80% gamified apps may fail to meet business objectives by 2014: Gartner

Focus on obvious game mechanics such as points, badges, leader boards, rather than subtle, more important game design elements

Gamification (integration of game mechanics or game dynamics into a website or application to create game-like experience) is currently being driven by novelty and hype. However, information technology research and advisory company Gartner Inc predicts that by 2014, 80% of the current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives primarily because of poor design.

“The challenge facing project managers and sponsors responsible for gamification initiatives is the lack of game design talent to apply to gamification projects. Poor game design is one of the key failings of many gamified applications today,” Brian Burke, research vice-president at Gartner, said in a release on Tuesday.

According to him, the focus is on the obvious game mechanics such as points, badges and leader boards, rather than the more subtle and more important game design elements such as balancing competition and collaboration or defining a meaningful game economy.

“As a result, in many cases, organisations are simply counting points, slapping meaningless badges on activities and creating gamified applications that are simply not engaging for the target audience. Some organisations are already beginning to cast off poorly-designed gamified applications,” he said.

Gamification is the use of game design and game mechanics to engage a target audience to change behaviours, learn new skills or engage in innovation. The target audience may be customers, employees or the general public, but first and foremost, they are people with needs and desires who will respond to stimuli. It is important to think of the people in these target audiences as ‘players’ in gamified applications, according to the Gartner’s special report on trends in gamification.

“As gamification moves from being leveraged by a limited number of leading-edge innovators to becoming more broadly adopted by early adopters, it is important that CIOs (chief information officers) and IT leaders understand the underlying principle of gamification and how to apply it within the IT organisation,” Burke.