Gamification | Gabe Zichermann | TEDxBroadway

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Gabe Zichermann talks about gamification in the world of entertainment and marketing.

Hello everybody.

So, good to be here,

and here at New World Stages,
not on that side but on this side,

which is very fun.

I want to talk to you today

about the end of the audience
and the dawn of the player.

Let me start by introducing you
to your new customer,

your next generation customer.

This is your millennial audience,

and they are at turns brilliant
and also unbelievably annoying.

It's like a really sort of shocking
combination of things.

But there's a reason
why the millennials are this way.

They didn't end up this way
just kind of out of happenstance.

They're super easily distracted.

It's the world we live in,

but millennials are
very easily distracted.

They've a device in their pocket,

it's constantly buzzing,
and its buzzing all the time,

whether they're at work or at play.

They also have conquered boredom,
which is kind of amazing, right?

There's no reason to be bored ever again,
even if you're not a Grindr user.

(Laughter)

They are technologically literate
and obsessed.

By the age of five or six

today's American kids
have used more technology,

and understand more
about the Internet and tech,

than most of us understood
by the age of 30 in our generation.

It's a shocking, shocking change.

And because they grew up

in an environment with very few limits
and very little discipline,

they love obsession.

And "obsessed" is not just a word
that entered our culture recently

on kind of a drag queen's wing
and a prayer,

it's also something that legitimately
is part of our view of the world.

Now we don't have discipline, we have OCD.

Their rise has given extra momentum
in leverage to the nerdy anti-hero.

We've always had nerdy anti-heroes,

but today the hero is the nerdy anti-hero,

and we can't get away from this idea
in the constructive narrative.

The reason for all of this, my friends,
behind all this, is the power of games.

Even for people who don't play games,

the way games have influenced culture,

the way they've changed
the way we think about things,

is the reason why we end up
in this fun-frustrating place.

You may ask yourself:
Why are games so powerful?

Why are they so influential,
what do they do?

Well, the core of it is some science
called intrinsic reinforcement.

And here's how it works.

Anytime you challenge
yourself to something,

anything, no matter how big or how small,

and you achieve that thing,

your brain secretes a magical little bit
of a neurotransmitter called dopamine.

And dopamine is
a very pleasurable experience.

So,challenge, achievement, mm,
that feels really good.

Now, Ian Robertson, a neuropsychologist,
has talked about yet another construct,

which is called the winner effect.

The more you do this:
challenge - achieve - dopamine

you also start secreting testosterone

in connection with the challenge -
achievement - dopamine loop.

So, over time, challenge -
achievement - dopamine plus testosterone

affects the way your brain is structured.

And the net of effect
of that structural shift

is that things that don't
give you a constant rush

of dopamine and testosterone

don't feel particularly fun.

So your orientation is towards the things
that deliver that dopamine release:

challenge - achievement.

And so I posit we're
at a unique inflection point today

in which all of these things
have come together

to profoundly change
the nature of the audience,

and change the way that we interact
with content of all kinds.

Now, many people have come before you,

especially for those who work in content
or the creative industries,

and have said, "I have the answer,
everything you do is crap!"

Right? The world's change,
everyone's changed, everything's crap.

I'm not going to position this
that way at all.

I'm going to tell you
things are changing,

some of us see it, some of us don't,

some of us are millennials,
some of us aren't.

You may feel this intensely as I do
or you may not.

But I want to show you
through a series of examples

what people are doing,
how other folks have responded to it,

and what I believe the future is

of this very, very august institution,
live entertainment.

Now, I also tell you that I think
we can use the power of games

to our advantage,
to get where we want to go.

And if we do that deliberately
instead of letting this happen to us,

but we take an active role in this,

that's called gamification.

And that's using the constructs of games

to engage people
and change their behavior.

And we have the power to do this.
It's very exciting.

Now, what we need
in order to make this happen

are what are called the three F's:
Feedback, Friends and Fun.

Any system that has
feedback, friends, and fun in it,

is engaging and interesting.

And the more of the three "F"s
the system has, the more effective it is.

Let's take a look at this

through the prism of something that some
of you probably consider fairly gross:

The idea of taking pictures of everything
you eat before you eat it.

And if you're my friend on Facebook -

and I highly encourage you
to friend me on Facebook or Instagram -

I promise to deluge you with
an unbelievable number of food photos.

You'll get to be right there with me
as I eat everything.

Okay, so some of you probably consider
this really gross, right?

Like, hey, stop taking pictures
of the food! Eat the freaking food!

Right, you're here with me,
this is our experience together,

why are you so concerned
with taking pictures of your food?

