Gamifying Your Mobile App

Mobile gaming is one of the most important categories of mobile application business in today’s mobile market. The popularity of gaming apps extends far and wide; from school children to enterprise personnel, everyone finds gaming applications very engaging. This is the main reason that more and more developers and enterprises are leaving the beaten trail of mundane core functional code to tread the path of using game – like features and interfaces to make the users more involved in the experience.

1. Engagement – As per the research finding, users don’t use many apps for very long and in fact not more than 25% of the apps survive after 3 months. This makes it all the more important to develop apps that generate interest and increase the average length of activity for the users and thereby keeping the users engaged. This means a gaming quotient needs to be introduced within every type of software even if it is non- gaming software. For example, if there is a workout app developed which tracks the distance covered, calories lost, number of targets achieved and also let the user share their results, so that users become more motivated and engaged to their apps and are willing to use the app over and over again. Some of the standard Engagement Metrics are-Unique visitors, Page views per visitor, Amount of time spent on site, Total time spent per user, Frequency of visits, Depth of visit, Participation of users.

2. User retention – Build a more interactive and fun mobile application. For instance, the content of the app should have rich programs where users are compelled to fulfill requirements before they proceed towards the second level of usage. In this way, not only will the target audience be more curious to explore the additional functionalities of an app, but as a developer you will be able to retain more clients.

3. Rewarding points/Loyalty – Introduce the concept of rewarding points as customers move to the next level to establish a sense of achievement from using the software. Also, this will make the user return with great frequency and thereby making them loyal to your brand

4. Tailor-made challenge set up – The research findings suggest that mobile app game challenges should be customized and not OSFA (one size fits all). The challenges must be depending on the context and target audience and should be diverse.

5. Gifts – This is one of several types of mechanics used to motivate users. While there could be some games that utilize real- world gifts, many games also use virtual gifts to motivate gamers.

6. Demographics – Knowing the demographics of gamers is an important point for the businesses to consider. This helps the developers in understanding the ways in which players may interact with a game. Players are categorized into 4 buckets:

7. Achievers – They are usually goal- driven. Love different level of challenges and points or reward gathering. Apps like promiseUP offer rewards for keeping promises you make. It targets the achievers to follow through mean something more than an accomplished task.

8. Explorers – They love to explore as much as they can. They often feel restricted when a game expects them to move on within a certain time, as that does not allow them to look around at their own pace. Learning and training programs that make them navigate and learn are well received by them.

9. Killers – They love to cheat and cause distress on other players. They play aggressively and derive pleasure from inflicting pain on others. Rating based systems are what excite them.

10. Socializers – They love to interact with their fellow gamers. Collaboration systems that allow constant interaction sit well with them.