A Review and Prospects of Foreign Gamification Marketing Research

Ning Changhui, Xi Nannan

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 39, Issue 10, pp. 72 - 85 (2017)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2017.10.005

Abstract

Gamification has been widely used in health-care, education and training, marketing activities and enterprise management, which can affect the psychological states and behavior of consumers, such as promoting their participation and achieving conjunction. Currently, there have been many enterprises which apply game design elements into marketing practice and conduct gamification marketing. Since the concept of " gamification” was proposed in the Game Developers Conference of 2011, many foreign scholars and institutions have conducted a lot of studies and discussions in details. However, the research on this topic in China has not been paid attention to and is largely lagging behind. Therefore, this paper reviews foreign studies of gamification marketing in the different aspects including background, application areas, theoretical basis and conceptual model, defines the basic connotation of gamification marketing, combs the application areas of gamification marketing and summarizes the reasons for advantages of gamification marketing over the traditional marketing. Finally, this paper proposes the future research directions to provide a reference for scholars and practical managers who are interested in gamification marketing.

Keywords

gamification; game design element; self-determination theory; flow experience