5 Gamified Crowdsourcing Examples That Solved Real-World Problems
What happens when you give millions of people a puzzle that matters — and make solving it fun?
You get crowdsourcing powered by gamification: a combination that has decoded AIDS-related proteins, searched for missing aircraft, and advanced cancer research. Not through obligation or payment, but through the same Core Drives that make games irresistible.
Crowdsourcing harnesses the collective wisdom, contributions, and capabilities of large numbers of people to solve problems that no single person (or even a team of experts) could tackle alone.
These applications span innovation, knowledge-building, complex problem-solving, and achieving feats that would otherwise take decades. The decision to integrate game mechanics depends on the experience the project seeks to offer, based on understanding their users’ drives and motivations.
Here are five standout examples that show what happens when gamification meets collective intelligence.
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.
1. Tomnod: Searching for MH370 from Your Living Room
(Note: Tomnod was discontinued after being acquired by Maxar/DigitalGlobe. The project is no longer active, but remains one of the most impressive crowdsourcing examples in history.)
Tomnod was a digital initiative that used high-definition satellite images from DigitalGlobe to pinpoint objects and places in the aftermath of natural disasters and man-made catastrophes.
Their most well-known search — launched in March 2014 — was focused on finding the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, Flight MH370, in the Indian Ocean.
Participants were asked to tag various areas of a satellite map to identify possible clues such as rafts, oil slicks, and wreckage. A crowdranked algorithm then filtered out the most promising leads based on locations that had been tagged by multiple players.
The initiative was wildly popular. According to Data Center Dynamics, over 8 million users participated and more than 645,000 features were tagged — making it the largest campaign in Tomnod’s history.
Using the Octalysis Framework to analyze why, the answer becomes clear.
Tomnod was heavily driven by Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling — you weren’t just clicking pixels. You were searching for a missing plane with 239 people aboard. The simple (and at times tedious) act of tagging became intrinsically compelling because the mission mattered.
Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness was also in play — you wanted to positively identify tags that, combined with other positive IDs, would get picked up by the algorithm.
And the satisfaction of completing tasks was reinforced by Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment, as well as Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback.
2. Play to Cure: Genes in Space — Fighting Cancer One Asteroid at a Time
DNA contains the coding instructions for building every protein structure in our bodies. Certain deviations in these sequences result in malformed units that can contribute to cancer.
Identifying these anomalies is critically important — but scientists simply don’t have the resources to map all of them manually. Enter “Genes in Space,” developed by Cancer Research UK.
The storyline is set in space. Players collect a substance called “Element Alpha” while shooting asteroids and upgrading their spacecraft. Gathering Element Alpha along the plotted course is the gamified shell of the actual task: identifying faults in real gene data.
According to the Genetic Literacy Project, in just one month, players analyzed data equivalent to six months of expert laboratory work.
Besides playing for a greater cause (Epic Meaning & Calling), the game is propelled by Development & Accomplishment — as more Element Alpha is collected, players unlock upgrades and rise in ranking (Social Influence & Relatedness).
3. The Great Brain Experiment — Crowdsourced Neuroscience
In traditional brain and psychology research, participants are subjected to controlled scenarios and data is gathered from their responses. But to form reliable conclusions, scientists need information from large and highly varied populations — a difficult feat through conventional lab recruitment.
The Great Brain Experiment was developed at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London (UCL). Players contributed to real scientific research while engaging in fun games testing risk-taking, memory, impulsivity, decision-making, and performance under pressure.
By 2014, over 60,000 participants had generated massive datasets — including 2.7 million choices in risky decision and happiness tasks — enabling “big data” neuroscience studies impossible through traditional laboratory methods.
What makes this game unique from an Octalysis perspective is that it was not designed to push players toward higher performance (Development & Accomplishment). Researchers were interested in natural behavior, not optimized behavior.
Although players contributed to scientific understanding (Epic Meaning & Calling), the experience was driven by relative scoring — players were told how they compared to the broader population.
A high percentile score like “better impulse control than 90% of participants” triggers Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback and Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness.
4. Google Image Labeler — When Tagging Became a Game
(Note: Google Image Labeler ran from 2006 to around 2011 as an early example of gamified crowdsourcing.)
Google Image Labeler was launched in 2006 when Google needed to improve the accuracy of its image search database. They transformed the tedious task of labeling images into a competitive game based on Luis von Ahn’s ESP Game — a concept in computer science for generating difficult metadata through human computation.
Each participant was paired with a random partner online. Both were shown an image and asked to generate as many labels as possible within 90 seconds. Partners were awarded points when their labels matched — with more specific labels earning higher scores.
Von Ahn estimated that 5,000 simultaneous players could label all Google-indexed images in just two months.
This game is primarily driven by Social Influence & Relatedness (Core Drive 5) — the need to sync with your anonymous partner creates a compelling social dynamic even without direct communication.
Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment also played a role through the scoring system and leaderboards that fueled competition between sessions.
5. Foldit: Solving What Scientists Couldn’t for Over a Decade
Scientists understand how proteins are built from amino acid sequences. But to develop treatments and other solutions, they need to visually understand how proteins fold into 3D structures.
Researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for Game Science turned this challenge into a game called Foldit. Players manipulate basic protein structures — one participant likened the experience to a 3D version of Tetris.
Foldit has produced remarkable scientific breakthroughs:
(1) Players deciphered the structure of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus retroviral protease — an enzyme linked to AIDS research — in just three weeks. According to the University of Washington, this was a problem that had confounded researchers and automated prediction methods for over a decade. The results were published in Nature Chemical Biology in 2011.
(2) Players redesigned the Diels-Alderase enzyme by adding a 13-residue loop structure, achieving an 18-fold increase in catalytic efficiency. This was published in Nature Biotechnology in 2012.
The motivation behind Foldit is propelled by White Hat Core Drives:
- Epic Meaning & Calling (CD1) — participation can lead to genuine scientific breakthroughs
- Development & Accomplishment (CD2) — the satisfaction of unraveling protein structures
- Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (CD3) — solving puzzles by exploring different structural possibilities
- Ownership & Possession (CD4) — players take pride in the structures they generate and can share expertise in groups
- Social Influence & Relatedness (CD5) — competition among players provides motivation for creative solutions
What Crowdsourcing + Gamification Teaches Us
From these examples, a clear pattern emerges. The most successful gamified crowdsourcing initiatives don’t rely on points and badges alone — they tap into deep human motivations.
Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling appears in every single example above. When people believe their actions serve a purpose larger than themselves — finding a missing plane, curing cancer, advancing neuroscience — they willingly perform tedious tasks for hours without compensation.
But Epic Meaning alone isn’t enough. Each successful example combines it with Development & Accomplishment (progress feedback), Social Influence (community and comparison), and often Empowerment of Creativity (meaningful choices within the system).
This is the power of gamification done right — not slapping game mechanics onto boring work, but designing experiences around the Core Drives that make us human.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification? Definition, Examples & Framework
- Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling
- Top 10 Social Products That Use Gamification to Save the World
- Top 10 Education Gamification Examples for Lifelong Learners
- White Hat vs Black Hat Gamification Design
- Books by Yu-kai Chou