10 Top Books on Gamification That Can Help You Design eLearning Courses

Gamification is the talk of the town. It has erupted onto the corporate training scene with a bang. Gamification is using game mechanics and game design techniques to give the learner an engaging and motivating experience. In this blog, I list 10 books on Gamification(in a random order) that will help you make your sales training effective.

1. The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies For Training and Education by Karl M. Kapp

This book suggests organizations reorganize their learning techniques through gamification. It explains that gamification is not about adding points, badges, or levels to eLearning courses. Instead, it discusses all the features of games and their advantages and disadvantages in the context of learning.

2. Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards by Yu-kai Chou

In this book, gamification pioneer Yu-kai Chou explains how to apply the Octalysis gamification framework to design appealing and winning experiences in product, marketing, workplace, and personal lives.

3. For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business by Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter

This book discusses how game thinking can offer successful solutions to business problems. It discloses how various companies are using game thinking effectively and explains the circumstances when gamification fits best. It also explains a 6-step framework that can be used for marketing, innovation, workforce motivation, consumer engagement, productivity improvement, etc.

4. Enterprise Games by Michael H. Hugos

This book discusses how the field-tested methodologies of games help people manage and focus their actions and constantly learn and win in swift-paced and impulsive environments. It suggests how to employ game mechanics to advance business processes from sales to supply chain management.

5. Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rule-breakers, and Changemakers by Dave Gray

This book deals with 80 plus games that help you shatter the obstacles, converse better, and produce new ideas and strategies for your business. These games promote engagement and creativity by adding structure and transparency to the workplace. You can opt for any game out of the 80 you think would be the most relevant and engaging for your sales reps and develop an eLearning course.

6. Play at Work: How Games Inspire Breakthrough Thinking by Adam L. Penenberg

This book discusses how games can assist in learning, creating, and innovating. The author explains how big companies such as Microsoft and Google have employed games in a bold manner. He emphasizes not just games, but a smart game design can have a lasting impact on the brain and the organization.

7. Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business by David Edery, Ethan Mollick

The book shares how top organizations are employing video games to reach customers more economically, promote brands, hire, develop and retain workforce. It lists case studies, best practices and the drawbacks to be avoided. It is a good read for any entrepreneur, marketer, strategist or anybody who loves video games.

8. Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success by Aaron Dignan

The author states why games are a significant trend these days and how technology drives us to be players. The book deals with the demanding task of defining games and game mechanics from various outlooks and then discovering these ideas with the lens of neuroscience.

9. Game on: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games by Jon Radoff

The author explains that social game techniques can be employed to augment the quality of social media, online operations, and various other business experiences. This book helps you discover why social games work for any business. It also shares the secret behind why games are fun and describes the game design process. The fun factor of games can be harnessed to enhance your training courses.

10. Gamification by Design by Gabe Zichermann

This book teaches you the design strategies you require to incorporate game mechanics into any type of customer website or mobile app. It offers how to employ game concepts, game design patterns, and meaningful code samples to design amusing and enticing social environments. The gamification design strategies can serve as aninput to your eLearning course design.

All the books listed in this blog share concepts of gamification from different perspectives. Though a few of them just speak about the concept without a link to corporate training, yet the ideas discussed in them can be used for designing eLearning courses. Hope each one delivers valuable inputs in designing your training courses.