Gamifying Media:How Entertainment Brands are Redefining User Engagement

Jon Radoff

Gamification Summit 2012 – San Francisco

June 21, 2012

Jon Radoff

Author of Game OnCEO of Disruptor Beam,social game developer;founder of GamerDNA,Eprise (NASDAQ:EPRS),NovaLink.

How has social technology and games changed everything?

How do entertainment brands thrive in the new media landscape?

What does the entertainment business teach us about every business?

Mesh Network analog

• Social network = human mesh network

Soon trillions of sensors—the “Internet of Things”will transmit information from every corner ofthe Earth.

Photo Credit: Matthew Stewart (Flickr)

Sohaib Athar’s Story

Just wanted to get away from society and do IT consulting up in the hills…

In a matter of days, he went from an unknown person to over 100,000 followers on Twitter.

Why is this important?

Humans are almost everywhere, encountering vastinformation, and interconnecting as never before.

Flickr Image CreditL Hijod Huskona

Digital connections yield social and neural connections.

Distribution of Smiling Faces on FacebookHappy people cluster.

Unhappy people cluster.

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND HAPPINESSBy Nicholas A. Christakis & James H. Fowler

Experiences = More Happiness than Things

Leaf van Boven and Thomas Gilovich. “To Do or to Have? That is the Question.” American Psychological Association. 85.6 (2003): 1198. Reprinted with permission.

Social technology changes everything because it hasdisrupted how we relate to time and space.

Flickr Image by Solo

Social networks allow people to form connections witheach other regardless of geography.

Mobile Devices enable access to content from anywhereand at any time – as natural as any other object.

Flickr Image by: courosa

Collectible card games are a “mobile social game”that achieved success before social networks orthe explosion of smart mobile devices.

Flickr Image by Seattle.roamer

For millenia, media consumption and game-playingwas a victim of the “tyranny of the clock.”

Digital video recorders are one of the first examples ofhow digital media consumption became asynchronous.

Game content is being repackaged for asynchronousconsumption.

The old model for content delivery:content in a can.

Flickr image by urbanmkr

Mobile devices have made the “content in a can” modeleasier to carry with you to any place and any time…

Flickr image by scottwills

Social networks and social apps are evolving how media is being consumed.

Is this the digital living room?

Flickr Image by Josh Bancroft

…or is this the new digital living room?

The stories of your life are the content of the social network.

Members of social networks are playing games together—which have become the most effective means of monetizing social network traffic.

Is this a story?

Evolutionary Gameplay Motivations

Immersion: storytelling, practicing theory of mind, adopting new viewpoints, imagining cause and effect, recognizing patterns, appreciating beauty.

Flickr Image by Express Monorail

Achievement: mastering skills.

Csikszentmihalyi has created the theory of Flow to explain why people are happy when they’re applying skills that they’re good at. Evolutionary explanations for positive psychology are emerging.

Cooperation: altruism, coordination, coalition-building, grouping.

Flickr image by Haags Uitburo.

Competition: for attention, for resources, for recognition, for physical domination, mates, etc.

Thank you!

Jon RadoffCEO, Disruptor BeamEmail: jradoff AT disruptorbeam.comTwitter: @jradoff