Octalysis and Funifier: an ideal partnership sprinkled with magic
Updated: Jan 24
For over a decade The Octalysis Group has been recognized as a worldwide leader in Gamification and Behavioral Science design. By implementing Octalysis, clients can finally achieve the high user engagement ROIs that were eluding them in the past.
The key to our success has been the creation of a Gamification approach that goes further than just adding some points or badges to an experience. More than just creating some linear design that does not evolve with the user over time.
Adding points and badges in a linear fashion is what characterizes Gamification Platforms in the market. They have been proven to create short term motivation, but falter in medium to long term engagement.
So, are all Gamification Platforms bad? Well, we may have found one that is actually really good. Especially when our designs and their implementation power come together.
The platform’s name? Funifier.
Read below what we like about them. More importantly, find out how you can get the best of both worlds by hiring the power of a combined Octalysis-Funifier team. Your business deserves it.
Gamification Platforms: essentially unimpressive
Octalysis has traditionally been sceptical about the promise of Gamification platforms in the market. Octalysis doesn’t believe that you can buy motivation off the shelf. You really need to carefully map the type of motivation we want to empower, and only then design for features that will create that motivation.
Gamification platforms do things the wrong way around. They have a bag of tricks (game mechanics) that they sprinkle over an experience, pretty much regardless of user types or stage of the user journey. Because platforms need to sell their product to many different clients, they tend to have a one-size-fits-all approach. Also, the cheapest approach is to develop easy to develop features that require little backend IT resources.
So, what you mostly see are experience points, badges, leaderboards, level and some additional techniques that could set some platforms apart from others - but sadly they don’t. Like the saying goes, if you put lipsticks on a pig, it’s still a pig. Cheap approaches often mean low ROI. These are mostly short term motivational, and hence most of these experiences fail to generate lasting user engagement.
What platforms really should implement, but can’t by virtue of their rigid set ups, are features that make people come back to experiences over the long term: meaningful social collaboration and (most importantly) giving users a way to strategize and get agency in the experience. Making sure that there are different paths to success for different users is key.
This requires intelligent design AND requires a significant amount of back-end development (and hence budget). So, it almost reads like it is game over for platforms, right? Well, we have good news.
The platform that encompasses Octalysis: Funifier
Luckily, we have found a true gem: a solid platform that is built on the principles of Octalysis combined with a solid implementation team. Introducing Funifier.
Funifier has demonstrated that they not only have solid game techniques in their platform arsenal, but that they also have the flexibility to customize their design set up to adjust to the needs of a large variety of users in the same experience.
It is not easy to build an experience that feels engaging for users; can evolve over time; and that achieves very high KPIs. Yet this is what Funifier has managed to do.
Using our Octalysis designs made all the difference and is proof of what can happen if Octalysis and Funifier come together. Let’s look at one great case study where the Octalysis and Funifier magic came together: CAIXA Bank.
CAIXA Bank gamification case study: an uplift of US$1.7 Billion in profit (113%)
Caixa Econômica Federal, the largest public bank in Latin America, had a historic net profit record of around US$1.5 Billion. The bank wanted to increase this number to around US$1.8 Billion, but achieving a 12% increase is not easy in a mature market like banking and finance.
However, CAIXA discovered that such goals are reachable if you combine the Octalysis/Funifier magic. Hence a project was born with the Brazilian nickname Tamo Junto 9Bi+ (Together we reach 9Bi+).
The profit goal was broken down into goals by department; subdivided into team goals, all the way down to the individual level.
A fully engaging user journey was crafted, fielding a wide range of carefully selected Octalysis game techniques: Humanity hero, Elitism, Points and Exchangeable Points, Quest list, Instant feedback, Milestone unlock, Virtual goods, Collections, monitor, group Quests and many more.
While being active in the gamified experience, employees would achieve personal targets in their own way, hence increasing a feeling of agency (Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback) and public recognition (Core Drive 5: Social Influence and Relatedness).
There were many prizes that could be won as well such as winning a TV.
And the results?
As you can imagine, today Gamification is an integral part of the bank’s corporate tool for engagement management.
Octalysis and Funifier: a match made in heaven?
We now believe that our combined service offering and growth potential are much stronger than if we had both continued to operate independently. By engaging with both of us, you will get the combined power of the best gamification design consultancy with the best gamification implementation globally.
Can you imagine what high ROI design and a super fast and solid implementation can do to your business’ revenue? Your user engagement metrics? Loyalty program returns?
Stop imagining. Just reach out to us and we will make the magic happen!
Joris Beerda
The Octalysis Group Co-Founder & CEO
Igor Radić,
Funifier Partner & CEO