Updated 10 November 2026
Gamification is the practice of designing real-world activities with what successful games have learned about human motivation, so that people want to take part in them. In a business, those activities are the desired actions a product depends on: a patient logging medication, a sales rep recording a client visit, a loyalty member trying a partner offer. Good gamification gets people to take those actions and makes the experience around them truly engaging and joyful.
We look at games because people play them in their free time, by choice. They have to go to work, do their taxes and pay their bills. A game they play for leisure has no such hold on them, and the moment it gets boring they drop it and return to the things life requires. A game that keeps its players for years has therefore been designed around human emotions and motivation. We learn from those games, and so we call the work gamification.
Yu-kai Chou, the creator of the Octalysis Framework, and I founded The Octalysis Group in 2013. We have worked from this definition in projects for more than 175 companies since then, from Fortune 500 firms to startups, and the client examples in this article come from that work.
The definition of gamification
The most widely used academic definition comes from Deterding, Dixon, Khaled and Nacke, who in 2011 proposed gamification as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts. It is accurate about what gets used. It leaves open why anyone would behave differently because of those elements.
Yu-kai fills in that part. In Actionable Gamification he writes that “gamification is the craft of deriving fun and engaging elements found typically in games and thoughtfully applying them to real-world or productive activities.” He calls this Human-Focused Design, which “optimizes for human motivation in a system as opposed to optimizing for pure functional efficiency within the system.” People have feelings, ambitions and insecurities, and those decide whether they want to do something. A system built only for functional efficiency assumes they will do it anyway.
For a company, the meaning of gamification is more specific, because the work has to pay off. Yu-kai draws the line in his article on the Strategy Dashboard: “Games are simply fun and engaging, but gamification has to improve Business Metrics, and it has to drive behavior towards a certain productive activity.” There is a business metric the company wants to improve and a set of actions people need to take for that metric to move. The experience has to make people want to take those actions. Sometimes the action is coming back every day. Often it is something else: finishing a course, staying on a treatment, selling a particular product, booking a room. Return frequency is one possible goal among many, and it depends on what the business needs.
The method we use to get there is the Octalysis Framework. It describes eight Core Drives of human motivation and how each one feels to the person experiencing it, and we use it to analyze why people do or don’t take a desired action before we design anything. Because the framework draws on behavioral science, we also call our work behavioral design. Our Octalysis Framework page explains how we apply it, Yu-kai’s complete guide to the Octalysis Framework covers the theory, and our post on the scientific foundations of Octalysis lists the research it builds on.
What gamification is not
Gamification does not mean turning something into a game. Plenty of games are full of game elements and still fail to hold their players, so making a banking app or a sales process look like a game does nothing by itself to make it engaging. The lessons come from the games that hold people for years, and from the reasons they do.
It also does not mean adding game techniques as a layer on top of an existing experience. This is the most common mistake: a team adds points, badges and a leaderboard and expects the experience to become fun and engaging. These mechanics have a place, and they can push people toward an action, especially early in a journey. What makes a game fun for its players usually lies elsewhere: in strategy, in time spent with friends, in difficult challenges they overcame. A company that added points and badges and saw nothing change has tested those mechanics, and has learned little about what a design built around motivation can do. We have argued this since our early articles. In But Where is the Gamification? I wrote that “just adding some points, badges and a leaderboard onto a website does not create engagement”, and Gamification: not only icing on the cake explains why motivation has to be designed into the product from the start and cannot be added once the functionality is finished.
The third misunderstanding is copying. People ask us to make their experience like Duolingo or like Pokémon GO because those are successful, and that doesn’t work. Most people think Duolingo’s success is about the streak. The streak leans on extrinsic, Black Hat design: a visible count of progress and the threat of losing it. Duolingo can rely on it because learning a language is an intrinsic activity that people already want to do. Strava is similar. Cycling and running are already motivating for many people, so measuring routes and comparing results helps them feel more accomplished at something they enjoy, as long as competition isn’t forced on everyone. Put the same streak on an activity people do not enjoy, like accounting or filing taxes, and it very likely fails, because it doubles down on the linearity and the extrinsic core of the activity itself.