And some people have responded to
this whole multitasking in public spaces

which some of you might know
is the don't-be-a-jerk game!

And basically the way this game is played:

Everyone puts their phones on the table
like guns in the Old West,

and the first person
to reach for their phone

has to pay for the dinner.

Not a bad idea -

I feel what kind of a crowd we are.
Right? Okay, you love this!

So, here's the thing though,
here's the thing:

As uncomfortable as all this sounds,
as many of us like to deride this idea,

we're missing the elemental concept here,

which is that today for this gamer
generation in the gamification world,

the people at home
are part of the experience.

They're providing a lot of feedback
on the live experience.

They're clicking "Like",
they're clicking "Hearts",

they're commenting.

They're providing
that positive dopamine release,

and sometimes they're more interesting
than you are over dinner. Okay?

It just depends: not you, okay,
not you, but you!

So sometimes they're providing
more positive feedback,

and so they are part of that experience.

And all that is really cute, right? Like:

"Ha-ha, Jimmy won't talk
to me over dinner."

What are the real business
effects of this?

And let me tell you a story.

One of the largest automakers
- I was working on a project -

said to me we've a problem:

"Teenagers don't drive
the way they used to.

They don't want to anymore."

I said, "What's it about?"

They said, "The research
classic millennial stuff.

Their care's the environment.

They don't want to drive a car
or spend money on a car,

But the number one reason

why driving rates have fallen off a cliff
among American teenagers

is because they're getting the message
about not texting and driving.

so they're choosing not to drive."

(Laughter)
(Applause)

Okay?

Now, It's true!

Now, if I had told you, if you had come
to me five years ago,

and you'd said, "Gabe, Instagram
would kill the car."

I'd laugh you out of the room.
I'd say, "How's that possible?"

But let me explain this to you.

With this generation,
with our world today,

with this positive reinforcement loop

produced by that
dopamine - challenge - achievement,

everything is on the table.

It doesn't matter
how ingrained the behavior is,

it doesn't matter how culturally
significant the behavior is,

people will follow their bliss.

They will go where the most
positive reinforcement is,

and that threatens to upend

everything and anything
we know about people's behavior,

nothing is sacrosanct.

And for people who work in an industry

based on a very long-term view
of content creation,

it might be meaningful.

Now consider:

How does the live performance industry
respond to social media?

It's kick the person
out of the room, attack them,

grab them with the bouncer,
make fun of them.

No way, you can't use social media,

while you're in the middle
of watching a performance.

And I think this sets up one
of our classic kind of conflicts

with this generation.

You know that in the United States
four-fifths of the population

watched broadcast entertainment,
like a TV show,

with the second or third screen open
in the last 30 days.

We can't even sit through 22 minutes
of television without going crazy

because we are so bored. Right?

How are they supposed to sit
through two hours of not interacting?

So, one option is,
instead of fighting this trend,

let's turn and use it in kind of
a positive way to our advantage.

So this is a project that I worked on,
I designed, called Livecube.

It takes the social media to live event,
and makes it into a positive experience.

So it focuses it.

It uses game concept to get
people to compete with each other,

to create great social media moments,
to promote the event that's going on,

and so on.

And has been very successful,
very effective -

instead of fighting with it, roll with it,
and leverage that power

to do other things, to do great things,
and extend the experience.

And here's another of the conflicts
we often see with live performance.

We assume that
because the millennial generation,

because this next consumer
likes to be the center of the action

- remember in games you're always
the center of the story -

many content creators believe
that what this audience really want

is to write their own story.

They want to come and decide the outcome.

And sometimes that's true, right?

We've got voting in reality television.

But in practice they want you
to give them the entertainment.

They want to be part of that though,

they'd like to be
more viscerally involved.

So you've got highly successful
immersive entertainment.

There's no surprise

about why really immersive entertainment
at this moment is so popular.

It really works.

It allows me to be part of the story,

but you're still writing great story
that principally carries us through.

So, if you can't do that,

how could you use technology
to allow the user, the player,

to be in the center of the story?

And I think Domino's tells us
a great case study on this.

So, Domino's built this app
called Domino's Pizza Hero.

And in it you play a pizzaiolo,
someone who makes pizzas. Okay?

So, they teach you in the app
how to knead the dough,

roll the dough up, like Luigi,
and put some sauce on it,

and cheese and vegetables.

And flick your finger,

it's instantly baked
at your local Domino's

and delivered right to your door

from inside the game.

And if you're especially good at it,

Domino's will invite you
to apply for a job

(Laughter)

from inside the game!

Now, ha-ha-ha, but this company
needs to recruit 30,000 people a year -

and by the way they make a $1M a week
in incremental revenue from this game.

