Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann

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By Gabe Zichermann

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Released: May 2011

Run time: 3 hours 7 minutes

How can game mechanics and game design help you deliver an engaging, sticky and viral experience to your customers? This video shows you how to take advantage of gamification—the secret ingredient that's fueled the success of Foursquare, Nike+, Groupon, and many other websites and mobile apps.

Gamification expert Gabe Zichermann demonstrates the design strategy and tactics you need for integrating game mechanics into any kind of consumer-facing experience, either new or existing. It can be a complicated process, given hundreds of technical and process options available. In this video, Gabe provides a series of clear steps for developers, producers, and product managers who want their websites to deliver powerful consumer engagement and enjoy viral growth.

Key Takeaways Include:

Understand the true power of games and how they work with your business
Unpack user motivations and apply game thinking to understand what drives them
Dive deeply into the levers and game mechanics that social game designers use to create stellar engagement
Learn a process to connect player motivations with game design and game mechanics in your business context
Reverse-engineer the best and worst implementations of key game mechanics from leading vendors
Dig down into key game mechanics like points, badges, leaderboards, onboarding, challenges and more
Get clarity on implementation, technology and agile techniques

Bonus Material:

Complete a set of short challenges and receive access to a series of exclusive supplemental videos from thought leaders in the gamification industry. Visit GamificationU.com after ordering the video to gain access.

1) Introduction to Gamification (Free Preview) 7 minutes
2) Foundations & Basics 21 minutes
3) Player Motivation 7 minutes
4) Player Types 9 minutes
5) Progression to Mastery 21 minutes
6) Be the Sherpa 8 minutes
7) Point Systems 19 minutes
8) Levels 15 minutes
9) Leaderboards 8 minutes
10) Badges & Customization 13 minutes
11) Onboarding 10 minutes
12) Challenges & Engagement Loops 13 minutes
13) Implementation, Agile Processes & Gaming the System 25 minutes
14) Technical Considerations & Next Steps 8 minutes

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O'Reilly Media Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann

4.5

(based on 6 reviews)

100%

of respondents would recommend this to a friend.

Pros

Helpful examples (6)
Easy to understand (4)
Well-written (3)

Cons

Best Uses

Intermediate (5)
Novice (4)
Student (3)

- Reviewer Profile:
- Developer (6), Designer (4)

REVIEWS

Reviewed by 6 customers

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Displaying reviews 1-6

6/15/2011

(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)

4.0

Great presentation

By John Brady

from Exeter, RI

About Me Designer, Developer, Maker, Sys Admin

Pros

Easy to understand
Helpful examples
Well-written

Cons

Best Uses

Novice
Student

Comments about O'Reilly Media Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann:

Gabe Zichermann on Gamification is a video offering from O'Reilly Publishing dealing with the topic of gamification, or the use of gaming to engage application users in ways which drive traffic and commerce. The product consists of a series of video segments with a total view time of approximately three (3) hours. The format is that of a small "classroom" or seminar, with a group of people seated at the table with the presenter (Gabe Zichermann) and able to interact with questions and discussion.

The product would be an appropriate choice for those interested in the concepts behind applications such as Farmville, which draw the user into a virtual world through the use of gaming concepts. While the information is definitely thought-provoking, it is not applicable in all environments, e.g., if you're coding mission-critical systems, this stuff isn't for you. That said, and while I will probably never implement any of the concepts in my current work, I did find the discussion stimulating and accessible, so from that perspective the product is a good value.

Zichermann has done an outstanding job of preparing supplemental materials, available via links shown within the video segments. Presentation of the material itself is also smooth and professional, making it a pleasure to watch.

Overall, while not a heavy-duty coders product, definitely a good value for some outside the box brain food.

5/28/2011

(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)

4.0

Make your product more engaging

By Yousuf

from Karachi, Pakistan

About Me Developer, Maker

Pros

Concise
Easy to understand
Helpful examples

Cons

Best Uses

Intermediate
Novice
Student

Comments about O'Reilly Media Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann:

At first, I was somewhat skeptic about the master class videos, whether it would be good enough to watch it or would it be that I have made a wrong decision and have to write a review to just get it done. Though, I'm familiar with the apps that use this type of methodology, one way or the other, but the term 'Gamification' itself was quite new for me. Well, my first reaction was absolutely wrong and by the end of the videos I was very happy to have taken it.

The first misconception I had about the title (and you must clear this too) is that Gamification is not all about games or gameplay rather it's using game logic and mechanics to solve problems. In fact many sites/apps/games such as Twitter, Foursquare, Empire Avenue, StackOverflow, CityVille, etc. have some element of Gamification.

Gabe does a very good job at explaining Gamification with real live examples and exercises after each lesson. One of the unique feature I loved about these classes was the audience that kept interacting with Gabe, providing their own product's goals and objectives, and applying each exercise with them. Furthermore, the master class provides additional free (yes free!) materials to learn more about it.

Apart from all those good things I loved about the master class, however, I wished that he had taken a scenario and applied each element of gamification with every successive class. One more thing that I wanted in this class was the downside of Gamification. He, Gabe, didn't provide situation where gamification would become a hindrance to a product or business. I even noticed some features of gamification that seemed profitable and even remarked as is but in essence very unethical, e.g. using original cash to buy virtual cash or product that has no original value and the customer can't even get his money back after he has purchased it.

Overall, the master class is good and I would recommend you to watch them.

5/18/2011

5.0

Easy to digest and understand

By Macnlos

from Chicago, IL

About Me Designer, Developer

Pros

Easy to understand
Helpful examples
Passionate
Presentation skills

Cons

Best Uses

Expert
Intermediate

Comments about O'Reilly Media Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann:

From the start you get the feeling and know that Gabe is both very passionate and knowledgeable on the topic of Gamification. Having read the book I found that going through the class video really helped in cementing the core concepts of the material.

