1. Introduction

There is gamification almost everywhere in our daily life. We are not even aware of some of these gamifications. These are successful gamifications. If you are interested in gamification and want to produce content with gamification, this content may be of interest to you. In this guide, we will talk about what gamification is, its history, elements of gamification and its uses and successful examples in different industries. Here you can see what the capabilities of gamified interactive videos are.

2. What is gamification?


It is the game mechanics and logic used to increase the motivation of individuals or users and to ensure their success in a certain subject by adding them to the existing processes of a non-game area. It is the use of many of the elements of the game in a different field outside the game. It enables people or users to interact and increase their motivation towards a certain goal. In this way, the expected behavior change in users is expected to be sustainable and long-term. Interacting is an important point here. In a place where there is no interaction, there is no gamification. Gamification can be used in digital and non-digital environments.

3. History of gamification 


Johan Huizinga (1938) described the play as one of the common characteristics of people in his book "Homo Ludens". He also says that the game is as old as human history.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification


The term gamification was first used by Nick Pelling in 2002. Nick Pelling is a game designer. There are some opinions that the idea of ​​gamification is not new. However, it was 2010 when gamification started to be heard a lot and became popular. With the development of technology and the popularization of gamification, it has been used in many sectors. One of the reasons why gamification is being used so widely is to provide the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of the individual. With the development of technology, stimuli and contents have increased, nowadays, attention can be easily distracted and motivation decreases. Gamification can offer an individualized gamified follow-up and development plans with developing technology. Gamification is almost integrated in many areas of life, increasing the motivation of the individual, encouraging and supporting their development. Here, one of the most basic points that provide motivation is to make the things that the individual does / should do fun. Nowadays, almost everything we do and want to do is gamification. It is ensured that the work that is difficult to do or lazy is sustainable by making it fun. As an example, we can show daily exercise. Exercise applications that we can easily use on mobile devices provide them to us.


These are not the only goals of gamification. At the same time, it aims to develop feelings such as ownership, empowerment, success, social impact, avoidance. 

4. Elements of gamification


There are elements that make the functions of the game process work in gamification. At the same time, there are elements that allow the player to interact with the game thanks to the mechanics in the game. In Werbach's Pyramid, these gamification elements are distributed as follows.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification

Dynamics

  • Limitations
  • Emotions
  • Fiction
  • Progress
  • Relationships

Mechanics

  • Difficulty
  • Chance
  • Cooperation
  • Competition
  • Feedback
  • Awards
  • Shopping
  • Status
  • Desk
  • Resource Acquisition


Components

  • Success
  • Avatar
  • Badges
  • Leaderboard
  • Levels
  • Points
  • Teams
  • Virtual Gifts
  • Accessing Content
  • Collections
  • Adventure
  • War
  • Gift
  • Struggle
  • Social Graphics


If you intend to use gamification in your content, you can research these elements and their uses in detail.

5. Industrial transformation on gamification


Gamification has started to be used frequently in industrial areas such as health, sports, finance and marketing. The most important technology that provides this is the development and facilitation of many areas of life. Looking at the history of gamification, its industrial development can be easily understood. Advanced technology and newly popularized gamification were an opportunity for industries. Companies that use this opportunity very well continue to be remembered with their innovative and pioneering aspects in this field. This situation is not specific to gamification. Think about the innovations that come up with technology. Among them, there are some sound and unusual innovations. The companies or industries that first integrate these innovations into their systems will continue to be remembered if they have achieved success in this regard. They also become pioneers. Correct timing is extremely important in this regard.


Another important point is that imagination can now be realized with gamification. Gamification designs and technology turn the imagination into reality. The reason is very simple. There is now access to technical competencies and gamification know-how.

6. Points to consider before designing gamification in industries


Gamification is undoubtedly an important and effective element for industries. However, gamification in the industrial sector may encounter some difficulties. We would like to share some previously experienced challenges with you. Thus, it will be easier for you to consider these points before constructing gamification.

