I Studied 500+ Gamified Apps (Here's What Actually Works) — Transcript

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1. 0:00I studied hundreds of gamification
2. 0:03implementations for mobile apps, and
3. 0:05here's the thing. The three elements
4. 0:07every app adds first, like points,
5. 0:10badges, and leaderboards, are also the
6. 0:13three most documented failures in
7. 0:16product history. Meanwhile, Strava built
8. 0:19180 million users without a traditional
9. 0:23badge in sight. An Apple Watch drove a
10. 0:2649.5%
11. 0:28behavior change in 160,000
12. 0:31people purely through completion drive.
13. 0:34The Apple one is kind of wild, and we'll
14. 0:36come back to it because how they did it
15. 0:39is probably the most important point out
16. 0:42of all of the seven research-backed
17. 0:45patterns I'm going to cover in this
18. 0:47video. You're going to see what kind of
19. 0:49gamification actually works, what's
20. 0:52theater, and the specific mechanics the
21. 0:56best retaining apps in the world are
22. 0:59actually using. By the way, I'm Tim.
23. 1:02I've spent over a decade designing
24. 1:04software for companies like Spotify, and
25. 1:08I've helped clients reach the top of the
26. 1:11US App Store working on exactly these
27. 1:14kinds of problems. Now, pattern one is
28. 1:17what I call the PBL fallacy. PBL stands
29. 1:20for points, badges, and leaderboards,
30. 1:23the three mechanics every app reaches
31. 1:25for first. And the reason this leads the
32. 1:28video is because of what happened in
33. 1:302024. LinkedIn quietly retired its
34. 1:34community top voice gold badges. Their
35. 1:37internal read was that badge-motivated
36. 1:40users had been producing quantity over
37. 1:43quality, chasing the badge instead of
38. 1:47sharing expertise. And this isn't new.
39. 1:50It's actually history repeating.
40. 1:52Foursquare scrapped mayorships and
41. 1:55badges in 2014
42. 1:57after their data showed gamification
43. 1:59drove check-ins but not the discovery
44. 2:03behavior that business actually needed.
45. 2:06Google News killed its badge system for
46. 2:09the same exact reason. The gamification
47. 2:11OG, Yu-kai Chou, put it best. PBL is the
48. 2:15scoreboard of a game, not the game
49. 2:18itself. You wouldn't walk into a
50. 2:20baseball stadium, look at the
51. 2:22scoreboard, and feel motivated to play
52. 2:25baseball, right? Most apps though build
53. 2:28the scoreboard and forget to build the
54. 2:31game. So, let's look at the counter
55. 2:34example, Strava. 180 million registered
56. 2:37users and the engagement number that
57. 2:40genuinely shocked me. Strava users
58. 2:43average 1 hour of real-world activity
59. 2:47for every 2 minutes spent in the app.
60. 2:49That's not a retention metric, that's
61. 2:51more like an influence metric. The
62. 2:53mechanism doing most of the work is
63. 2:56segments. A segment is any user-defined
64. 2:59stretch of road or trail. Run it and
65. 3:03your time gets logged on a leaderboard
66. 3:06sorted by age and gender cohort. Now,
67. 3:09that sounds like a leaderboard, which I
68. 3:12just told you is kind of broken. But,
69. 3:15here's the difference. Strava didn't
70. 3:17build one global leaderboard, they built
71. 3:20thousands of hyper-local
72. 3:23micro-competitions.
73. 3:25The hill on your morning route, the
74. 3:27segment outside your office. These
75. 3:29competitions are winnable and
76. 3:31winnability is the strongest predictor
77. 3:35of competitive motivation. A 2022
78. 3:38Science Direct study confirmed this.
79. 3:40Kudos on Strava, the small social
80. 3:43acknowledgement when someone completes a
81. 3:45run, increase future run frequency. And
82. 3:49the social side has compounded fast.
83. 3:52Strava's clubs grew 59% in 2024 alone,
84. 3:56and the platform handed out 14 billion
85. 3:59kudos in 2025. Strava's lesson for
86. 4:02founders is direct. Enable users to
87. 4:05compete more locally. Engineer the size
88. 4:09of the competition rather than inflating
89. 4:11empty metrics. And before we keep going
90. 4:14here, if you want to chat about how any
91. 4:17of these patterns would apply to your
92. 4:19app, we open up a few free design
93. 4:22strategy calls monthly at Zipsnap. You
94. 4:25can grab your spot in the link below.