How gamification works in a business
Many product teams are very good at making a product look refined, and at making it logical, so that a user gets from A to B to C as efficiently as possible. Just because a product is logical and intuitive, though, doesn’t mean it is engaging long term. People act on motivation, and their motivation changes as they gain experience with a product. A design that relies on reason and stays the same from the first day to the second year leaves that out.
Every gamified experience we design is based on three things:
- The business metrics or objectives we identify together with the client, quantified and in order of importance
- The desired actions people need to take so that the client sees those metrics improve
- Relevant paths for the dominant player types, because not everybody is motivated in the same way
These have to line up. In Octalysis terms, the Win-State in the user’s mind is reached by taking the Desired Action, and the Desired Action improves the Business Metric. A feature idea that users would love still has to answer two questions: how does it motivate a desired action, and how does that action help the metric?
This first step often changes the project. In almost all of our projects, clients discover that they were designing for the wrong thing and that their prioritized metrics need to be revised. Yu-kai uses a simple illustration when he teaches this step. A team that names time on page as its top metric could raise it by putting solitaire on the page, and would achieve nothing the business cares about. Once the real objective is clear, for example fewer bad buying experiences, time on page becomes a means to that end at most. Finding this out before anything is built is what lets a company implement something new with more confidence and less risk. A deeper understanding of users than a set of persona descriptions provides is part of the same gain.
The desired actions are laid out in the order people meet them, including the small ones. Filling in a form or clicking a confirmation button is a step where a person can decide to leave and do something else, so each step deserves a look at what motivates someone to take it.
Player types come from the same analysis. We don’t apply a generic typology. We look at the client’s actual users through a lens that separates them by how they are motivated, for example people focused on efficiency and organization versus people who enjoy the process itself. The dominant types each get a journey that fits them, inside one experience.
What an engaging experience looks like in a serious activity
Logging medication in an app normally feels like admin. If every log taught you something about your condition, showed how other people in your situation behave, or unlocked a mystery reward that reveals new features over time, logging would answer questions you have and give you something to look forward to.
In banking, different users could follow different strategies. Someone who mainly buys gardening supplies could earn bonuses at certain garden shops, so the product rewards what that person already cares about.
Filing taxes is already linear, a progression through forms, and for most people there is a lot of fear in it. More progress bars and more pressure would add to what is already there. We would look at social proof, at letting people discover something interesting about their own situation, and at agency. With Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback, people handle the process in their own way, in a way that counts for them. With Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling, they see how filing helps the wider community reach its goals. The aim is more White Hat and intrinsic motivation, while the extrinsic design that already exists stays in place.
Agency needs some precision. A choice motivates when it has consequences and the person gets feedback on the result, so they can adjust and try again. Changing how something looks can matter to people as self-expression, but it does not by itself give them a strategy to try or a result to learn from. Chess has kept players for centuries with the same board and the same pieces, because the play comes from strategies that players construct and test against each other. Business experiences can use the same principle when they offer several valid ways to reach a goal and show people how their way worked out.
Our work for Navo Orbico, a Procter & Gamble distributor, shows this in a real project. We turned a routine sales process into a journey of captains trading for a shared city-state. Reps upgraded their ships and chose their own strategy for growth. Hitting KPIs earned health points. Those points protected the whole city against mishaps such as an epidemic or a pirate attack, and over time they upgraded it with better towers, bridges and marketplaces. One person’s performance now mattered to their colleagues. The KPIs were group KPIs with an individual target inside them, so personal results and team success pointed the same way. The P&G sales gamification case study reports a 28.6% revenue increase against historical performance and 99.5% adoption in a non-mandatory rollout.
None of these designs uses all eight Core Drives, and no single screen needs to. As Yu-kai puts it, “it is generally better being extremely strong in a few Core Drives, as opposed to having a little bit of everything.” Which drives fit depends on the users, the desired action and where people are in their journey.
