雷聲大雨點小:企業"遊戲化"熱潮已經玩到頭

Admit it: You or someone you know is obsessed with Candy Crush Saga—or were obsessed with Angry Birds or Farmville when those social games ruled the Internet. Can you really blame big business, then, for experimenting with ways to use our collective addiction to “leveling up” to drive higher rates of consumer and employee engagement?

承認吧，你或你認識的某個人肯定曾一度癡迷於《糖果粉碎傳奇》（Candy Crush Saga）或是《憤怒的小鳥》（Angry Birds）、《開心農場》（Farmville ）等社交遊戲。所以當大企業試圖利用我們對遊戲的癡迷來提高消費者和員工對公司的參與度時，也就沒有什麼難以理解的了。

It turns out that you can. Like with social games, for every hit there are a hundred clunkers, poorly designed and more aggravating than addictive. The gamification of digital engagement fiercely rode the hype cycle since the term burst into mainstream usage in 2011, but according to recent figures, gamification as a business strategy in 2014 is essentially, well, game over.

正所謂一將功成萬骨枯，社交遊戲也是如此。每一款大熱的社交遊戲背後，都有幾百個失敗的社交遊戲折戟沉沙。它們要麼設計得不好，要麼玩得讓人上火而不是上癮。“遊戲化”自2011年成爲主流用語以來，迅速成了一個被大肆炒作的噱頭。但到了2014年，根據最近的數據來看，遊戲化作爲一種商業戰略可以說基本上已經“Game Over”了。

The market research firm Gartner estimates market penetration of gamification technology, exemplified by enterprise developers suchas Badgeville andBunchball, at just 5% to 10%. The pioneers have applied these platforms to all manner of challenges, from encouraging consumers to use a new product or service more liberally to reshaping employee behavior or processes. But without well-grounded goals, some high-profile early projects have foundered.

據市調機構高德納公司（Gartner）估算，像Badgeville 和Bunchball等公司開發的遊戲化技術的市場滲透率大概只有5%到10%。那些最早敢於吃螃蟹的人把遊戲化平臺用到了各種挑戰上，從刺激消費者採用新產品或服務，到更開放地改造員工行爲或流程，似乎樁樁件件都可以搞一搞遊戲化。但是由於沒有腳踏實地的目標，很多早期宣傳得頗爲高調的項目最後都以失敗而告終。

One oft-cited example centers on Marriott Hotel Group MAR 0.87% , which tried using a game akin to Farmville to teach potential new employees about the hospitality industry. The project was supposed to represent the first wave of a series of game-inspired attempts to improve employee engagement; the rest have yet to materialize.

一個經常被人提起的例子是萬豪酒店集團（Marriott Hotel Group），它想通過一個類似《開心農場》的遊戲教育讓潛在的新員工瞭解酒店行業。第一批試圖通過遊戲化提高員工參與度的公司有很多，而這個項目只是其中的一個代表。但是除了萬豪酒店外，其他企業的目標都沒有實現。

Gartner actually predicted in 2012 that up to 80% of early gamification strategies would fail by the end of this year. The reality isn’t quite as dramatic, but many companies are regrouping or rethinking their investments, said Gartner analyst Brian Burke, who just published a book on the topic, Gamify — How Gamification Motivates People to Do Extraordinary Things.

高德納早在2012年就預測道，到今年底，一些企業早期採取的遊戲化戰略將有80%都會失敗。現實情況也並不令人意外。不過據高德納公司分析師布萊恩o伯爾克表示，現在很多企業都在重組或重新考慮他們的投資。伯爾克最近剛剛出版了一本新書，題目就叫《遊戲化——談遊戲化如何激勵人們做不尋常的事》。

“The bar for success is defined by the business objectives the organization sets out to achieve, and with gamification today only a minority of projects can declare that the business objectives were achieved,” Burke said. “There are many reasons for this, starting with the lack of clearly defined business objectives, or focusing on the organization goals rather than the player goals.”

伯爾克認爲：“成功的標準是根據企業設立的業務目標來定義的，今天只有很少的遊戲化項目可以宣稱他們完成了企業的業務目標。造成這種局面的原因有很多，首當其衝的就是缺乏定義明確的業務目標。其次是隻關注企業的目標而忽視了玩家的目標。”

One vivid illustration of a successful gamification initiative is Nike+, a website athletes can use to record performance against their fitness goals. It currently boasts more than 28 million users who turn regularly, giving the brand significant exposure. “One of the things that Nike+ does right is to focus on enabling the users to achieve their fitness goals, rather than Nike’s goals—which is a key characteristic of gamification done right,” Burke said.

遊戲化做得非常成功的一個例子就是Nike+。健身愛好者們可以利用這個網站記錄自己的鍛鍊成果，然後和自己的健身目標進行對比。目前Nike+據說有2800多萬活躍用戶，給這個品牌帶來了很高的曝光度。伯爾克說：“Nike+做的最正確的一件事情，是專注於讓用戶實現自己的健身目標，而不是實現耐克公司的目標——這是成功的遊戲化戰略的一個關鍵特徵。”

Another example comes from the business-to-business world, where technology services company Bluewolf is using game principles as part of a campaign to get more of its consultants to share information and best practices that could benefit clients and to build their “personal brands” through social networks and by writing blogs. Participants earn points towards certain perks (such as discounted hotel rooms) by completing designated activities. “The purpose is to engage our customers and prospects, and also to engage our employees,” said Corinne Sklar, chief marketing officer at Bluewolf.