  • It may be desirable to use gamification within an industry. If you want to use gamification for a long-established and large company, the gamification you will probably build will also have a large structure. In such a case, you need to think in detail about the structures and elements you want to include in gamification before creating the gamification design. This is because when you design gamification gamification with a big structure and you realize that there are some missing cornerstones, things can get a little messy.
  • You should be careful when using the gamification components, which are monetization and gifts. If you do not use these gamification components carefully and in a balanced way, you may cause too much competition among your users and colleagues. This competition will be sweet at first, but things may change in the future.
  • If you intend to add gamification to all business processes, be sure you want to do so. Because for this, a great study needs to be planned and implemented. Instead, do your first gamification design part of the business process first. Thus, you will have information about the process of gamification design.
  • You should be careful when using the scoring system. Because your employees may start trying too hard for points after a while and therefore their intrinsic motivation may decrease. Therefore, although extrinsic motivations are necessary for gamification, they should be used in a balanced way. At the same time, it is not mandatory to use all gamification elements in a gamification material. While setting up gamification, you should consider what the needs are and focus on why designing gamification material is desired.
     

7. Engagement & learning, focus benefits on gamification


Sometimes it is not easy to acquire the desired behavior. Sometimes, even if a behavior is acquired, it may not become a regular habit. This is a situation that almost everyone experiences in different subjects. Especially today, with the development of technology, we are exposed to a lot of stimulants. Exposure to too much stimulation can cause a loss of motivation. Losing motivation can make things even more difficult when it is currently difficult to win and maintain certain behaviors. The fact that we are faced with too much content has led us to be more selective about the contents. This situation became valid for every field. That's why content producers try to be very careful about this. Producing engaging content has become a trend. Content should be engaging, entertaining, and motivating.
Let's go back to the topic of gaining behavior. Sometimes we need support (friend, mobile apps, inspirational videos and books, challenge) to gain a certain behavior. In today's conditions, the need for support has increased enormously. Gamification comes into play here.

Gamification can make people gain a habit in a fun and motivating way. It is a good supporter in this regard. That's why gamification is used in every field nowadays. By attracting the attention of users/people, it makes the behavior that needs to be gained or the subjects to be learned fun. Being interesting allows users to focus on relevant content. Since the content is fun, it is no longer a difficult task to overcome. So the logic is pretty simple.

8. Use case


Marketing


You can make your customers' shopping experiences more enjoyable. You can design gamification for each of the platforms you reach your customers. Whether your customers are at your store or shopping online, it doesn't matter. The first thing to do is determine why you want to use gamification. You can do it for fun advertising, or to increase your customers' purchases. We can give Starbucks' mobile application as an example. Customers who buy a number of coffee determined by Starbucks have the right to a gift of coffee and can use this coffee right whenever they want. Likewise, it encourages the use of the app. New users are entitled to a gift of coffee if they download the app and register. Within this gamification design, the customer can win awards, stars. Thanks to all these, it encourages customers and enables them to be permanent customers.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification
You can attract the attention of your customers and potential customers who come to the store, the fair with interactive videos. You can present a short entertainment by interacting with the interactive video. In these videos, you can ask questions about your brand or industry. To win the hearts of successful people, you can give them a small gift. You can be sure that there will be hours of fun for both you and your customers. You can also win the hearts of your potential customers.
You can see a successful example of Cinema8 on this subject below. 

Education


LMS should be the first to come to mind when it comes to gamification in education. Although not valid for all LMS, some LMS allow gamification design editing. If you are training your users on certain subjects with an LMS, we are sure that you need gamification. Sometimes users need to be encouraged to complete their training. You will also want to learn about the training they have completed and their exam scores. You can use gamification designs that fit your needs like this. Give your users badges for their completed training, add leaderboards within the LMS, define tasks, and award rewards for completed tasks.


Make your content fun. To achieve this, you can turn your training videos into interactive gamification videos. Interactive videos allow you to use gamification in videos. Give points, make the video go to the next level when the video is completed, organize competitions, add fun. You can do many gamification you want with interactive videos. Moreover, some interactive video platforms can be integrated with LMS.

Gamified interactive movies


With interactive movies, you can make your audience a part of your movie. You can mobilize your audience about the topics you want to think about or participate in. It is quite easy to include gamification in interactive video. You can include the gamification elements you want in the movies. Interactive videos make this possible.