Gamification is really about understanding what makes me tick and ensuring that you capture that in your product. One point that I really liked was going through the DNA test to understand what kind of a game I am. While it's good to know, it's also important to remember that anything I do will be skewed toward that. Not everyone is same and that you need to make a effort to ensure you are designing toward a broader audience.

5/15/2011

5.0

let's play business

By Michal Konrad Owsiak

from Poland

About Me Designer, Developer

Pros

Accurate
Concise
Easy to understand
Helpful examples
Well-written

Cons

Not comprehensive enough

Best Uses

Intermediate
Novice
Student

Comments about O'Reilly Media Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann:

The main purpose of Gamification, as Gabe states, "(…) is to help people get from point A to point B in their lives — whether that's viewed through the lens of personal growth, societal improvement or marketing engagement". It's like making fun out from whatever you do. Regardless of your task domain: working, shopping, making business. Gamification focuses on business related aspects of your live. During lecture, Gabe shows how to increase users engagement, how to bound people to your service, how to attract them with your product via methods used during the process of game design. Basically saying, how to introduce game mechanics into your business. Gamification, in the context of Video is "the use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems".

Playing games has been around us for quite some time. There are some great ideas behind it that Gabe reveals to us. During the class, you will be told how to provide people with fun, how to bound people to you via various means of gratification, discover players motivation, get the idea of users' stories, be aware of players' type, the mastery levels, ways of attracting people and many many more. You will be told how to approach these issues. How to utilize them in order to get most of them. You will get the basics of gamification process – where to start, how to develop the game's mechanics, how to adapt to new circumstances. In fact, there are so many information within the material, that you will probably watch it twice, at least.

Another great benefit is that you can actually follow the exercises that are solved during the class. Gabe prepared accompanying materials at his site: gamificationu.com. You can download workbook for the course and follow all the exercises that the audience of the class is solving. This is really a plus. You will also get a bunch of links and information sources that you can use for making your research in gamification area much easier.

What can I say when it comes to Gamification Video? In general, this is great material. It is well presented, well edited, and contains great stuff.

Drawbacks? There are always some. First of all, be warned that four episodes of the Video can not be converted into iPod version via iTunes. There is something wrong with episodes 8, 9, 10, 11. But this is an issue only in case you intend to watch it on iPod. Secondly, Gabe focuses mostly on just a few products when it comes to discussion regarding certain topics. I think it would be much better if material contained bigger variety of products described in context of the gamification process. Last issue is, that the class is not for everybody. If you think that doing business must be boring and there is no place for fun at all, and you don't want to be convinced that there is another life out there – don't by it

5/10/2011

5.0

Top-notch orientation to gamification

By Aaron Sumner

from Lawrence, KS

About Me Designer, Developer, Educator

Pros

Engaging
Helpful examples
High-quality
Well-written

Cons

Best Uses

Intermediate
Novice

Comments about O'Reilly Media Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann:

Gamification is a hot topic right now, as designers, marketers, and educators look to game theory to increase engagement. Gabe Zichermann is at the forefront of gamification, with a couple of books under his belt and now an excellent addition to the O'Reilly Master Class video series. I've just begun my own exploration into gamification and am glad I started it with this three-hour set.

In Gamification Master Class, you get a seat at the table with Zichermann and six representatives of large companies and startups alike looking to gamification to increase users' engagement with their products (which, if I recall correctly, are pretty much all web-based). Like all of O'Reilly's Master Class videos, this series maintains high production values. Zichermann's presentation style, though, puts it at another level from other videos I've watched from this series. He keeps his audience (both in-studio and those of us watching from home) engaged with great information and hands-on activities throughout. These activities are provided to us home viewers as a PDF as soon as we complete our first "challenge"—a clever use of gamification to keep us hooked, and a valuable tool for our own gamification efforts moving forward. It's not a lecture; it's a conversation about gamification and how to make it work for a variety of marketing or learning goals.

To summarize, Gamification Master Class is a top-notch, three-hour introduction to an exciting movement in software design and marketing. You probably won't walk away from it with all the resources you need to develop world class gamification implementations of your own, but you'll be well-equipped with the important concepts, tools, and next steps necessary to make those implementations happen.

Note: I wrote this review for O'Reilly's Blogger Review Program.

5/7/2011

4.0

turning your product into an experience

By Ziv Kitaro

from Israel

About Me Developer, Game Designer, Writer

Pros

Accurate
Engaging
Helpful examples
Well designed

Cons

Overhwelming

Best Uses

Expert
Intermediate

Comments about O'Reilly Media Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann:

Gamification is the term used to described the game-like experience some product use. Foursquare is a check-in service, but it has an overlay of game experience and that is what makes it so addictive. In this Video Master class, Gabe Zichermann (authors of "Game-Based Marketing") takes the viewers through the stages needed to do the same with their product.

As a game designer the thing I liked best, was seeing how mechanics I use and know for real games, can be used on almost any service or product. the examples Mr. Zichermann use are very vivid and practical. the conversation in the video between Mr. Zichermann and the participants works very nice and whether it's directed or natural it just works.

People who do not come from the gaming world will deal with a large amount of information. I feel that Mr. Zichermann divided the information into suitable chunks but I admit I can't really say if it's not overwhelming. All in all, even if it is too much to swallow, you can always go back and watch a segment again.

Games are more then a way to pass the time, and this Master Class shows it in a very good way. If you are into marketing, or someone who is working on a small startup, creating a new product – you should at least take a look at it. It won't hurt.