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In video gaming parlance, an achievement, also sometimes known as a trophy, badge, award, stamp, medal or challenge, is a meta-goal defined outside a game's parameters. Unlike the game mechanics of quests, missions, tasks, and/or levels that usually define the goals of a game, achievements are more like long term goals that symbolize the accomplishments and merits of the user. Achievements can be used to influence players' behavior, leading them to select certain routes, perform tasks and exhibit behaviors in order to earn achievements that are associated with them.

In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics are the rules that guide the player's moves or actions, as well as the game's response to them. A game's mechanics thus effectively specifies how the game will work for the people who play it.

Game design elements are the basic building blocks of gamification applications. Among these typical game design elements are points, progress bars, badges, leaderboards, performance graphs, meaningful stories, avatars, and teammates.

In many contexts the presence of a leaderboard can elicit the desire to engage in the goals of that leaderboard. Leaderboards can have both positive and negative impacts on motivation, depending on how a user ranks. Finding this balance depends upon a set of factors that we at Insert Coin can help you with! For example: Simply informing a user that he or she got ranked in a leaderboard can be motivating. Ranking anywhere on a specific leaderboard can also be a source of identity, pride and accomplishment.

A game design element. Enables users to gain levels when collecting points and receive a greater sense of progression. In a gamification context this could be a system of customer loyalty levels which unlock more rewards or perks, to give an example.

A game design element that asks players to follow predefined or random sequences of tasks in order to progress and be rewarded. These missions and mission paths may or may not contain a narrative, but are very effective at fulfilling a sense of duty, completion and progression. In gamification, such a mission, or a longer mission path, can be used as an onboarding experience for new employees or users, for example.

Current research confirms that gamification has a promising future, but research has also estimated that most gamification solutions will fail due to poor understanding of gamification design and how gamification should be implemented.

Sustainable gamification solutions increase engagement and create long term behavior change, first and foremost by improving the user experience. The goal is always to make users love your product, not to make them focus entirely on gaining points and levels. That’s the difference between empowering users and exploiting them.