Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

For the Win, Revised and Updated Edition: The Power of Gamification and Game Thinking in Business, Education, Government, and Social Impact

Rate this book
“A QUICK BUT THOUGHTFUL LOOK INTO THE PROS AND CONS OF GAMIFICATION….”—Daniel H. Pink, Author, Drive

Why can’t life—and business—be fun?

For thousands of years, we’ve created things called games that tap the tremendous psychic power of fun. In a revised and updated edition of For the Win: The Power of Gamification and Game Thinking in Business, Education, Government, and Social Impact , authors Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter argue that applying the lessons of gamification could change your business, the way you learn or teach, and even your life.

Werbach and Hunter explain how games can be used as a valuable tool to address serious pursuits like marketing, productivity enhancement, education, innovation, customer engagement, human resources, and sustainability. They reveal how, why, and when gamification works—and what not to do.

This revised and updated edition incorporates the most prominent research findings to provide a comprehensive gamification playbook for the real world.

143 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 30, 2012

175 people are currently reading
1451 people want to read

About the author

Kevin Werbach

12 books13 followers
Kevin Werbach is Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Founder of the technology consulting firm Supernova Group, he has advised the FCC and Department of Commerce on communication policy. He is the coauthor of For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
237 (22%)
4 stars
417 (39%)
3 stars
335 (31%)
2 stars
69 (6%)
1 star
9 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
Profile Image for Manny.
Author 46 books16k followers
July 23, 2013
description

[The bank from Mary Poppins. THE OLDER MR DAWES, surrounded by the other members of the Board, confronts MICHAEL, JANE, MR BANKS, BERT and MARY POPPINS herself]

THE OLDER MR DAWES: Tell me, young fellow, what are you planning to do with your tuppence?

MICHAEL: Feed the birds!

DAWES: Fiddlesticks! Spend your tuppence on birdfood, and what have you got? Fat birds. On the other hand [he pulls out a copy of For the Win] you could spend it on... THIS!

MICHAEL: But I want to feed the birds!

DAWES: [to MR BANKS] Well man, convince him!

MR BANKS: [looks nervously at BERT] Ah, maybe you could tell us a little about this book's obvious merits. For example, how would you rate it as a work of literature?

BERT: Blimey gov'nor, I dunno where ter start. Stylistically, I ser-pose I could compare it with eating a Big Mac, except it's blander, less enjoyable and--

MARY POPPINS: Thank you Bert, that's quite enough.

MR BANKS: Ah, yes, yes, I couldn't agree more. Completely inappropriate. Maybe you, Miss Poppins--

MARY POPPINS: Me?

MR BANKS: Ah, absolutely, I was thinking, you could perhaps explain to these gentlemen your fascinating theory that in every job that must be done there is an--

MARY POPPINS: Mr Banks? Are you sure you're feeling alright?

MR BANKS: Or that a spoonful of sugar helps--

MARY POPPINS: Before you go on, there is one thing I'd like to make perfectly clear.

MR BANKS: And that is?

MARY POPPINS: I never explain anything.

DAWES: Well said, young lady, well said! Come on Banks, you'll just have to do this yourself.

MR BANKS: Er, yes sir. Of course.

[He turns towards MICHAEL. Music starts up]

MR BANKS: Now if you invest tuppence, in this little book
You will find
That before you have even reached the end of chapter one, it's
Blown your mind
And you'll achieve that sense of conquest
As your influence expands
Through our new web-linked society
That's controlled as Amazon demands

[MICHAEL is unimpressed. DAWES motions BANKS to go on]

MR BANKS: Now if you invest tuppence, in this little book
Soon you'll see
It increases your clickstream and your bottom-line account
Prof-it-a-bly
And you'll achieve that sense of stature...

[It still isn't working. DAWES angrily encourages him to continue]

MR BANKS: [beads of sweat stand out on his forehead] You'll learn about... gamified networks! Ruthless killer apps! Motivational strategies! Scores! Badges! Leaderboards!

DAWES: The quotes! Tell him about the quotes!

MR BANKS: Bullshit quotes from Wittgenstein! Einstein too! Epic failure warnings! All for...

ALL THE DIRECTORS IN CHORUS: Tuppence, proactively, synergistically, holistically invested in the... to be specific in the...

[MICHAEL finally weakens, and his hand opens, apparently of its own accord. DAWES seizes the tuppence and gives him the book in return]

DAWES: Welcome to our joyous family of gamification experts!

MICHAEL: GIVE ME BACK MY TUPPENCE!!!!

[Heads turn all around. MR BANKS looks like he's going to have a heart attack. MICHAEL flashes a big shit-eating grin]

MICHAEL: Just kiddin'. You said something about an entry-level position?
Profile Image for Khurram.
2,334 reviews6,685 followers
December 30, 2022
Adolescence of gamification

An excellent book. I have recently finished the Gamification course run by Kevin Werbach, and the book was recommended as further reading. For me, having done the course, it is a great reminder to the material and a great way to have the materials as a reference nice that I have finished.

