Gamification: The Importance of Failure

Part 2

No one likes to fail. So how is that gamers can spend 80% of the time failing and still love what they are doing? — Jane McGonigal

In the previous article, I wrote about the basic motivation principles for setting up a great gamification model. In this one, I would like to tell you what I learned about failing and why it is a critical element in gamification.

Nicole Lazzaro is a games researcher, and in one of her researches she found out that, gamers spend nearly all their time failing. Four out of five don’t finish a mission or quest, run out of time, and have to start all over. And gamers enjoy failing.

And the most interesting thing here is that when we play a well designed game, failure does not dissapoint us. It actually motivates us to try again.

In the study — #1 Finding in Games Research (yes, that’s the name of the research), pinpoints that failure in games help gamers increase their mental toughness. It’s an exciting idea and finding. Taking into consideration that in real life, once you experience failure, you are less likely to try it again. Your level of interest diminishes each time you don’t succeed.

Why failure makes us happy?

The M.I.N.D. lab, who did the research mentioned above, found out that players experience the most strong positive emotion when they fail. They did that by analysing their brain activity and blood levels. And the peak of brain activity was when then failed. Most of us would expect it to be when you finish a game or reach a new level or earn more points, but no. It’s when you fail and try again.