95. 4:26Now, so far this might suggest the
96. 4:28answer is just to add the right kinds of
97. 4:31mechanics. More features, but smarter
98. 4:34ones. That's where pattern three comes
99. 4:36in, and it's the most counterintuitive
100. 4:40of the seven, the S-curve problem. A
101. 4:422025 peer-reviewed study in Frontiers in
102. 4:46Psychology found that gamification
103. 4:49feature richness follows an S-shaped
104. 4:52curve. Adding features helps engagement
105. 4:55up to a point. After that point, more
106. 4:58features actually reverse engagement.
107. 5:01The empirical proof here is Habitica,
108. 5:04probably the most aggressively gamified
109. 5:08productivity app ever built. Daily tasks
110. 5:12become quests. Habits become character
111. 5:15stats. Missing a task damages your HP.
112. 5:20The peer-reviewed study on Habitica
113. 5:22found that 100% of participants
114. 5:26experienced counterproductive effects.
115. 5:29Users got so absorbed in managing the
116. 5:32game layer that actual productivity
117. 5:35behavior got buried. This is cognitive
118. 5:38overload disguised as engagement. If
119. 5:41you're stacking streaks plus points plus
120. 5:44badges plus challenges plus
121. 5:47leaderboards, the data says you're past
122. 5:50the peak of the curve, not climbing it.
123. 5:53Which brings us to the most dangerous
124. 5:56mechanic in the founder toolkit.
125. 5:59Streaks. Pattern four is the streak
126. 6:02trap. Research from the Decision Lab
127. 6:04found that streaks gradually shift from
128. 6:07motivational to obligational the longer
129. 6:11they run. Users move from I want to do
130. 6:13this to I can't miss today. The
131. 6:16canonical case here is Snapchat. A 2023
132. 6:19Belgium study of almost 2,500
133. 6:23adolescents found that streak frequency
134. 6:26correlates with FOMO, problematic
135. 6:28smartphone use, and reduced social media
136. 6:31self-control. In 2024, the Nevada
137. 6:34Attorney General filed litigation
138. 6:36against Snapchat. And the EU Digital
139. 6:39Fairness Act heading toward a
140. 6:41legislative proposal in late 2026
141. 6:45is specifically
142. 6:47aiming at addictive streak mechanics.
143. 6:50So, if you're shipping a streak in 2026,
144. 6:53know this. The longer it runs, the more
145. 6:56it shifts toward obligation. And you're
146. 6:58shipping into space that's now being
147. 7:01monitored by regulators. That doesn't
148. 7:03mean streaks are universally bad, of
149. 7:06course. Duolingo has run hundreds and
150. 7:09hundreds of experiments on theirs, and
151. 7:11the version they ship today obviously
152. 7:14retains users. But notice how they ship
153. 7:17it. Users choose their goal level. They
154. 7:20can buy a streak freeze. The mechanic is
155. 7:23wrapped in agency. A streak you can't
156. 7:26pause, can't influence, and can't escape
157. 7:29is the design researchers are currently
158. 7:31flagging. Okay, so if streaks burn out
159. 7:35at day 31, what works instead? Pattern
160. 7:38five is variable reward magnitude,
161. 7:41anticipation not loss aversion. The gap
162. 7:44between knowing a reward is coming and
163. 7:46not knowing how big it is. That's one of
164. 7:49the strongest engagement signals in all
165. 7:53of product design. Take the example of
166. 7:55Gameblazers, a fantasy card game where
167. 7:58the pack opening flow is the heart of
168. 8:01the product. The product has three
169. 8:03stages. Anticipation, you tap a pack, no
170. 8:07idea what's inside, could be junk, could
171. 8:10be the rare you've been chasing for
172. 8:12weeks. Reveal, cards flip one at a time.
173. 8:16Each card resets the anticipation cycle.
174. 8:19Same data, but one dopamine event
175. 8:22becomes five. And celebration, rare card
176. 8:25hits, screen reacts, glows, haptics.
