From Gamification to Game-based: Creating Applications that Retain Users

In recent years, the concept of "gamification" seems to have lost its appeal. Many early developers used gamification elements in ways that did not align with user interests. Although this temporarily increased user engagement, most failed to retain users in the long term. The reason for the failure of these projects lies in the neglect of the core principles behind excellent game design - user retention.

The reason successful video games can attract users to play for a long time is that their game mechanics align with the intrinsic motivations of the users. By establishing feedback loops, educating, and rewarding users, these games provide a long-term path to becoming a "master gamer."

Today, many outstanding applications have integrated these game design principles into their core product design. These game-like experiences provide users with enjoyment and cultivate long-term usage habits. This category encompasses many popular modern applications across various fields, including productivity, social networking, finance, mental health, and education.

Motivation, Mastery, and Feedback

Although there are various frameworks for "what is a game," most people agree on three core principles:

Motivation: Why do people want to play your game? Mastery: What are the rules and systems of the game? Feedback: How will users learn these rules?

motivation

Most game designers today agree with self-determination theory, which posits that behavior can be driven by intrinsic or extrinsic motivation.

External motivation comes from outside, such as monetary rewards or commands from others.

Intrinsic motivation stems from innate psychological needs, such as autonomy ( the desire to have control over one's life ), competence ( the desire to control outcomes ), and relatedness ( the desire to connect with others ).

Most games focus on intrinsic motivation, considering it the most effective and long-lasting driving force for behavior. Taking the opening of the classic sci-fi action game "Mega Man X" as an example, the game stimulates the user's intrinsic motivation by setting two goals: to become as powerful as Zero and to defeat Vile. These goals constitute the game's "victory conditions" and are motivating because they directly enhance the user's sense of competence and autonomy.

More importantly, users are motivated to keep playing without the need for any gamification tricks. Users are committed to achieving their self-set goals, and the game provides them with the tools to achieve those goals. This aligns the product with their intrinsic needs.

This is a key principle that many gamified applications fail to grasp. Instead, they see the accumulation of badges or points as the goal itself. Without the support of intrinsic needs, these mechanisms will ultimately become superficial external motivators, quickly leading users to feel bored.

proficient

Cognition is the second key principle of game design. A player motivated to pursue victory conditions is ready to learn the game rules. In the case of Mega Man X, these rules include the control scheme ( for how to run and shoot ) as well as the behavior of enemies. These rules show players how to win: progressively moving towards mastery.

Mastery is an important component of every activity, related to the intrinsic need for ability. People want to improve their skills during the process of engaging in activities, whether it's learning a new sport or playing a game. Of course, they also expect the process of mastery to be fair, with progress based on skill and choice rather than luck.

Game designers often struggle to find the right balance of difficulty, making sure it's neither too hard nor too easy. A well-designed game can create a flow state, in which users are fully focused on the present, and time flies.

The same goes for non-gaming products. For example, painting landscapes or playing challenging pieces on the guitar often also leads to a state of flow.

Combining intrinsic motivation with a balanced mastery path is crucial for maintaining learning effectiveness. As long as the rules are fair and the goals seem achievable, users who reach a certain level in a game or activity are likely to persist. A common mistake made by gamified applications is that they celebrate the use of systems for tracking mastery levels, such as levels, experience, and badges, without providing any real challenges or mastery pathways.

feedback

Feedback is the third key design principle, which is how users learn the rules of the game/product.

The best games teach through repeated cycles with clear causal relationships, such as Super Mario teaching users through the feedback loop of death.

The game starts with an enemy, Goomba, appearing in the first level. If Goomba touches Mario, he will die and restart at the beginning of the level, only going back 3 seconds. This brief and harmless loop encourages users to try again until they discover that they can jump over or onto Goomba.

The iterative loop also provides positive feedback to users for taking the correct actions. In Candy Crush Saga, a spectacular explosion effect occurs to celebrate when players match 3 candies of the same color. The game also incorporates randomness, allowing users to be surprised by unexpected outcomes. When users chain matched candies together, they appear stacked on the screen, with design effects that are so fast they can be hard to track, such as delightful moments of surprise like fireworks, fish, and lightning.

