoy gamified tasks, outcomes are mixed and the overall value is unclear.

A key problem is that users can easily become so infatuated with the game that they lose sight of their primary goals. When maintaining a 1,000-day streak, beating “friends” and winning digital badges eclipse the primary motivation, the real-world task of learning Spanish or dropping 20 pounds can quickly fall by the wayside. Long-term success revolves around intrinsic and sustained motivation.

“One of the problems with apps is that they sometimes reward the wrong behaviors. They attempt to maximize interaction and monetization rather than drive positive outcomes,” said Kristina N. Bauer, an associate professor of psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. “Without the right design and incentives, they can just as easily demotivate people.”

The technology also can be weaponized. China’s social credit system relies on mass surveillance and the collection of highly personal data. Companies have turned to gamification to speed up workers in warehouses and other settings. In some cases, arcade-style mini-games show whether an employee is ahead or behind company-set metrics. While some workers enjoy the games—which can come with incidental prizes—others complain the games dial up their stress level.

Said Hon, “In a worst-case scenario, gamification can lead to deceptive and subpar results. It can also lead to harmful behaviors, including overspending.”

Eye on the Prize

What makes gamification so difficult is that people respond to an app or program in fundamentally different ways. “You have people who will do anything to be at the top of a leaderboard—even if they aren’t really paying attention to what they are doing and what the consequences are—and you have people who aren’t competitive but get forced into a system,” Bauer said.

To be sure, gamification is as much about psychology as it is about technology. A slick design and appealing interface can go only so far. Research shows that systems tend to work better in the early stages, and they are typically more effective over the short-term, Landers said. “The first time people use a system they will often say, ‘Oh, that’s really cool.’ They are engaged and try harder. But if it becomes monotonous or they fail too often, they tend to give up.”

Some research also shows that small changes in design can alter outcomes. Bauer, for example, is studying how changing the design of a leaderboard impacts motivation. For example, “If you show everyone in a class or game all the results and where they stand, you wind up with lower motivation levels for those lower in rank than when you show people a relative leaderboard with the scores closest to them. This makes it easier for the lower and middle rungs to identify and achieve their goals.”

What’s more, it’s often advantageous to adapt goals for different users and their preferences. This is leading some researchers down the path of artificial intelligence (AI), which introduces the ability to read behavioral cues, customize interactions, and adapt screens and content based on user input and performance. With AI, “It’s possible to meet users where they are at any given moment,” Landers said.

AI also allows developers to deliver a more customized and relevant experience. Yet, designing a complex multi-layer framework that gets all the various components right is challenging—and for now AI remains at a nascent stage in gamification. “Some people like fantasy and others don’t. Some people like leaderboards and competition and others hate it,” Landers said. “Understanding what motivates a specific person is incredibly difficult.” 

In the end, all gamification paths lead to a basic conclusion: scoring a win for everyone is difficult. “The idea of making tasks interesting, motivating, and fun is a positive thing,” Landers said. “But learning is hard work and gamification doesn’t deliver a short-cut. Leaderboards and points won’t fix a broken process or workplace.”

Samuel Greengard is an author and journalist based in West Linn, OR, USA.