177. 8:29That's why you tap the next pack. Now,
178. 8:32compare that to a streak. Streaks run on
179. 8:35fear of losing what you built. Variable
180. 8:38rewards run on the pull towards what's
181. 8:41next. Same surface behavior, opposite
182. 8:45emotional engine. One burns out while
183. 8:48the other keeps recharging itself. By
184. 8:51the way, we designed the entire
185. 8:53Gameblazers app at Sipsap. And we do
186. 8:55this for a lot of clients, including
187. 8:58Freecash, who's paid out over 300
188. 9:01million euros and are absolutely killing
189. 9:04it on the gamification side. So again,
190. 9:06if you need help with this kind of stuff
191. 9:08for your own product, we run a few free
192. 9:11design strategy calls each month. Links
193. 9:14down below. Now, the Apple Watch thing I
194. 9:16told you was possibly the most important
195. 9:18part of this entire video. Here's what
196. 9:21they actually did. They built the entire
197. 9:23system around one principle, completion
198. 9:26drive. And that's how they got 49.5%
199. 9:29behavior change in 160,000
200. 9:32people. The activity ring system is
201. 9:35possibly the most underrated
202. 9:37gamification design pattern in consumer
203. 9:39tech. They've got three rings: move,
204. 9:42exercise, stand. Close all three to
205. 9:45complete your day. The system runs on
206. 9:48one principle from cognitive psychology,
207. 9:51the Gestalt principle of closure. The
208. 9:53brain is hardwired to perceive
209. 9:56incomplete patterns as demanding
210. 9:58completion. A 90% filled circle creates
211. 10:02an open loop, and the brain wants to
212. 10:04close it. Users who regularly close
213. 10:07rings are 48% less likely to experience
214. 10:11poor sleep quality. This is exactly what
215. 10:14great gamification design is all about.
216. 10:17The mechanic produces a real-world
217. 10:19positive outcomes, not engagement
218. 10:23theater. And here's the part most
219. 10:25founders miss. Apple's rings work
220. 10:27because they make you want to finish
221. 10:29what you started. Anticipation toward
222. 10:31closure. That's the engine. If you can
223. 10:33choose which lever your app runs on,
224. 10:36completion drive is a strong
225. 10:38alternative. Pattern seven builds
226. 10:40directly on this. I call it competence
227. 10:43versus badge theater. The 2024 Springer
228. 10:46Nature meta-analysis on gamification
229. 10:49found something brutal. Gamification
230. 10:51reliably improves a user's perception of
231. 10:55autonomy and relatedness, but has
232. 10:58minimal impact on competence, the one
233. 11:01psychological need most tied to
234. 11:04long-term intrinsic motivation. Most
235. 11:07apps engineer recognition and forget to
236. 11:10engineer mastery. Peloton is the
237. 11:13cleanest counterexample of this. Members
238. 11:16who use the social and output features
239. 11:19work out 15% more frequently, but the
240. 11:22mechanism isn't competition, it's
241. 11:24competence feedback. Output is measured
242. 11:27in real time. Personal records gets
243. 11:30auto-flagged. The 100 ride badge means
244. 11:33something because it represents 100
245. 11:36actual rides. That's not theater, that's
246. 11:39evidence of skill development. Chess.com
247. 11:42runs the same play with ELO ratings.
248. 11:45Garmin's training readiness and body
249. 11:48battery scores do it in fitness
250. 11:51wearables. Build mechanics that signal
251. 11:54you got better at the actual thing, not
252. 11:56mechanics that signal you opened the app
253. 12:00a lot. Now, if you found this breakdown
254. 12:02helpful at all and you're wondering how
255. 12:05this might apply to your own product,
256. 12:07for the last time, we open up a few free
257. 12:11design strategy calls each month at
258. 12:13Sipsup. The link's down below, as
259. 12:15always. Also, if you like this video,
260. 12:17you'll probably also like this one,
261. 12:19somewhere around here, where I break
262. 12:21down how Spotify, Tinder, and Netflix
263. 12:25use psychology to dominate their
264. 12:27categories. Now, until the next one,
265. 12:31have a great life.