Gamification is already here, operators just need to harness it

You may not have realised this, but the core concept of gamification has been embedded into our day-to-day lives. It’s entwined in everything we do.

Allow us for a moment to shatter some home truths: That game you always play on your phone, you know the one we’re talking about. You don’t even need to look for it when you unlock your device, muscle memory does all the work for you – we bet it’s got levelling rewards built in it. How about when you’ve left an online review or booked a hotel through a site, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve collected badges to help boost your next booking or even received some secret privileged reduced prices. And to no surprise here, even the world’s most renowned coffee shops have gamification through their apps – it’s brilliant and again, there’s no doubt it’s ringing a few familiar bells.

This is the fantastic thing about gamification, it’s there to make whatever we do a great deal more fun. It can motivate, educate and boost business. So, on to the big question; how do we use gamification correctly?

Keep reading on and not only will you find out the answer, but you’ll collect 5 points for every minute you spend on this article. Read it till the end to double up your points, recall the casino brand and my name, and you’ll land yourself an extra 10,000 points – this is gamification!

If fitness brands can use their tech wear to build a points system to help motivate you reach your goals, then it should come as no surprise that online casino games do just the same to entice and provide a better user gaming experience.

This has been slowly happening over the past 10 years, where gamification has infiltrated all areas of the online gaming industry. It started simply enough with game mechanics, where outcomes, combinations thereof, or user choices would open the door to further levels of rewards in a single game. I mean, you see this in ‘Max Quest’, ‘Dream Catcher’ and ‘Dwarfs Gone Wild’.

Wanting a piece of the action, game providers of course added their take on this. They sprinkled their own meta-layer of gamification by introducing virtual coins, tokens and tournaments that could be used or redeemed across multiple games, in a successful attempt to create a retention ecosystem. Now that’s user engagement.

It’s a gamble that’s paid off immensely, but it doesn’t just stop there. “Gamified” gambling sites are popping on our radar on a weekly basis. The team at River has first-hand experience on how gamification is affecting user behaviour and there is no doubt this premise is solid.

You’d think that it all ends there, and anyone would say that’s a pretty big achievement, but we’ve only just lifted the lid on gamification. Let’s think bigger, better and bolder, let’s dream for a moment and really find out where gamification can take us.

We at River believe the right triggers supported by the right technology – and by that, mean a tech stack brought through not as an afterthought, but as an integral part of an end-user experience – will unleash something new, fresh and dare we say it, brave. So why not have a world where gamification uses AI to its fullest potential. Where personalisation, recommendations, UX, UI and aligned motivation mechanics will combine to create a world where no two experiences are alike.

Now doesn’t that sound perfect, and I’m sure you won’t have to wait long to get this. We’re talking about a rock-solid tech platform, with a heavily integrated data engine that will carefully understand what each player wants. It’s simple really, and we think 2019 will be the year this happens.