The book is an easy read. If someone has never heard of Gamification before, they will learn all about it here. Here is a very simple example of gamification: used to write this book. The sections are called levels, as you read on to the next level it builds on and references what has been learned already. Just like levelling up in a game as you face harder challenges, you call on your experiences and skills learned so far.

The other great thing about this book it that it is revised from the earlier book, written over 10 years ago, this book was written in 2020 so not only are the examples given current, and as a read I can see how far Gamification has come so far but so can the authors. The constantly comment on the thought process back then when Gamification was in its infancy to where it is not in its adolescents. Even predictions of where made in the first book are shown to come yo fruition or not.

This is a great book for any looking to understand the elements, techniques, rewards, or even the failures and pitfalls of Gamification. Each section is chunked, making it easy to take in at a time, and everything comes together excellently.
Profile Image for Nate Bates.
15 reviews1 follower
May 7, 2013
I read this book while taking a Coursera class on gamification with half of the author team, Kevin Werbach. The course was much more interesting, better paced, and contained interviews with notable gamification experts. Beyond the content, Professor Werbach is charismatic and speaks easily and intelligently on gamification, clearly comfortable as a virtual instructor.

I feel the book's attempt to define a gamification framework -- the 6 Ds: DEFINE business objectives, DELINEATE target behaviors, etc -- was somewhat forced, and the section on the ethics of gamification strayed from the path of gamification and into broader (and more boring) arena of internet law (terms of service, privacy policies, etc).

All in all a quick read and a decent introduction to many facets of gamification, but if you have the opportunity to take an online course with Professor Werbach, that's the way to go. You will gain much more through his teachings there, and even more through your participation in the class and applications of the concepts.
Profile Image for Michael Scott.
775 reviews157 followers
November 28, 2012
For the Win How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business is a nice survey by Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter on the topic of gamification. I see this book as a nice follow-up of the groundbreaking work of Jane McGonigal (Reality Is Broken Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World), and, perhaps less, of Gabe Zichermann and Christopher Cunningham (Gamification by Design Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps).

I found that the main strength of this book to be its quality of writing, which combines ingeniously the academic treatment of the topic (thorough, analytic, prescriptive) with the generally light flavor of the topics. Somehow, the authors of this book make enjoyable the reading of a comprehensive treatise on gamification. Perhaps a lesser achievement, but nonetheless important, is this book's ability to really collect into one volume all the necessary knowledge for understanding and starting to use gamification. In particular, the authors have added numerous use cases to learn from, to the already known theory.

Overall, a must-read on gamification.
Profile Image for John Stepper.
616 reviews27 followers
January 5, 2013
For only 126 pages, this book is a very good primer on gamification. It's not just cheerleading for gamification. It's a very good examination of the trade-offs, including pitfalls. And it provides some very good examples.

A nice foundation to build on.
Profile Image for Poonam.
423 reviews173 followers
March 5, 2014
This book is about how to implement gamification to one's business systems. Gamification has been defined as use of game elements and game-design techniques in non-game contexts.

The book is divided into six lessons, referred to as levels.

1. Getting into the game: An introduction

It talks about three non-game contexts: internal, external and behavioural change. We need gamification for following three reasons:
a) Engagement
b) Experimentation - to check out possibilities
c) Results

2. Game thinking: Learning to think like a game designer

This lesson discusses intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. We need to ask following four questions to identify if gamification fits our needs.

a) Motivation: Where would you derive value from encouraging behavior?
b) Meaningful choices: Are your target activities sufficiently interesting?
c) Structure: Can the desired behaviours be modeled through a set of algorithms
d) Potential conflicts: Can the game avoid conflict with exsiting motivational structures?

3. Why games work: Rules of motivation

This lesson focusses on how to use intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. What does psychology tell us? The self-determiantion theory suggests, needs fall intwo following three categories:

a) Competence: mastery, ie, dealing with external enviroment
b) Autonomy: innate need to be in command of one's life and do what is meaningful
c) Relatedness: involves social connections and universal desire to interact with friends, family, coworkers.

Feedback in gamification is important motivating factor.

4. The gamification toolkit: Game elements

This lesson explains game elements such as PBLs - points, badges and leaderboards. It reiterates again and again that PBL is not all that is there for gamification. They can have negative impact too if not used correctly.

The game design hieracty comprises of: (from top)

a) Dynamics: are the big picture aspects for the gamified system that you have to consider and manage but which can never directly enter into the game. (for eg, forced trade-offs, relationships, nrratives etc)
b) Mechanics: are the basic processes that drive the action forward and generate player engagement.
c) Components: are the specific instantiations of mechanics and dynamics.


