For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business

Take your business to the next level--for the win

Millions flock to their computers, consoles, mobile phones, tablets, and social networks each day to play World of Warcraft, Farmville, Scrabble, and countless other games, generating billions in sales each year. The careful and skillful construction of these games is built on decades of research into human motivation and psychology: A well-designed game goes right to the motivational heart of the human psyche.

In For the Win, authors Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter argue persuasively that gamemakers need not be the only ones benefiting from game design. Werbach and Hunter are lawyers and World of Warcraft players who created the world's first course on gamification at the Wharton School. In their book, they reveal how game thinking--addressing problems like a game designer--can motivate employees and customers and create engaging experiences that can transform your business.

For the Win reveals how a wide range of companies are successfully using game thinking. It also offers an explanation of when gamifying makes the most sense and a 6-step framework for using games for marketing, productivity enhancement, innovation, employee motivation, customer engagement, and more.

In this illuminating guide, Werbach and Hunter reveal how game thinking can yield winning solutions to real-world business problems. Let the games begin

Kevin Werbach is a leading expert on the legal, business, and public policy aspects of the Network Age. He is an associate professor of legal studies at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he was named the first ＂Iron Prof＂ for his gamification research. He co-led the review of the Federal Communications Commission for the Obama Administration’s presidential transition team and served as an expert adviser to the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. For nine years he organized Supernova, an influential executive technology conference. Werbach was previously the editor of Release 1.0, Esther Dyson’s Monthly Report, and served as Counsel for New Technology Policy at the FCC in the Clinton administration, where he helped develop the US government’s internet and ecommerce policies. Follow him on Twitter at @kwerb.

Dan Hunter is an expert in internet law, intellectual property, and the application of games to public policy arenas. He is the Foundation Dean of Swinburne Law School in Australia. He previously taught law at The Wharton School, the University of Melbourne, and Cambridge University. He regularly publishes on issues dealing with the intersection of computers and law, including articles dealing with the regulation of virtual worlds and video games, as well as high-technology aspects of intellectual property. He was one of the first scholars to examine the social significance of massively multiplayer online games, and cofounded the scholarly blog Terra Nova (http: //terranova.blogs.com/). This is his fifth book.