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Dmitry Prostov spoke about what habits are now “gamified”, what this trend leads to, as well as about the pros and cons of the game approach in mastering skills.
About the Author: Dmitry Prostov is the founder and CEO of Mobi-Soft startup studio.
The gamification market is now actively developing. According to MarketsandMarkets, a research firm, it will grow by about a quarter annually over the next five years, rising from $9,1 billion today to $30,7 billion by 2025. This growth can be explained by the fact that the gaming format of learning is beginning to spread actively in all industries, including EdTech.
The latest powerful trend is the gamification of habits: there are more and more applications that help develop and consolidate useful everyday skills.
Why is gamification necessary in everyday life?
Despite some skepticism on the part of society regarding the benefits of games for adults, they continue to perform an educational function. At the moment, VR simulators are considered the pinnacle of the development of gamification technologies. Gradually, they become part of training programs for many professions – from collectors to pilots, from sales assistants to miners.
According to the experience of EdTech, the game format is more motivating to study than a traditional course. This is evidenced by numerous surveys and studies. With this thesis, for example, 67% of students at the University of Utah agreed. Gamification effectively solves the problem of low self-discipline and motivation. In a survey by online learning platform TalentLMS, 89% of respondents admitted that they would rather complete a task if it was given in a playful way. According to software company Anadea, motivation based on gaming tools nearly doubles engagement rates.
Just as gamification helps to hone professional competencies, it also forms good habits. At the same time, she copes with the main problem of their acquisition, excluding long-term self-control. Indeed, in order to bring the action to automatism, a person has to regularly repeat it for a certain period of time. A study sponsored by University College London found that it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit.
The application takes over the functions of reminder and control, stimulating the performer with a reward. Progress indicators, achievements (“achievements”), accrual of the application’s internal currency, leaderboards, etc. are used as incentives. According to game solutions developer Bravon, users of gamified apps value gaming strategies most of all, such as moving to the next level, earning points, quick feedback (informing about achievements in real time). However, bonuses in the form of virtual currency attract them the least.
The main directions of gamification of habits
Practice shows that many aspects of daily activities can be dressed in a game form. Consider the main habits that can be formed with the help of gamification.
One of the ever-growing problems in modern society is procrastination, or putting things off until later. Applications such as Epic Win, Challenge Timer, SuperBetter, Forest App allow you to control the achievement of short-term and long-term goals, while rewarding the user for their achievement. The person himself defines the tasks, writes them down and marks them as “completed”. Some platforms also allow you to achieve in-game goals with friends. For example, in Habitica, an application with over 2 million users, after completing personal tasks, participants can kill monsters and advance to the next game level.
Platforms help develop self-discipline and concentration. So, for example, the Challenge Timer is based on the Pomodoro method (a time management technique in which large tasks are divided into segments) and there is no “pause” button. As a result, the user has to complete the task without interruption, otherwise he will be defeated. In the Forest App, progress is displayed in the form of a growing tree, and a person risks “killing” it if he is distracted by other applications (for example, social networks).
A healthy lifestyle is gradually becoming mainstream, it is an important component of the mindset of millennials, which cannot always be said about other generations. For example, according to estimates by the US Department of Health and Human Services, more than 80% of adolescents in the world do not exercise enough.
There is an opinion that it is easier to lead a healthy lifestyle with like-minded people. This policy is followed by Fitocracy, an application that gives rewards for exercising and compiling the right diet. Real progress is reflected on the platform in the form of achievements, completed quests and moving to a new level. In addition, a professional trainer helps to create a personal training plan, depending on personal desires and characteristics.
It is difficult to stick to it, especially for beginners. In our country, almost 40% of customers of food delivery services prefer American fast food, among generation Z the percentage is even higher – more than half. Many applications are focused on combating bad eating habits. For example, Lifesum offers a healthy meal plan to choose from, shares recipes, and allows you to find out the nutritional value of a product by a barcode. The application plans a diet for one to three weeks for various goals: from losing weight to improving overall well-being. Points are awarded for completing the diet.
Trackers allow you to track progress and maintain a daily balance of necessary products. Some platforms that are similar in functionality are synchronized with fitness bracelets – for example, Yazio.