5. Game changer:Six steps to gamification

It comprises of 6Ds.

1. DEFINE the business objectives.
2. DELINEATE target behaviours.
3. DESCRIBE your players. They can be of 4 types: Achievers, Explorers, Socialisers and Killers
4. DEVISE activity cycles. They are of two types: engagement loops and progression stairs. There are three stages in activity cycle: Motivation <-> Feedback <-> Action
5. DON'T forget the fun.
6. DEPLOY the appropriate tools.


6. Epic fails: And how to avoid them

legal use, intellectual property, privacy rights, misuse, unintended results, virtual currency inflation, players gaming the game.


Examples discussed:

1. Record Searchlight (California newspaper)- online comments, badges etc
2. Microsoft Language Quality game (Ross Smith)
3. Foursquare
4. Volkswagon - The Fun Theory: The Piano Staircase, the garbage bin with BONG sound.
5. Samsung nation badges
6. Disney Electrinic Whip (laundry leaderboard)
7. Fitocracy: duels, profiles, levels
8. LiveOps call center: For underemployed and unemployed Americans to work to provide relatively cheap, good customer service. Badges, points to tell how good they are.
8. Rypple/Salesforce.com: 360 degree feedback. FB was their first client.
9. TV program Psych web site
10. Cow clicker - pointless
261 reviews7 followers
March 25, 2013
A positive and balanced account of what gamification is and how to exploit it for fun and profit. There are colourful examples of increasing motivation for customers, service users and employees in companies and organisations. Typical methods include point rewards, top-10 leaderboards, and achievement badges. Despite the nerd title this concise work is a serious high-level design guide.
The authors explain a 5-step design process which can give a gamification project the best chance of being effective. Alongside example success stories, there are reports of systems which didn't meet their aims whether through bad design or bad timing.
The authors aren't blind to criticisms of gamification, and caution against using it callously. The case of Cow Clicker is considered in detail. In addition to explaining the relevant legal concerns the work sagely notes the importance of maintaining your reputation and public opinion.
There is a glossary of terms, from 'advergames' to 'World of Warcraft', at the end. I read a review copy from the publisher.
Profile Image for Robert.
3 reviews1 follower
February 2, 2013
Werbach's book is comprehensive in its coverage of gamification, but it's not particularly deep. I enjoyed it for its examples, taxonomy, and presentation of gamification. However, without a background in psychology it's hard to imaging a successful implementation of a gamification program based solely on a reading of this book.

I imagine the audience for this book is businesspersons who want to know what gamification is and how it works, but will probably work with a team to implement it. For that audience it's probably more like a 4-5 star book.

Before reading this I took Werbach's gamification course on Coursera. I highly recommend that. It's parallel to this book, but more illuminating.
Profile Image for Ganesh Sreeramulu.
126 reviews1 follower
February 2, 2017
A great beginners book, but if you are already comfortable with the topic of "Gamification" and seek something more in depth, look elsewhere

Apart from a structured overview into the concept of Gamification, there is ample sprinkling of warnings against the blind useage of "PBL" . There are few good examples of failures of Gamification , but doesn't go in depth (maybe not the intended purpose of the book)
1 review
November 12, 2017
copy-paste?

I like the topic and a lot of referencing sources. Good point is to highlight the main ideas behind gamification.

Don’t like that a lot of ideas and references were taken from Game Frame book by Aaron Dignan without referencing.

6D framework is not production ready, it’s more academical and not following standard practices.

Nice to read, good to start.
Profile Image for Ivan Totev.
Author 2 books16 followers
May 2, 2013
A wonderful book about gamification! What I really liked about it was that it's very short but at the same time it covers the concept of gamification very widely. It provides many good examples and explanations on them. Overall I would say "a must read" for anyone who is interested in the subject.
Profile Image for Rendier.
239 reviews6 followers
May 4, 2013
A good introduction to the concept, but lacks detail. One big question is whether you can do this well for offline employees /activities.
Profile Image for Ashley.
Author 1 book18 followers
May 22, 2017
I may be biased against business oriented books. Having read an academic book on gamification already, I found this book to oversimplify the concepts of creating game-based strategies. This book is based on marketing and consumer/employee methods of gamification, so applying it to education is a bit of a stretch. That said, the authors provide a couple of educational models that have been successful. I found that the authors kept repeating ideas about locating meaningful ways of introducing game strategies into the workplace, but only ever described methods that over-simplified the process or provided superficial strategies. They seemed overly into leader-boards and badges, as easy plug-and-play methods, even though they frequently critiqued such simplistic models. I found myself agreeing with Ian Bogost, quoted near the end of the book, "Gamification is bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it." I also loved their quote from Margaret Robertson's blog, Hide&Seek: "What we're currently terming gamification is in fact the process of taking the thing that is least essential to games and representing it as the core of the experience. Points and badges have no closer a relationship to games than they do to websites and fitness apps and loyalty cards ... They are the least important bit of a game, the bit that has the least to do with all of the rich cognitive, emotional and social drivers which gamifiers are intending to connect with." At times, the authors admit that motivational techniques, like leaderboards, can be demotivating, operating "through fear rather than fun." What I preferred about Gee's approach to gaming was that he took meaningful video gaming experiences, extracted what about that particular experience was meaningful and how it represents a deeper pedagogical concept and then worked to decipher ways of employing pedagogical methods that could create a similarly meaningful experience, whether those methods have anything to do with a game or not. His approach felt more studied and took a deeper look into the psychology of gaming and its learning benefits. This book skimmed the surface and seemed to only pick out the superficial qualities that correspond to game addiction and drone-like playing.
Profile Image for Stephen Masters.
64 reviews
September 24, 2024
The book lists numerous ways to use gamification in business.