The best designers often assume that users will not read the manual, but instead design products in a learn-by-doing approach, setting up iterative feedback loops along the way. These loops help guide users on their journey to mastery, ultimately achieving their goals. Few gamified applications can establish feedback loops as naturally as the examples mentioned above.

Game-like, not gamified

For many years, the three core design principles of motivation, mastery, and feedback ( MMF ) have extended far beyond the realm of games. In the 1990s, these principles were incorporated into human-centered design by the renowned design firm IDEO. Today, many of the most popular consumer products and enterprise applications apply MMF in their core design.

Games and Social

Many popular social networks are actually gamified applications. Apps like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok directly leverage users' intrinsic motivations. Users express themselves by creating stories ( autonomy ), and in the process, establish connections with others ( relatedness ). There is even an optional mastery path, as users can strive to attract followers and receive feedback in the form of likes.

Clubhouse, as a relatively new application, further embraces serendipity in its core design. The app creates enjoyable moments by allowing users to enter live rooms, reproducing the feeling of "bumping into" friends. Top Clubhouse speakers can host other users or enhance their public speaking skills and accomplishments.

It is worth noting that these social applications have abandoned the use of points or badges, yet they can still maintain a strong long-term user retention, which is a hallmark of gamified experiences.

Games and Work

Recently, a batch of new generation productivity software has emerged, resembling games more than tools. Repl.it( is a browser-based IDE) and Figma( is a collaborative design tool), both introducing multiplayer modes for coding and design. Developers can work in real-time, comment, and learn from each other, and this "human element" makes these software more interesting than the previous single-user operation.

The email application Superhuman is also a game-like example. Under the leadership of former game designer Rahul Vohra, Superhuman sets a goal for users – to achieve an empty inbox, providing fine control and inbox rules to help users complete the process. When users reach a "zero" inbox, Superhuman displays a beautiful, high-definition nature landscape image that changes daily. At the bottom of the image, Superhuman also tracks the number of days users have reached a "zero" inbox, reinforcing the path to mastery.

Games and Mental Health

Forest is a gamified productivity and mental health application with over 6 million paying users, turning the act of staying focused into a game.

Users start their focus training by planting a tree. This tree grows while the user is working, and if the user leaves the application before the time is up, the tree will wither.

A withered tree is a negative visual feedback that discourages users from getting distracted, such as by handling social media or emails. Successfully maintaining focus will nourish a tree that users can plant in their personal forest, and the lushness of the forest can showcase the user's achievements and duration of focus. ( This is also a path to mastery. ).

Over time, Forest hopes to establish long-term user habits around "presence" and "mindfulness."

Games and Finance

A certain bank's automatic savings account has turned saving money into a game. The bank sets a clear goal for users: to save money, and has designed a complete set of processes to help users achieve this goal.

The bank debit card will round transactions to the nearest dollar and automatically transfer the savings amount to the savings account. This savings amount is different for each transaction and is highlighted in color in the feedback on the application's home page, providing users with unexpected moments of joy when they open the app.

By adding randomness to its design, the bank has made the traditionally tedious task of reviewing bank statements interesting.

This positive feedback loop reinforces savings goals and helps users develop good habits on the path to mastering saving. Over time, users may even be motivated to save outside of this bank.

Games and Fitness

Zombies, Run and Strava are similar personal fitness applications that make running and cycling more fun.

Zombies is an audio application where users play as survivors in a zombie outbreak. Zombies motivates users to run by having them complete goal-oriented tasks, such as finding supplies or escaping zombies. Users win by running at a certain speed or distance. The application tracks every run and sends daily progress reports via email, celebrating milestones at different distances and the completion of tasks.

Strava adopts a goal-setting and feedback loop similar to Zombies, with added social connections. Strava maintains leaderboards for users' running or cycling activities, allowing users to see their progress relative to their peers. As users run faster, they see themselves rise in real-time on the leaderboard. In fact, the leaderboard itself does not have intrinsic motivational value, but it works well in Strava because competition is a natural activity, and users want to measure themselves against their peers.

Games and Education