How to Gamify your app using a timer-based scoring system.

A lot of mobile app developers today like to incorporate game mechanics into their apps. The reason is simple: We all love incentives. That’s the core of game mechanics. It incentivizes users to perform various actions/behaviors in an application. Some companies managed to increase the number of users who completed their online tasks from 10% to 80% after adding gamification elements. A few real-world examples are loyalty programs, achievement badges, leaderboards etc.

Anyways, one effective way to incorporate game mechanics is to start with a timer-based system. This method can be a good start for developers who wish to gamify their apps without spending too much time and resources.

This is how it works. Whenever a user performs an action (tapping on an ad, tapping on a feature, opening the help page, tapping on a function etc), he/she gets awarded points for every action. As these points get accumulated and cross pre-defined thresholds, they can automatically unlock bonus features or functionality within the app.

Technically this should not be too hard to implement. I am not a programmer but the way I look at it, create an integer-based timer within your code and associate it with all the user actions you deem appropriate. This timer gets incremented in value every time one of these actions is performed. Let this timer be displayed on the main app screen permanently so that a user knows exactly how many points he is getting. When the timer reaches a particular value, it automatically triggers an event to enable a special feature or functionality within the app.

A good example where this could work would be a video app like Crackle. So if Crackle awarded points to a user everytime he/she tapped on a video or watched an ad or shared a video or just simply tapped on a feature etc, the timer would keep track of these user events and generate points based on each event. Once the user has reached let’s say 50 points, the timer would automatically unlock an exclusive trailer or a movie.

Such systems do exist, but they don’t reward user behavior at such a deep level. I am basically talking about rewarding almost 95% of all tasks that are performed in an app. It takes the game of incentives to another level together. If planned properly, this can be a great game mechanic for your app. 

My blogs tend to be long so I will keep this one short for now. I would love to hear your thoughts/criticisms on this. 

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