If your movie is about the journey of a protagonist who saves the world, you can make your audience be the protagonist. You can let your audience find the right steps to save the world on this challenging journey. You can race the viewer against time, you can assign tasks at certain levels. As the tasks are completed, he can move on to the next task. You can make it find the items it needs to save the world in the movie. After collecting all the items, he can set out for the last mission. This is just an example of fiction. You can edit your gamified interactive movie as you wish. This makes you pretty free. Thanks to gamified interactive movies, your goals may be different. You may want to entertain your audience, or let them learn while having fun. As you wish.


We can cite Life Saver as an example prepared on this subject. A good example of how to do first aid and what to pay attention to. It's a short movie. If you wish, you can experience the movie by clicking on the image below.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification

If you wish, you can visit the website and examine other examples.

Business


You can support your employees in many ways with gamification. As we mentioned above, you can add gamification to your employees' in-house training through interactive videos. In this way, you can make the in-house trainings taken after working hours fun. You can motivate your employees with gamification designs. You can also encourage business processes.


You can give fun orientation training to your new employees in your company with interactive videos. In this training, you can give gifts, use the points system and integrate all these with the LMS.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification

Entertainment

Entertainment videos are frequently consumed nowadays. Short entertainment videos on many subjects, including different concepts, are watched and produced. The most-watched video types among these; product review, how-to videos, vlog, comedy, game videos, make-up videos, cooking videos, advice videos, memes videos, best list videos, box opening videos, question & answer videos, training videos, and joke videos. The interactive versions of these videos are liked by the audience and the participation rates are increasing.
Video production companies make these videos interactive and bring them together with their audience. The interactive nature of the entertainment videos invites the audience to participate in the video. Beyond that, there are also those who add gamification design to interactive videos. We can show Hadi Live as a success story in this regard. They offer interactive videos in different concepts to their users within the mobile application. At the same time, almost all of these interactive videos contain gamification. They manage this gamification well through their mobile application.

Hadi is a platform of gamified interactive entertainment videos. From here, you can easily register and browse through their videos.

9. Interactivity types on video content for gamification


Mission:

You can define roles for your users. The setup here is entirely up to you. Let him choose among tasks if you want, or let him switch to another after finishing one task.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification

Level:

Allow the user to level up when the tasks are completed or when they reach sufficient points. Determine the condition to level up.

Timer:

Define a time for a task or question. What will happen if the task is completed within the specified time? Or what happens if the time runs out before completing the task? Identify these critical points.

Score:

You can show the point system in any part of the gamification design. You can add a score bar to the gamification interface. After each task, you can show the last score status as feedback. The same is true for questions. You can assign points to the behavior you want in gamification.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification

Feedback:

You can give feedback to the user at any time, under any condition you want. This feedback can be written, verbal, or visual.

Avatar:

Make a few different avatar designs. Let your user choose the avatar they want. You can even design the gamification journey of each avatar differently if you want.

Competitions:

Each user gets their own gamification experience. You can see the results of the competitions you add in gamification in the reporting area.

Difficulty:

You can set different levels of difficulty. The user can choose the level of difficulty he wants. For this, you can design gamification for each difficulty level. You can also assign different difficulty levels to each task.

Badges:

Make the user earn badges when tasks are completed.

Fiction:
You can create different fiction according to your gamification design. The only limitation is your imagination. 

10. Create the right  content for gamification


Gamification design


We mentioned before that you can design gamification in the interactive video as you wish. What we will talk about here is creating the right content.
One of the things you need to know before designing gamification is needs. Identifying the needs is an important step.

