Gamification: It’s all about Chemistry!

How Gamification works? Why we like play games? What motivates us? What is it that tells our brain to take a certain action? And why do companies like IBM , Nike & Microsoft are interested in it?

Turns out that it’s a story about our Brain. And, It is widely known as The Dopamine effect!

Dopamine (simply means) it is a neuron transmitter (which is a chemical) responsible for transmitting signals between neuron cells (neurons) of the brain. Dopamine is widely known to be released/activated in the brain in case there is a reward or surprise or any other pleasurable incidence & it works like a drug for brain i.e. it becomes addictive everytime dopamine is realised. And that’s why, we love rewards over & over again!

Many in Technology/Marketing understood the importance of this, and a few decades ago & started making use of it by developing games. Later this phenomenon was successfully replicated in some non-game structures by some of the techies like Dennis Crowley of Dodgeball & Foursquare.

According to Gartner, by the end of 2014, over 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one 'gamified' application. From Microsoft to Nike to IBM, everyone is in the same bandwagon.

Games motivate us; it’s nothing but putting in the psychological triggers in our brain to produce specific behaviour.

Many have tried to “Gamify” their services for business gains but have been unsuccessful, which they did without understanding the logic behind it. There are number of enterprise gamification applications, numerous game mechanics & game elements present around us but its often forgotten that just by just adding some Points & Badges in any scenario would not make a successful gamified system. It should lead to something more satisfying enriching as the player moves on to further stages.It requires thought & lot of homework at conceptualization stage before it can be envisioned as a gamified system. It has to be understood that, any action being designed has to create atleast a small amount of dopamine effect.

Gamification is a powerful tool which can convince people to select product A over product B, to shop from an E-commerce portal than a shopping mall.

It is said to be one of the most influential but an underestimated tool in business today.