This game replaces
the soaring inspirational video

on how Domino's uses only the freshest
ingredients to make your pizza,

and watch this guy make your pizza,

and everyone is well paid
and happy in white. Uhm!

Now, it's an interactive experience,
it's visceral,

and this is an important part
of the difference in storytelling.

Many storytelling opportunities
in the theater

are about where the boundary ends
between the audience and the performance,

where the performance ends
and the rest of people's lives begin.

And with new technology we don't
have to end the story when the story ends.

We've got new - I'm not saying
you should all get Google Glass,

but just as an idea.

Some of you may have seen
this amazing Google Glass game

called "Zombies, Run!"

And the idea is to get you to run
by chasing you with zombies.

(Laughter)

But you can extend your stories and
your storytelling in much the same way,

whether it's with Google Glass or not,

it allows you to connect with people
in a different place.

And this is another piece of the core
value proposition in the millennials,

which is that the idea of personal
achievement is critical, it's primary.

How I feel about the things
that I do is very important,

and I want to know I'm making progress,

and I want your product or service,
your idea, your content,

to be part of my story of progression
and mastery in my life.

And this is core to gamification.

So apps like Nike Plus
have been hugely successful.

They are effectively loyalty programs.

This is like a loyalty program.

But it leverages my own personal drive
to be better and do better,

and allows you to extend
your content beyond where it is.

And this extension, this consumptive
extension, is very important,

because the millennials
are also on the leading edge

of this concept of binge consumption

made famous by the Portlandia
"Battlestar Galactica" episode. Right?

So binge consumption is the idea
that I should be able to decide

how much I want to consume as well.

I don't only want to consume
the nuggets you've given me,

if I'm really into the thing
you're making,

I want to consume as much of it
as I possibly can.

And I want to consume it
to the exclusion of other things.

So there's an opportunity to extend
the concepts that you make

even if you don't have the resources,

even if the content that you're creating

doesn't fit neatly into
a binge consumption model. Right?

There's an opportunity using technology
in gamification to extend what you create

and to come into people's lives
in a different way.

And one of my favorite examples of this

that also leverages an important concept
in gamification is Tabasco Nation.

And that concept is tribalism.

Because above everything else
we've talked about,

millennials care about connecting,

they care about finding
and being together with their tribe.

So Tabasco Nation want a way of extending

the concept of their hot sauce
into the world

and drive behavior among people
who like hot sauce to the media assertion

that if you like spicy food,
you're part of a tribe.

Every drop of hot sauce that you use
is a point that you earn.

The crazier things you do with hot sauce,
the more points you earn:

like putting it on a piece of cake,
take it to the top of the Eiffel Tower,

you know, put some
in your teacher's drink.

It's cool.

The more you do,
the more points you earn.

the more cool experiences
they unlock for you.

But the core value,
and it's a very successful campaign,

the core value is
that you're part of a tribe.

Just like you may be a part of a tribe
if you really like Sondheim musicals.

You probably are!

(Laughter)

And here's the sort of coup de grâce
for all of us, you guys.

Everything I've talked about

I put through the framework
of this millennial generation,

the next generation,

but, in fact, everything
that the millennials want,

be the center of the story,
consume more content,

feel they're making progress,

understand how your thing
fits into their world

and be viscerally connected to it,

that's stuff that people of all ages want.

You don't have to be 24
to want those things.

It just so happens, if you're 24,

because you played a bunch of games,
you expect those things.

But it's also true that if you're 45,
you still want challenging,

you still want the content you want,

you still want to feel connected
to the story and be able to do more.

It shouldn't surprise you,

the single biggest game playing
demographic in the world is women over 40.

It's true.

If you text my mom right now,

and you're like: "Hey Gabe's mom,
what are you doing?"

She'd be, like, "Candy Crush."

(Laughter)

Okay? That's this demographic!

So, if you're not concerned

[about] the future of the live media
consumption industry,

you've got twenty years to go,

let me be the one to tell you don't.

So, in closing, I just want to say,

I feel like we are
at this important inflection point.

We're at a moment in time
in live performance,

in the creation of content.

We've been doing
the same thing the same way

for literally thousands
of years, more or less.

And as many the other speakers
have told you today,

lots of technological advances
are happening on the periphery.

We can use lots of different techniques,
incorporate lots of different ideas,

to make live performance
and our connection with the audience

deeper and more meaningful.

Along the way though, we're going to need
to adapt our entire concepts

to think about things
using the new and improved brains

of the next generation.

And gamification is the platform
we'll use to make that happen.

Thank you.

(Applause)