It’s that time of year to look into the trend predictions crystal ball of data analysis. Having scanned through the latest reports on the gamification industry, the findings are quite contradictory. Some reports indicate a decline in growth by 2021 and others predict a steady 30% growth, either way reports do agree that it is now a multi-billion dollar industry.

Hype is over

First trend that we notice is that the crazy hype around gamification has passed. Hype tends to come with ridiculous claims and a lot of people jumping on the band wagon, because it is “The” thing to do. It means that people who are actively looking to invest in gamification are now coming from a more educated viewpoint and really see it as a solution that may work for them rather than a way of keeping up with the hip trends.

In fact Gartner, who predicted at the peak of the hype that most gamification projects would fail due to bad design, is now saying it sees companies introducing gamification as part of a larger digital transformation and innovation program. From our perspective, I find it a positive that the serious buyers will become more serious and that also means a lot of hype sellers will disappear, which makes room for those of us providing solutions that are working and sustainable for clients.

(…)

This article is a large excerpt from the one published by An Coppens on Gamification Nation, which you can read the full by clicking here

Gamification of HR

Several reports state that the next growth area for gamification is the field of Human Resources and HRTech in general. In my personal opinion, HR Tech has been the poor unfortunate sibling when it comes to major innovation investment. Typically the likes of Fintech and other areas with deeper pockets and larger budgets, seem to attract innovation far ahead of HR. Saying that, we have noticed a distinct increase in enquiries in this field and concur with the HR experts that there is a definite increase in appetite in this area. Josh Bersin from Deloitte pointed out that gamification in HR would span across several business processes and not just simply applied to learning. As part of a digitalisation strategy for the HR process, gamification fits right in; especially when you want to put employees at the centre of the process. Employee engagement strategies include elements of gamification especially around skills evidence based recruitment, feedback, performance management and increasingly well-being and benefits. It is our area of focus for the coming year, and also what we have been working with since the beginning of the company, so speak to us around your objectives and we will tell you how we can assist.

(…)

Artificial intelligence is dipped into

Gamification platforms and engines are slow to dip their toes into adjacent technologies, but the first movers are starting to come up. Recommendation algorithms have been around in marketing and customer engagement for some time, typically they haven’t used gamification to work but they are going there, which is why gamification platforms (just like learning management systems, CRM’s and other enterprise softwares) are also venturing into adding recommendation style algorithms to their solutions. Some of the early day gamification engines are being left behind and newer faster adapting solutions are coming out. I am looking forward to the day where chatbots, or other AI team members work alongside us to educate and motivate us, my guess is that they will be better than humans over time at this too (but it won’t happen in 2018 yet).

Growing number of niche solutions & price points

Gamification platforms used to be limited to a handful that would stand up as an enterprise worthy software solution for enterprise budgets. However more and more niche platforms addressing a business process element are coming out each week. In the last 6 months, we were approached by at least one new vendor a month, if not more. We also found when looking for solutions for our clients that nearly for each specific problem there were some ready made apps as well as possibilities with existing and emerging platforms. We see the big players having to fight harder to maintain their position and niche solutions playing a bigger role. From a buying perspective it also means that the price points are becoming more affordable albeit potentially with some functionality limitations. Integration with existing software tools in the corporate sector continues to be in high demand. Hence being listed on major ERP platform stores is advantageous, whilst it doesn’t guarantee sales it does reduce the perception of risk involved from a buyers perspective.

Mobile first

Asian, Middle Eastern and African markets, where mobile is often the first device that allows for online interactions, are driving growth of gamified application development in these markets. The request is not only simply a mobile solution, but equally gamified at the same time. Mobile application development in these markets is fast and many niche applications are finding their way to the rest of the world. Multi-national organisations are also more and more developing branded specific apps to serve a purpose for clients and employees. Being able to deploy your gamification strategy and platform on mobile is a key going forward. If we look at any commuter train or bus, the use of mobile devices is all around us, so no surprise really gamification is increasingly mobile.

(…)

To conclude is the market growing or declining? Well we see the hype as dying  but the market and growth opportunity for gamification still in a healthy place. The need for research to back up the claims made by vendors and evidence in numbers is still in it’s infancy. The challenge here is always when you have multiple game mechanics at play, which ones are the ones making the difference and it also makes studies maybe not so comparable. In short we have a growing market, with a need for more research and evidence to sustain it over time.

This article is a large excerpt from the one published by An Coppens on Gamification Nation, which you can read the full by clicking here