Gabe Zichermann (born May 20, 1974) is a Canadian-American author, public speaker, and businessman. He has worked as a proponent of leveraging
game mechanics In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics define how a game works for players. Game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide player actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, whi ...
in business, education, and other non-entertainment platforms to increase user engagement in a process called
gamification
Gamification is the process of enhancing systems, services, organisations and activities through the integration of game design elements and principles in non-game contexts. The goal is to increase user engagement, motivation, competition and ...
.
Business ventures
Zichermann has held a series of positions in the technology sector. He formerly served as vice president of strategy and communications at
Trymedia
Trymedia Systems, Inc. is a division of RealNetworks that provides digital distribution services based on its proprietary ActiveMARK DRM and digital distribution technology. Trymedia is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Berkshire an ...
, and was their first US hire. As a marketing director of CMP Media, he managed
Gamasutra
''Game Developer'' (known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021) is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print maga ...
and '' Game Developer'' magazine. In 2008 he created now-defunct
start-up
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend ...
RMBR to introduce game mechanics into photo sharing. He was the Chief Marketing/Strategy Officer at Boonty Inc., an online company that sells downloadable games. He has served as co-director of the New York chapter of the Founder Institute as well as a board member of StartOut.org He is the co-founder and CEO of Dopamine, Inc., a firm that specializes in helping businesses utilize gamification.
In his role as CEO of Gamification.co, Zichermann chairs the organization's annual Gamification Summit, delivering the keynote address each year.
Gamification
Although the term 'gamification' was coined by the founder of
Bunchball
Bunchball provides a cloud-based software as a service gamification product intended to help companies improve customer loyalty and online engagement using game mechanics.Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?'' and ''
Civilization
A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of state (polity), the state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyon ...
''. In his speeches at
TEDx
TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...
he argues that not only can gamification be exploited by business but it also can be utilized in education as a
serious game
A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...
to teach students that are not otherwise engaged with traditional classrooms. He points to
educationalist
Education sciences, also known as education studies or education theory, and traditionally called ''pedagogy'', seek to describe, understand, and prescribe education including education policy. Subfields include comparative education, educationa ...
Anant Pai
Anant Pai (17 September 1929 – 24 February 2011), popularly known as Uncle Pai, was an Indian educationalist and a pioneer in Indian comics. He is most famous as the creator of two comic book series viz. ''Amar Chitra Katha'', which reto ...
's work with an elementary school in
White Bear Lake, Minnesota
White Bear Lake is a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County in the U.S. state, state of Minnesota, United States. A small portion of the city also extends into Washington County, Minnesota, Washington County. The population was 24,88 ...
as well as University of Washington's
Foldit
Foldit is an online puzzle video game about protein folding. It is part of an experimental research project developed by the University of Washington, Center for Game Science, in collaboration with the UW Department of Biochemistry. The objectiv ...
program. He counters the argument that the immersive environment of video games don't teach the right kind of attention by pointing to the concept of
fluid intelligence
The concepts of fluid intelligence (''g''f) and crystallized intelligence (''g''c) were introduced in 1943 by the psychologist Raymond Cattell. According to Cattell's psychometrically-based theory, general intelligence (''g'') is subdivided into ...
. Zichermann believes the intense mental engagement of video games is tied to the
dopamine
Dopamine (DA, a contraction of 3,4-dihydroxyphenethylamine) is a neuromodulatory molecule that plays several important roles in cells. It is an organic chemical of the catecholamine and phenethylamine families. It is an amine synthesized ...
released in game participants as the players receive rewards in game. Zichermann also refutes the idea that gamification is necessarily pernicious or simply a fad by pointing to the positive results of gamification applied outside of the entertainment industry, although he has acknowledged that a dark side does exist to this technology. He also posits that gamification could be taken to online banking, charitable organizations, or any other industry. A system of rewards could encourage members of a gym to attend regularly.
Zichermann describes business software utilizing gamification as '' funware'', remarking that even websites like
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
and
LinkedIn
LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...
use some element of online reward to prompt user interaction. He has explained the "reason why Facebook is a really compelling MMO is because it's fun and you get something out of it." He opines that increasing the degree of game mechanics through funware in work production will become even more effective on the
millennial generation
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ...
raised with video games and seek to stay in a game environment at the workplace. He has criticized current location-based applications like
Foursquare
Four square is a ball game.
Four square may also refer to:
Internet and entertainment
* Foursquare City Guide, a local search and discovery app
* 4 Square (game show), ''4 Square'' (game show), a British game show
* 4 Square (TV series), ''4 Squ ...
as lacking enough social element as well as being too complicated for users to remain engaged.
Zichermann has been criticized by the academic and video game designer
Ian Bogost
Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer, most known for the game '' Cow Clicker''. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences a ...
On Bullshit
''On Bullshit'' is a 1986 essay and 2005 book by the American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt which presents a theory of bullshit that defines the concept and analyzes the applications of bullshit in the context of communication. Frankfurt dete ...
" to argue that "gamification" (as Zichermann uses the term) "is not germane to enterprise of describing reality" and suggests the term "''exploitationware''" would be a more accurate alternative.
Books
In 2010, Zichermann co-wrote ''Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests'' with
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
contributor Joselin Linder, describing the game mechanics that helped make
FarmVille
''FarmVille'' is a series of agriculture-simulation social network games developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to '' Happy Farm'' and ''Farm Town''. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plo ...
and Foursquare so successful.
In 2011, Zichermann co-wrote ''Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps'' with Christopher Cunningham. The book has been described as a quick read, introducing the concept of gamification and discussing how businesses could implement gamification to keep their customers engaged. Zichermann agrees that the book's concept of engagement may be 75% customer psychology. The book also includes a
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web pa ...
coding tutorial to implement gamification in online forum design.
In 2013, Zichermann partnered with Joselin Linder again to co-author ''The Gamification Revolution: How Leaders Leverage Game Mechanics to Crush the Competition''. The book discusses gamification as a
loyalty program
A loyalty program or rewards program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of one or more businesses associated with the program.
Single-company vs. coalition programs
Loyalty progr ...
not unlike
S&H Green Stamps
S&H Green Stamps was a line of trading stamps popular in the United States from 1896 until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry an ...
or
McDonald's Monopoly
The McDonald's Monopoly game is a sales promotion run by fast food restaurant chain McDonald's, with a theme based on the Hasbro board game ''Monopoly (game), Monopoly''. The game first ran in the U.S. in 1987 and has since been used worldwide.
...