Games have become a widespread technological trend in every industry. From education to corporate onboarding, gamification is becoming popular because it makes traditionally boring activities fun.
Everyone loves games. Games fire up everyone’s internal competitive drive and push people to their highest performance levels. Unsurprisingly, this gamification trend is making developers more valuable to all types of companies.
Below are four examples of companies that are using gamification to attract customers.
Marriott Rewards Badges
For decades, the Marriott has rewarded travelers who frequently stay at their hotels. The premise of their reward system is simple: the more you stay, the more points you earn. With the popularity of mobile technology and gamification, the Marriot added a new branch to their reward systems: the Marriott Rewards Badges.
Marriott Rewards members start off with a simple member-level badge, based on what type of Rewards member they are. The badges are base level, silver, gold or platinum. From there, members receive badges for things like staying at different hotel brands under the Marriott name and donating to a charitable cause.
So, how does this gamification strategy help the Marriott? It builds loyalty with customers and makes people want to expand their Marriott experience. Instead of staying at the same Marriott each time, the reward badges encourage Marriot customers to try new properties and locations.
Missile Wars
Are you the type of person who is notorious for skipping the gym? Then make your workout routine more exciting and mix real-time strategy games with real-world fitness. Missile Wars is an app where players launch virtual missile attacks at each other and have a 60-second timeframe to physically get out of the blast zone.
Players earn points by successfully blasting others with missiles. The points can then be exchanged for upgraded missiles with a wider blast range. The app’s developers keep a running leaderboard online which shows the top players and those who have recently launched an attack. Missle Wars is a great example of how gamification made a somewhat boring activity fun.
Untappd
This fun social app incorporates gaming elements with beer. With Untappd, you can pull up a map of nearby bars and see which beers are on tap. You can also review and rate beers, and see what kinds of beers your friends are drinking. As you try different beers, you earn different badges and achievements.
This app is helpful for beer drinkers and bar and restaurant owners. Thanks to Untappd, people are visiting new bars and restaurants to earn badges, and restaurant owners are gaining new customers.
Code Golf
If you're a developer who loves coding challenges, then check out Code Golf. With Code Golf, participants compete against each other to see who can solve programming problems in the least amount of keystrokes. It’s a fun new spin on both code challenges and programming optimization. With such a high level of competition for programming jobs, coding games are a great way to fine-tune your programming skills.
Since most developers like to take part in these competitions, Code Golf is a great way for companies to attract junior and mid-level developers. Many companies are now using Code Golf to source and hire developers.
How gamification is changing developer recruitment
The gamification trend is a new, fun, and innovative way for companies to reach and engage with customers. Whether you’ve already started integrating gamification into your business plan or you are still in the planning stages, you're going to need top-notch developer talent to execute.
If you're interested in finding and hiring the best developers to start gamification at your business, take a look at HackerRank for Work. Ou market-leading technical assessment platform will help you source and hire developers who have the right skills for your jobs.
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