Design that changes as people gain experience
Most design does not change over time. Users get more of the same: more points, more badges, more levels. Their motivation does change, so the design has to evolve with the seniority of the user. Octalysis describes four Experience Phases.
Discovery is why someone would want to try the experience at all. It is usually covered by marketing messages, which are often disconnected from the journey that follows.
Onboarding can be quite linear and predictable. People should feel that this is easy, that they can do it and that they came to the right place. It should lead to a first real Win-State, something they achieved and feel proud of. Creating an account and filling in a profile are costs the person pays before that moment, and an onboarding made only of those steps feels like admin after marketing promised a great experience.
Scaffolding is the regular journey of repeated actions. If it stays linear, filling progress bars with actions, it gets stale and starts to feel like work. In this phase we gradually add more intrinsic design: meaningful social collaboration, different strategies for different people, joyful surprises along the way, and more Epic Meaning & Calling. Our work for BitDegree, an online learning platform, is an example. We designed for course completion and student engagement. In place of a linear list of lessons, learning became a path to discover more content in a virtual world where the course pieces lived on a map. The BitDegree case study shows the design.
Endgame is about veterans. When the design has nothing left for them, experienced users can drift away after everything they invested. When it gives them a role, they can become internal and external brand ambassadors: people others want to follow, who help newcomers get started and invite the people they know. Late Scaffolding and Endgame are the phases companies most often ignore.
Our audit of the platform of Astana Hub, the technology park for IT startups in Kazakhstan, found the problem at both ends of the journey. New users had no guided first experience and no early wins. A member of two years was treated the same as one who joined that day, with no way to become a mentor or a content creator. The redesign covered all four phases, and it gave startups that were more active in giving back to the community higher visibility. The Astana Hub case study reports a 504% increase in active users. Our article on the four Experience Phases and player types goes through each phase in more detail.
Urgency, Black Hat design and a way back
The White Hat Core Drives are Epic Meaning & Calling, Development & Accomplishment and Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback. They make people feel capable and in control, and they carry long-term engagement. Their weakness is that they create no urgency. Many people think about getting healthier or learning the guitar for years without starting.
Black Hat design creates that urgency. Its drives are Scarcity & Impatience, Unpredictability & Curiosity and Loss & Avoidance. Black Hat does not mean bad, and it does not mean extrinsic: curiosity about what comes next is Black Hat and intrinsic at once. Yu-kai’s article on White Hat and Black Hat gamification explains the distinction in full. The risk lies in how heavily a design leans on it. The less in control people feel, the more they look for a chance to drop out, and leaving then comes as a relief.
So we use the threat of a loss and always give people a relatively straightforward way back. In the P&G project, a rep who had a weak period could recoup losses with a few clear actions: help colleagues with their sales process, take part in training, or give training themselves. Each of those actions also helped the business.
Urgency fits some situations better than others. The Booking.com case study concerns a traveler who is already comparing hotels and needs to decide. “Only 1 room left on our site!” uses Scarcity & Impatience. “12 people are looking at this property right now” uses Social Influence & Relatedness. The Genius program, with its instant member discounts, uses Ownership & Possession. For a single decision by someone who already intends to book, urgency helps, provided the scarcity is real, because false scarcity destroys trust. In a product people use often, the same pressure on every visit can leave them feeling pushed.
La Quinta’s Play & Stay loyalty campaign balanced urgency with accomplishment. Tokens for plays recharged over time, which is Scarcity & Impatience. Answering quick trivia about La Quinta perks or referring a friend unlocked boosters that doubled scores, so learning about the brand paid off directly in the game, and loyalty points built up in the background. The La Quinta case study reports a 712% sales uplift against the control group.
Implicit and explicit gamification
Some people are still worried by the word gamification, especially in traditional industries like banking and insurance. They take it to mean making things playful.