  • What will be the purpose/objectives of gamification?
  • Before starting a gamification design, check out the forward gamification models. Choose the gamification model that is right for you. Examining models can help you understand gamification.
  • Check out different examples of gamification from different industries. Doing this will make you freer when designing your gamification.
  • What gamification elements will you need to achieve these goals?
  • It will be useful to review this step after determining the gamification elements. Make sure you don't use the elements you don't need. Because there is a fine line here. The use of elements that are not normally needed can tire the gamification design. It may also seem pointless to your users. All elements must have context.
  • You may need to integrate some content of your gamified interactive video into your system. For this, you can contact the relevant persons.
  • Set limitations for the user. While these limitations make the content more enjoyable, it also creates a challenge. The design here is entirely yours.
  • How will which element will be used in the interactive video gamified? How will the system work? Identify them.
  • After these steps, complete the editing of your video and then write your script.
  • After completing your script, prepare the storyboard of the created design. Creating a storyboard allows you to notice where you need to fix it. You can see the overlooked points, deficiencies, and mistakes in storyboard design. This minimizes the problems you may encounter during the production and post-production phases of your project. So you won't waste unnecessary time.
  • After completing the storyboard stage without any problems, you can proceed to the post-stage. After the post and post-production phase is completed, you can make your gamified video interactive.
  • Another point to be mentioned here is the capabilities of the platform where you will prepare your interactive content. Once you have your gamification design in mind, choose your platform. Because in order to move on to the next step, you need to learn the capabilities of the platform and continue to design accordingly.


Platform capabilities;

  • Jumping from any second of the video to another,
  • Adding buttons in the video,
  • Using a point system,
  • To be able to design random developments within the video in order to use the chance element of gamification.
  • Creating a contest with questions,
  • Designing questions on interactive points,
  • Redirecting to any link within the video,
  • Receiving written feedback in the video,
  • To be able to use a countdown tool at any second of the video,
  • Ability to calculate all selections in the video and direct them to different finals according to the branching structure of the video,
  • Keeping score within the video.


These are only examples. For more complex structures, you can get detailed information by contacting the authorities of your interactive video platform or by examining the websites.

11. Analysing video insight & content consumption rates, ROI on gamification contents


Why are statistics needed in gamified content?


In the simplest terms, check if your interactive gamified videos are watched.

  • Find out what scores they gave to which questions in the video.
  • Find out if the videos are complete.
  • Find out how many of the tasks you've given have been completed in the videos.
  • Find out how competitions turn out.
  • Obtain information such as your users' country, device, browser, access date.
  • Measure marketing and customer data.
  • Measure your users' orientation.

These will be more of good feedback for your gamification experience. It will also give you good insight.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification

Make your users' gamification experience better.


Having detailed reporting of your gamified interactive videos gives you many advantages. Most importantly, you can improve your gamification experience. The feedback you will receive through reporting will guide you in this regard.

  • You can prepare forms for users as part of gamification. Prepare the form questions the way you want and collect feedback.
  • Observe the preferences and orientations of the users in gamification.
  • Find out what tasks your users prefer to do.
  • You can see all the movements of your users in the gamified interactive video. You can use the data you obtain for the purpose of gamification.
  • With this data, you can find out if your gamification is working well.
  • At the same time, you can have the opportunity to improve your gamification experience in line with user preferences.
  • It will be a guide for other gamification you want to design.


The best feedback is user experience.

12. Measure, analyze, and optimize 


You can learn the orientation of your audience to the issues and choices in gamification and create insight. Besides, you can get much more detailed reports.

Interactive Content Developers Guide for Gamification


Have all the data about your audience.

Cinema8 provides very detailed information on the analytics of your gamified interactive videos.

You can find out in which country and city people your interactive video gamified is watched more. You can see the location of each of your users. Moreover, not just that. You can also see through which device your viewers participate in gamification. You can see in which country it was watched at what times and how many seconds the gamification was watched. You can find out which parts of gamification each viewer has experienced and how many times. You can see the original views and interactions rate of your gamification. You can learn the date of access and define user-specific access links. You can add validity date and number of views to user-specific access links.

You can also integrate Cinema8 with your own system. In this way, many user data can move with your system.

13. Tools & platforms


Interactive video production platforms and tools have started to serve for users who want to make gamified interactive video themselves and for customers who want to make gamified interactive videos.

Some of them offer you platforms where you can make your own gamified interactive videos, some of them are agencies that make your interactive videos. If you wish, you can examine the companies that provide these services. Here are some of these companies;

  1. Articulate Storyline 360
  2. Wirewax
  3. Rapt
  4. Eko
  5. HapYak
  6. HiHaHo
  7. Engajer
  8. Vizia
  9. Verse
  10. Vidzor
  11. Multipop