In theory, all of the ideas are great. Gamification makes things more interesting, adds a sense of accomplishment, and ultimately moves the user to spend more time with an app or website.

The only issue is that many of the ideas have aged—most people have seen all of these already, and after encountering the same techniques multiple times, they lose their impact. But I guess that I might be wrong in the case of the new users, younger people starting to spend time on internet...
Profile Image for DANIEL SCHNAIDER.
24 reviews1 follower
May 22, 2017
Straightforward book. Short and focused. It is a basic introduction. Dont expect to learn to gamify your business by reading it but you will learn the concepts. If you want a deeper understanding go to castronova sythentic worlds that are more deep

If you want a deeper understanding go to castronova sythentic worlds
Dont expect to learn to gamify your business by reading it but you will learn the concepts.
70 reviews
September 22, 2019
A recommended read for gamification advocates and adversaries alike. The book is short—a little over 100 pages—and gives a clear overview of the why, what, and how of gamification. Those that are inspired by the book can start experimenting with gamification and consult the "further reading" section at the end to learn more. Those that are not may at least be convinced that gamification—rather than being inherently flawed—is a technology, and can be used to for both good and evil.
Profile Image for Chad Schultz.
441 reviews8 followers
September 30, 2019
This is a short work, so don't expect too much from it. It may have some small value to those thinking about using principles of gamification in their organizations. Largely it warns about the possible pitfalls of doing so and how they can backfire. If you are interested in the topic of gamification, this isn't going to be the best one out there, but has some interesting points. It's short, so go ahead and add it to your stack of gamification books.
Profile Image for Helfren.
900 reviews10 followers
August 13, 2020
Using the system of games in the workplace and using extrinsic motivation in real life and real time can improve the worker engagement and behaviour daily. While giant companies like Facebook use the gaming leaderboard, likes counter and the badge as well as top fan in pages, the system of games has modernize social media and give reinforcement for users without actual rewards.

Intriguing book.
Profile Image for Hannah Wotton.
2 reviews
April 29, 2025
An introduction to gamification for curious business folks and entrepreneurs. I found it helpful to have a first approach to game elements, but it was slightly shallow on the behavioral part. I would recommend readers complement this lecture with information on behavioral economics if they're eager to have a deeper understanding of user decision-making.
Profile Image for David Wygant.
122 reviews14 followers
December 23, 2018
Don’t overgeneralize how people respond to certain stimuli. Extrinsic rewards may dismotivate an inherently intrinsic activity. Competition can turn people off if they are way behind or reduces the richness of the game.







Profile Image for Anu.
46 reviews
November 3, 2019
This is clearly a quick-to-read easy-to-grasp book for business people and decision makers, rather than for designers. But it's a nice overview on gamification, and provides the necessary steps to get started with that.
Profile Image for Nadia Paiva.
Author 1 book4 followers
December 15, 2021
Definitely the best book about the subject. If you have time to read only one before a pitch or a meeting, this is the one to read. It complements the free course by Professor Kevin Werbach available on Coursera.
344 reviews23 followers
May 31, 2017
Some very practical and sound advice on how to approach gamification, along with anecdotes of haphazard pertinence.
Profile Image for Don Sevcik.
Author 10 books6 followers
June 8, 2017
Primer intro behind the theory and mechanics of gamification. A good starter book on the subject before delving into deeper applications.
10 reviews2 followers
May 21, 2018
It was just overall boring to read even though the concepts my apply.
Profile Image for Guillaume Clement.
5 reviews
August 5, 2019
Great book that provides a good overview of gamification and offers some tips on implementing it yourself.
Profile Image for Iván Jirón beirute.
45 reviews
April 24, 2021
I was hoping for a little more depth

A great introduction to gamificacion, but I was hoping for a little more indepth analysis and alittle.more tools. A good source nevertheless.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.