When you think about banks, then the word serious would immediately strike your mind. But certainly not in the context of "serious games," but "serious business." This is about to change, as the case of the Dutch Rabobank with assets of €771bn and a profit of €1.3bn is demonstrating.

Gamification has become an important strategy in how banking business is done, both internally for employees and externally for clients. Maarten Molenar, project manager for the Rabobank Gamification Hub, is the driver and evangelist behind the gamification strategy for this cooperative bank conglomerate that operates in over 48 countries and employees nearly 60,000 people.

Rabobank as one of the largest and oldest banking cooperations in the world has been doing serious games in the past to promote the bank at TV shows and for young clients of the future (the 8-16 year old) - including the cooperative game World Food Game which was an experiment in gamified co-creation with young people. With the raise of gamification and the fact that analyst companies like Gartner, Ovum, or M2 Research started to talk about that concept, this has sparked even more interest at Rabobank.

When Maarten began investigating this topic, he found colleagues who also had used gamification techniques without knowing it. So he started an internal virtual network and assembled gamifiers and colleagues interested in the topic, sharing with them knowledge and activities, as well as keeping them informed by a regular newsletter. This newsletter has become a way to better explain the topic and the intentions that Maarten has, as sometimes people think everything will be turned into a game.

Dan Ariely, professor at Duke University, did some experiments, testing the hypothesis of meaning and what makes us feel good about work. Contrary to popular belief, it's not money or even joy that makes us love work, but meaning. In two experiments (and one anecdote) Dan Ariely shows the effect of meaning to the outcome.

Example 1 – Lego Bionicle

Participants were given Lego-pieces to build Bionicle figures. For the first Bionicle, the participants were given $3. For the second $2.70, the third $2.10, the fourth $1.80 and son. This process was repeated until the participants refused to continue making new Bionicles. The participants were split into two groups. Whenever participants in the first group handed over the finished figure, the experimenter took it, put it in a place, and handed the participants new Lego-pieces to make the next one.

When the second group handed over their first Bionicle, they were also given new Lego pieces, but at the same time the experimenter started disassembling the first Bionicle in front of the participants. When the second Bionicle was done and handed over, the experimenter returned the Lego pieces of the first Bionicle to the participant and started immediately to disassemble the second Bionicle.

• reduction of development effort for introducing gamification in new and existing solutions
• limits of achievement systems and existing platforms
• manageability of sophisticated gamification concepts at enterprise level

De-Bunking the Myth of Competitive Game Mechanics in the Enterprise

I get this question a lot, and I re-direct game mechanics strategies away from competition more times that I’d like to count. Competition has no place in the enterprise. It will never motivate employees. It will never foster collaboration. It will never help people learn new skills.
 
Ever.

When I was a kid, my mom used to say, “Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and focus on yourself.” This is advice I bet a lot of us have heard as children, and it’s just a way of saying: life is not a contest. It’s not about being the best. It’s about being YOUR best. It’s about being recognized for YOUR accomplishments, whatever that may be. You don’t have to have the same accomplishments as everyone else. There will always be someone better at something than you, and someone who will be worse at something than you. When you compare yourself to someone else, you are less happy.

Imagine seeing a job description that says:
 
Requirements include competing among your colleagues to be Number One! Crush your peers by being singled out as The Best – all in a public forum!

Would you even apply for that job? Now, on top of everything else you have to do at work, you also have to be better than your colleagues in a very public way.