Look at the LinkedIn profile progress bar. It is a gameful design element that comes from game design, and nobody would call it unserious. It shows a professional how far their profile is from complete. That is implicit gamification: it uses what games know about motivation and does not feel like a game. Duolingo is explicit gamification. It looks and feels like a game, and its users know they are playing. Both can have the same motivational power, because the power comes from the behavioral design underneath. Explicit designs give the designer more creative freedom, and some audiences see them as childish or distracting. If we design for an older target group or a serious topic like banking or insurance, the result will very likely not look gamey.
Gamification examples and what the research finds
Academic research finds positive effects of gamification on average, with results that vary by context. A review of empirical studies by Hamari, Koivisto and Sarsa concluded that gamification provides positive effects that depend greatly on the context and on the users. A meta-analysis of gamification in learning by Sailer and Homner found significant but small average effects on cognitive, motivational and behavioral learning outcomes. In those studies, combining competition with collaboration was particularly effective for behavioral learning outcomes. For a practitioner, the dependence on context is the useful part: a mechanic has to be chosen for specific people, a specific action and a specific phase. Our own projects differ from each other for the same reason.
In loyalty programs, a common problem is that only purchases earn anything. Members who don’t spend have nothing to do, and the journey is linear for those who do. For LATAM Airlines, we analyzed the business metrics and the motivational profiles of LATAM Pass members and replaced standard mileage banners with a treasure hunt through the Latin American jungle. Members explored a map to find hidden treasures, variable rewards kept them curious about the next step, and the educational and mission sections were built around the desired actions from the analysis. The case study reports a 153% increase in credit card acquisitions, a 123% increase in mile accumulation and a 1,407% spike in redemption engagement. Our Porsche loyalty case study covers a different loyalty question: how a car brand gives drivers a reason to engage on the days they are not behind the wheel.
In banking, gamification concerns the journey of customers and of employees. CAIXA Econômica Federal, the Brazilian state-owned bank, needed about 83,000 employees across 4,500 branches behind one sales goal. The Tamo Junto 9Bi+ platform was built on cooperation: a shared national goal, and collectible puzzle pieces earned for individual targets, which colleagues traded with each other to complete sets. The CAIXA case study reports that voluntary participation rose from 10% to 92%, and that the bank’s net income grew 48%, adding about US$1.06 billion. On the customer side, our DBS Bank case study describes journeys built around personal financial goals and choices that fit each customer’s habits.
The CAIXA and P&G designs both tie individual results to a goal the group shares. A piece earned for a personal target is one a colleague may need for a set, and one rep’s health points protect a city that belongs to everyone. People who would never lead a ranking still have a contribution that counts. That is the starting point of our employee engagement work. Where a ranking does fit, the way it is framed decides who it motivates, which is the subject of our article on leaderboards that motivate everyone.
In health and wellbeing, patients can want to be healthy and still find the daily routine of managing a treatment tedious. Sidekick, the app in our Pfizer case study, lets patients track sleep, nutrition and mood alongside their treatment, set their own goals, learn about their condition in short modules, and connect with mentors and peers. The case study reports 30% fewer patient dropouts, with 68% of users still active daily after six months.
The same principles apply in learning and development, where the BitDegree design was built around completing courses, and in digital transformation, where the aim is that people use a new system for the work and the results it was introduced to improve. For HTC VIVE we redesigned the customer journey from social media to the website, eCommerce and support, and added an alternate reality game for VIVE’s VR fans. The HTC VIVE case study reports an 188% increase in eCommerce revenue. The principles also apply to AI products, where an assistant with a limited context window knows little about what motivates each individual user. Our Octalysis AI Engagement Engine is designed to give it that context.
Working with us
A project with us begins with a revision of your objectives: whether they are prioritized well, and whether the design focuses on the right business metrics, desired actions and player types. From there we develop a detailed human-focused design strategy for the whole journey, which your team can implement. Our behavioral design and gamification services page describes the areas we work in.
Most of these conversations start with someone who leads product, marketing or innovation, and at a startup often with the CEO. Their product is polished and easy to use, and it still does not produce the behavior the business needs. Customers sign up and stop, loyalty members only show up when they spend, or employees avoid a system the company invested in. If you recognize that situation, Contact Us and tell us which action you need people to take.
