Best Gamification Software of 2022

Video games are changing the way people live, work, and socialize — including how businesses increase engagement, morale, and productivity in the workplace. More and more young people are entering the workforce, bringing demand for more use of technology and fresh approaches to productivity.

Gamification software has the potential to improve the work experience for employees of all ages by increasing happiness, productivity, and motivation.

Read more: Can Gamification Drive Employee Retention?

Compare Gamification Solutions

Gamification is becoming increasingly popular as a business tool, especially with Millennials and Gen-Z becoming a larger portion of the workforce. Gamification is far more than a trend to attract young professionals, though. It has been promoted by notable business leaders like Reggie Fils-Aimé, former president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America.

Businesses are seeing incredible growth in employee satisfaction as a result of gamification, with 89% of employees reporting higher productivity.

Businesses are seeing incredible growth in employee satisfaction as a result of gamification methods, with 89% of employees reporting higher productivity and 88% reporting higher happiness at work. With results like those, it is no wonder that more developers are beginning to enter the gamification software industry.

These six gamification software suites have shown great performance in their niches.

LevelEleven

Best for: Sales

LevelEleven specializes in gamification software for sales employees, with a suite of features centered around friendly competition. Their platform includes leaderboards and contests as well as celebratory announcements when an employee wins a contest. LevelEleven’s metrics features are interesting as well, with predictive capabilities that can be great for setting goals for team members.

Through scorecards and badges, LevelEleven helps direct employee focus toward tasks and habits that can best help them achieve their goals. One feature that is particularly useful for sales representatives is the coaching interface. This makes it easy for managers to track all of their reps’ activities, offer scores and notes, and gauge progress.

Bunchball Nitro

Best for: Enterprise-Wide Gamification

Bunchball Nitro takes a large-scale approach to gamification, with solutions customized for team members at every level. Rather than creating a story around tasks like some other platforms, Bunchball Nitro is more about celebrating achievements and helping employees stay on task.

Their reward system is a key motivator. The Bunchball Nitro rewards marketplace allows users to cash in rewards for work achievements for real-life prizes like items from popular brands (including Apple and Xbox) as well as trips and experiences. Their onboarding solutions have even taken clients’ onboarding time from four weeks down to only four hours.

Centrical

Best for: Variety of Features

Centrical has one of the most visually appealing interfaces among gamification software programs. Their platform utilizes the idea of work as a videogame to the fullest, with a host of unique features that can make day-to-day tasks fun through actual gameplay. Similar to Bunchball Nitro, Centrical has a rewards marketplace where employees can use points to get things like free coffee or gift cards.

Employees even have fun levels to aim for, like “Road Shark” and “Space Rider.” They also have a well-designed suite of mini-games that add a unique layer to the gamification experience by using actual video games. This particular feature could be a valuable asset to businesses since taking breaks has been proven helpful for improving productivity.

Centrical takes the same approach with their microlearning functionality, which focuses on enabling people to learn by doing rather than by studying. This makes training and ongoing learning more engaging in the same way that challenges are engaging in video games: the player is learning through action.

Influitive

Best for: B2B Companies

Influitive maximizes the potential of the social element of gamification. Their platform specializes in helping to create B2B connections by mobilizing advocates and clients who can receive rewards for referrals, reviews, and references. By motivating customers to share their experiences with brands, Influitive helps establish authenticity and trust.

The customer end of the platform is customizable as well, with rewards, leaderboards, incentivized learning, and “journeys” and challenges to complete the gamification experience. Influitive has a robust user community as well, expanding on opportunities for increasing engagement and generating social media interaction. Influitive has been endorsed by several major companies, such as IBM, Cisco, Wiley, Adobe, and Mountain Dew.

Hoopla

Best for: Social Motivation

For businesses looking for a social-focused gamification platform, Hoopla may be a great choice. Similar to Influitive, Hoopla is centered around the social aspect of games and less on the gameplay itself. Hoopla takes advantage of the motivation that can be generated by positive recognition.

Their platform features leaderboards and celebratory announcements as well as “newsflashes” and contests. Hoopla is also compatible with several popular social apps for the workplace, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.

This makes Hoopla especially useful for businesses with a significant number of remote employees. Integration with Slack, for example, will allow remote employees to get in on the gamification fun just as much as a regular office employee. Hoopla has some unique contest features as well, including “head-to-head” challenges, March Madness, and other sports-themed contests that can be particularly effective with sales employees.

Kahoot! 360

Best for: Collaborative Gamification

Kahoot! 360 takes a significantly different approach to gamification than the rest of the software programs on this list. Rather than focusing on whole work-life gamification, Kahoot! Is centered around gamifying specific experiences, primarily training, meetings, and events.

This collaborative platform got its start in education, where it became extremely popular among students and teachers alike. The same approach is applied in Kahoot! 360 to increase engagement and collaborative company culture.

What makes Kahoot! 360 unique is its simplicity. This is an easy platform for anyone to pick up, and it can be used for virtually any industry, business, or niche. Essentially, a game of Kahoot! has one “host” who creates the game’s questions and potential answers (multiple-choice style) as well as a unique game code. Players can use the game code to join through any device that can access the internet. This makes Kahoot! highly accessible and value-oriented.

Moreover, Kahoot! 360 includes an expanded feature set that is purpose-built for businesses, with additional optimization for remote work scenarios.

What Is Gamification Software?

Gamification software is any software that focuses on applying game mechanics to real-world tasks in order to make them more fun, interesting, or rewarding. The concept can be applied to virtually any task by creating some kind of story or quest element around a real-world goal.

Gamification software might turn a to-do list into a ‘quest’ where the player has to complete all the tasks in order to ‘level up’ or obtain a reward.

For example, gamification software might turn a to-do list into a “quest” where the player has to complete all the tasks in order to “level up” or obtain an exciting item or reward. Some gamification platforms even allow managers to reward employees with actual money or prizes.

Gamification can take a variety of forms. Some gamification platforms focus on a certain niche of tasks, while others gamify the entire work experience. The right platform will differ between businesses’ unique needs. In general, though, gamification software includes some form of competition mechanic.

Competition can be highly motivating, especially in jobs like sales and marketing. Gamification also typically includes a social element (like a leaderboard), goal setting, an achievement system, and a way to track analytics and metrics.

Making Work Fun Again

Gamification is about much more than retaining employees’ attention longer during the workday. It brings employees together through fun, collaboration, and friendly competition. All of these can help employees become less stressed about their work, enjoy their jobs more, and form lasting connections with their colleagues.

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