Foreign languages have long moved from the category of narrow skills to the category of a useful hobby for keeping the intellect in good shape. The problem is that the level of motivation of people who learn languages “for themselves” is rather low. So, according to the British virtual university of open education The Open University, only one third of the users of foreign language learning platforms use them regularly, as planned educational sessions. To boost engagement, apps have started adding gamification. The first was the Lingualeo platform, where the student, completing tasks, received points and increased his rating.
In recent years, smartphone apps have emerged with a wide range of foreign languages, such as DuoLingvo and Busuu. The element of gamification in them is quite simple – reaching new levels of language proficiency. MindSnacks has gone one step further and turned learning into an animated game. Designed in the style of the famous Angry Birds game, the platform uses effective techniques to maximize the memory of new words. Users can track progress on the dashboard.
Motivational games are an uptrend in the FinTech niche. The market is interested in digital products that will help to accumulate funds and keep track of the budget in general. For example, the habit of saving, which is absent in 70% of our countries, is formed by the PandaMoney application. By choosing the “feed the panda” function, the user automatically transfers money to the depository account. On the platform, you can track progress and share it with subscribers on social networks.
The popularity of gamification services to improve financial literacy is growing. So, Mobi-Soft, commissioned by the Sberbank Charitable Foundation “Contribution to the Future”, created the game “Deposit”. It simulates ten years of life, during which the user must earn as much money as possible using various financial instruments.
Ekaterina Trushina, CDO, Chief Digital Officer. Sberbank Charitable Foundation “Contribution to the Future”:
“We talk a lot about financial literacy, but to make it fun for kids and teens, you need to turn learning into a game—in the truest sense of the word.
The most difficult goal was to achieve a wide variety of random events that can affect the outcome of the game. For tens of thousands of users, the outcome of the game is individual. There are no right answers or one single winning strategy in our app. That is why it is so interesting to watch how the same player goes the way in 10 gaming years, first choosing conservative instruments, then testing his luck in investing in financial pyramids, and then differentiating risks, forming a diverse portfolio of securities. The game gives the right to make mistakes, test different strategies, while not risking your own funds.
Another difficulty lies in the fact that the player must not only save or increase money, he must also make a choice regarding spending to satisfy his own needs or the needs of his virtual family. Users with a low level of satisfaction cannot, in principle, get into the ranking of winners. This is not only the meaning of learning how to manage a family budget, but also learning to maintain balance and make choices.
Good habits can be not only personal, but also social – aimed at preserving the environment or the safety of society. For example, OPower helps to reduce the amount of energy consumed. The application shows consumption statistics, compares them with neighbors and displays the achievements. And the Chevrolet Volt added a driving style assessment visual to the dashboard. Thanks to this, every second driver stopped violating the speed limit.
Cons of gamification
In pursuit of achievements in the game, the user unconsciously performs a certain action, which eventually becomes habitual. A prime example is Zamzee, a children’s activity monitoring device that stimulates activity with points and missions. According to the manufacturer, the activity level increases by 59% as the device is used. Gamification thus replaces the external incentives for sports, and this is often the reason for criticism of the format.
In fairness, it should be noted that it is not always possible to find at least some external incentive, then the use of gamification is fully justified. For example, Pain Squad, an app where children with cancer report their symptoms, earn rewards, and complete missions, allows doctors to collect all the information they need about a patient’s health twice a day. In the game, the user plays the role of a police officer who helps to defeat cancer around the world.
The problem can also be the wrong choice of motivation. The notion that financial incentives are most effective is erroneous. A prime example is the teachers’ strike in West Virginia. Teachers had to sign up for the Go365 platform, a gamified app that required users to provide personal health data to earn rewards for workouts or health screenings. Registration was mandatory for those teachers who wanted to enroll in the state health program. The situation escalated when teachers began receiving $500 fines for failing to provide health information or failing to complete certain assignments.
Gamification can be an effective tool for developing good habits. However, it works when the user is fully aware of their value and wants to achieve their goals. In this case, the game format plays the role of an assistant, not replacing external stimuli, but only reinforcing them.
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