另一個例子來自B2B領域。科技服務企業Bluewolf公司採用遊戲機制，鼓勵更多的諮詢顧問分享能夠令客戶受益的信息和最佳做法，同時積極鼓勵諮詢顧問在社交網絡和博客上建立他們自己的“個人品牌”。參與者每完成指定的任務就會獲得一定的分數，而這些積分可以兌換一定的特權（比如打折的酒店房間）。Bluewolf公司營銷總監科琳o斯科拉說：“這樣做的目標是讓我們的客戶和潛在客戶參與進來，同時也是爲了讓我們的員工參與進來。”

Last year, the program helped inspire a 57% increase in internal knowledge sharing (via the Salesforce CRM 0.84% Chatter platform), a 68% boast in social traffic and a 153% rise in blog contributions, Sklar reported.

斯科拉表示，去年在這個項目的促進下，公司的內部知識分享提高了57%（通過Salesforce的Chatter平臺），社交訪問量增長了68%，博客文章的數量增長了153%。

Key considerations behind gamification include understanding the specific business outcomes it is meant to inspire, thinking carefully about the “personalities” involved and which touch points—such as mobile apps or websites—are most relevant, said ChandarPattabhiram, chief marketing officer of Badgeville. Even more important, however, if the design of the product or service at the center of that strategy. “You can’t have good gamification on average products and expect to get results. Good icing can’t save an average cake,” he said.

遊戲化公司Badgeville營銷總監昌達爾o帕塔必拉姆指出，企業要想實行遊戲化戰略，首先要考慮幾個關鍵因素，比如你首先需要明白它要激勵的哪些特定的業務成果，其次要仔細考慮遊戲化戰略的“個性”，第三是哪些觸點（比如移動應用或網站）與你的目標人羣最爲相關。更重要的是，如果遊戲化戰略所包裝的核心是產品或服務的話，帕塔必拉姆認爲：“你不能用好的遊戲化戰略包裝普普通通的產品，然後指望它帶來好的成績。光靠好的酥皮救不了一塊普普通通的蛋糕。”

Increasingly, companies are using gamification to encourage certain business-to-business behaviors. Canadian airline WestJet uses Badgeville, for example, to shape expense management. American Express AXP 2.27% , meanwhile, is creating a platform that complements its business travel services. The idea is to help travel administrators guide their employees toward hotels or airlines that offer special corporate rates.

現在越來越多的企業正在利用遊戲化戰略鼓勵某些B2B行爲。比如加拿大的西捷航空公司（WestJet）就採用了Badgeville公司的遊戲化技術來改造公司的費用管理。美國運通公司（American Express）正在使用一個遊戲化平臺作爲自己商務旅行服務的補充。這個項目旨在幫助商務出差管理人員引導他們的員工使用提供了企業協議價的酒店或航空公司。

“You are starting to see travelers make their own decisions and not follow policies,” said Alicia Tillman, vice president of business services for American Express Global Business Travel. “How do you take the very best elements of social media and mold a solution around those elements and attach it to a corporate goal?”

美國運通全球商務旅行部商務服務副總裁艾麗西亞o蒂爾曼指出：“現在有些商務出差人員不遵守公司政策，自己做決定。那麼你怎樣充分利用社交媒體的優勢，同時圍繞這些優勢提出一個解決方案，並且把它聯繫到企業的目標上來？”

For Amex, the answer is GoTime, which it is developing on Badgeville as a premium service for corporate accounts. During a pilot with about 100 travelers, one Amex client realized a 7 percent increase in bookings with preferred airlines, a 12 percent jump in the number of travelers reserving their ticket with advanced purchase pricing breaks, and a 3 percent increase in hotel reservations booked at the same time as a flight, Tillman said.

美國運通對這個問題給出的答案就是GoTime。它是基於Badgeville公司的遊戲化技術開發的一項針對企業用戶的高級服務。在針對100名商務出差者進行的試用中，美國運通的一個客戶在合作航空公司的訂票出現了7%的增長，出差人員提前預訂打折機票的比率更是躍升了12個百分點，而且在預訂機票的同時，預訂酒店的比例也增長了3%。

Amex plans to roll out the service selectively; it takes about a month to get clients up and running, including the time it takes to gather data about objectives and travel information for profile setup. “We wanted to bring a modern method to solving what is an age-old problem in the industry . . . We’re going to skeptical because we need to be,” Tillman said.

美國運通計劃有選擇性地推出這項服務。用戶將這個平臺投入使用大概需要一個月的時間，包括收集用於建立個人資料的目標數據和差旅信息的時間。蒂爾曼說：“我們想引入一種現代化的方法來解決行業的一個老問題……我們之所以要在這個問題上要保持多疑，那是因爲我們需要這樣做。”

That sentiment is echoed by Gartner’s Burke, who cautions companies to temper their excitement about the gamified mobile apps or websites and to think more practically about how digital engagement makes sense within their existing business model. “In time, when gamification matures, and there are more consistent examples of success, people’s opinions will change once again to become more positive, but at that point, they will be guided by a more realistic sense of the possibilities and limitations of gamification.”

蒂爾曼的這種態度也得到了高德納公司分析師伯爾克的附和。他提醒企業對遊戲化移動應用或網站不要太過興奮，而是要更加實際地考慮員工和消費者的網絡參與怎樣才能對企業現有的業務模式產生意義。“隨着時間的推移和遊戲化戰略的成熟，會出現更多遊戲戰略成功的例子，人們對遊戲化戰略的態度會再次變得更加積極。但到了那個時候，他們對遊戲化戰略的潛能和侷限也會採取更現實的態度。”