Gamification Revolution Review: What Zichermann Gets Right (and What’s Missing)
A book promises to explain how games will revolutionize business — but does it actually deliver a framework you can use? Gamification Revolution by Gabe Zichermann and Joselin Linder makes a compelling case that games have moved far beyond entertainment, though readers familiar with the Octalysis Framework will notice the book stops short of providing a structured behavioral design methodology.
Table of Contents
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
The Gamification Revolution Thesis
Gamification Revolution: How Leaders Leverage Game Mechanics To Crush the Competition by Gabe Zichermann and Joselin Linder helps explain how games are changing the world of business.
When it comes to playing games, most people think of video console games or tablet/phone apps that help distract the player from the drudgery of work. But the gaming field also includes sports, card games, and board games, and the old paradigm that games only serve as fun and recreation is radically changing.
In Gamification Revolution, we explore this shift in culture and see how business leaders are now using games to their advantage.
The authors start us off by presenting a quote by Theodore Roosevelt that captures the old paradigm: “When you play, play hard: when you work, don’t play at all.” This has been the conventional attitude that defined what it means to have a sound work ethic.
As games evolved and entered the corporate arena, the lines between work and play have increasingly blurred. The emergence of technology, greater market competition, and the need for organizations to grow and adapt has created demand for better mechanisms to accelerate learning and performance within companies.
At the same time, these factors require that organizations relate with their customers more consistently and authentically to gain quality insight on developing winning products and services. Games now serve as an “invaluable change agent” for corporations to meet these demands.
Gabe Zichermann on the Gamification Revolution (GSummit SF 2013)
Key Stats Driving the Revolution
The book cites a few interesting statistics illustrating the phenomenon of gamification as an actual revolution:
- Gartner Group (2011) predicted that over 70% of Global 2000 organizations would have at least one gamified application, and that more than 50% of organizations managing innovation processes would gamify those processes by 2015.
- M2 Research projected that $3 billion would be the annual spend devoted to gamification services and technology before 2020.
- The amount of time consumers spent playing video games doubled between 2002 and 2012. Average Facebook users spent $50 per year playing games on the platform. Research also showed people spending less time on traditional forms of leisure and entertainment.
People have a natural proclivity toward playing games. The progress of technology and gamification applications has made it possible to develop an even greater number of highly enjoyable games, which has generated increased time spent on them.
The investments that companies are making in integrating game mechanics within their strategies are aptly aligned with this trend.
Companies Who Are Using Games
Gamification Revolution lists several common company objectives that games can help address and achieve:
- Improving performance of team members
- Training and the acquisition of new information and skills
- Energizing employees through wellness and health initiatives
- Harnessing and leveraging the insight of consumers
- Engaging customers as part of a long-term relationship development strategy
- Innovating through the collective insights of crowdsourcing
Examples of actual companies mentioned in the book who use games for such purposes include: Nike, SAP, Pearson, Salesforce, McDonald’s, Cisco, United Airlines, Microsoft, Spotify, Target, Siemens, GE, and IBM.
Engagement As the Pivotal Factor of Business Success
Gamification Revolution identifies engagement between management, employees, and business strategies as a critical but overlooked element for the success of organizations.
Enterprise software development is given as an example. According to the 2011 CHAOS report of the Standish Group, 21% of these project initiatives fail due to poor levels of engagement.
Effective communication in today’s business environment is no longer a top-down approach. As the book puts it, “old models of engagement will not scale.”
Employees need to be proactively involved in their learning and skills development. Sitting passively while trying to absorb information through lectures does very little to enhance their actual performance.
And by dictating marketing messages to customers, there is no way to really know what they think and feel about a brand’s offerings. This insight is important for understanding how to grow, involve, and improve in order to boost revenue.
Secondly, while upper management may be keenly aware of the need to communicate effectively with employees and customers, it can be challenging to capture and sustain the attention of both groups.
The average person is constantly bombarded with distractions. According to Chao Liu, a Microsoft Research Fellow, it only takes a new website visitor ten seconds or less to decide whether they want to stay and keep browsing. And even if they stay longer than 30 seconds, the site may only capture two minutes of their attention.
With mobile apps, Localytics found that 69% of users access an app ten times or less. And according to Flurry Analytics, only 25% of users return to an app within a three-month time period.
Well-designed games offer strong and positive reinforcement that can be sustainably felt. The experience of increasing levels of achievement and awesomeness is what drives desired behavior on an ongoing basis — think Octalysis Core Drives. Although there are many options for encouraging engagement, this type of dynamic is why the integration of games in external and internal efforts is a smart choice for organizations.
Rewards As a Driver of Player Engagement
In order to motivate a particular behavior, it needs to be rewarded. Within the context of gamification, there are different models explaining the relationship between game mechanics and rewards.
Effective decisions in design should result in highly motivated players who want to keep playing. Readers of this blog would know that Octalysis is one such model, based on eight intrinsic core drives of game players.
Gamification Revolution describes the ability to earn status as a key drive. They cite the Whitehall Study to support this. According to this research on over 10,000 British civil servants (Whitehall II, led by Michael Marmot), individuals who had higher occupational status actually lived longer than those of lower status.
This was a stronger predictor of health compared to diet, smoking, and fitness — with traditional risk factors accounting for only 25–40% of the mortality gradient.
Rewards such as points, leaderboards, badges, and levels can be powerful motivators that promote what the book refers to as Eustress (positive stress), which motivates players to achieve more.
Corporations who intend to implement game mechanics internally or in engaging with their customers may choose to use points and earned status as part of their strategy. Or they can choose to provide a more immersive experience based on a comprehensive combination of core drive mechanics.
Thoughtful decisions should be made when choosing which route to take. Games are not a quick fix to instantly boost company performance. The success of a game initiative depends on how motivated the participants are to keep playing.
The Octalysis Perspective: What the Book Misses
Where Gamification Revolution excels at building the business case for gamification, it falls short on providing a systematic design framework that practitioners can actually use.
The book primarily focuses on Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment (points, badges, leaderboards) and Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness (status, competition). These are valid motivators, but they represent only a fraction of what drives human behavior.
What’s missing is attention to the more powerful intrinsic motivators — Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (giving users meaningful choices), Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity (the element of surprise that keeps people engaged), and Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling (connecting actions to something larger than oneself).
Still, as an introduction to why organizations should take gamification seriously, the book serves its purpose. Pair it with the Octalysis Framework for the how, and you have a much more complete picture.
Final Verdict
Check out Gamification Revolution: How Leaders Leverage Game Mechanics To Crush the Competition by Gabe Zichermann and Joselin Linder for a solid introduction to how games are reshaping business practices.
If you want to go deeper into designing gamified experiences rather than just understanding why they matter, explore the Octalysis Framework and Yu-kai Chou’s books on behavioral design.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework: Complete Gamification Framework
- How the 8 Core Drives Interact: Cocktail Effects, Chains, and the Over-Justification Trap
- Anti Core Drives: The Hidden Forces Killing Your User Engagement
- What is Gamification?