UP Digital
UP Digital has been developing their own fun, team building, and escape concepts for business groups for years. Successful concepts that they deploy at their own location in Amsterdam-West, but which they also sell across the border to other agencies. ‘To personalize existing outdoor games with more serious content, we are increasingly deploying serious gamification,’ says Pim ten Broeke of UP Digital. This application of game thinking and game techniques in non-game environments was so well received that UP Digital was formed.
Text: Mahlee Plekker
For those still completely up to date: gamification is the use of game elements to motivate users or enrich their experience. ‘Actually exactly what we already did with our other games, but then (partly) digitally,’ Pim explains. ‘With such a game you add an extra layer of games to your congress, knowledge event, corporate festival or conference event. This way you create more interaction and connection between your guests. Fun and knowledge transfer, in a playful way.’
Gathering content
The ball started rolling a few years ago when UP Events started working on a personalized city game for 200 Nike employees, incorporating fun facts, strategy and the company’s core values. Pim: “The concept then also seemed suitable for indoor events when we developed an HR Game for a good client/Dura Vermeer. That became our first Onboarding Game.’ With Sun’s personalized Onboarding Game, employees can be taken into the corporate culture – useful when many companies were hiring but not able to meet them live during large live events – or current employees can be taken into a new corporate strategy. ‘The playing field depends on the client’s input,’ says Pim. ‘We gloss over the sometimes boring content,’ he laughs. The success of these customized game concepts resulted in a separate business unit within UP Events: UP Digital. ‘This is where we now work on all kinds of diverse game concepts, from games that help with the employee journey (recruitment and selection, induction, pre- and onboarding) and various strategy games,’ Pim says. ‘We believe that we can make teams better by making this more fun, after all there is nothing that connects more powerfully than having intrinsic fun.’
Streamer: Nothing connects more powerfully than having intrinsic fun’
Serious Gamification as an icebreaker
Besides instead of an event, serious gamification can also be perfectly applied prior to an event, during an event or after an event. Pim: “By using an online game before your actual event, you get people excited about the day itself. You bring the visitors into contact with each other and you can tease towards the event. It also partly prevents no-shows. Another important advantage? Companies can also collect interesting data by deploying serious gamification. ‘How new employees think about your company gives nice insights, but also by being able to track engagement in your app during an event, you build valuable statistics.’
MEET&CONNECT
As different as the game options are, so are the possible goals. For example, Pim calls MEET&CONNECT the perfect icebreaker during an event: ‘It’s an introductory game with multiple assignments that challenges you to keep looking for a partner you haven’t spoken to yet. As you complete the assignments, you rotate partners.’ The Congress Game is also a great way to create more connection and interaction between your guests. In this indoor or outdoor activation, small teams armed with smartphones or tablets search for the answers to various questions through various assignments, GPS points and/or QR codes.
Custom Made Serious Gamification
The concepts are there, the content can then be completely adapted to the client’s wishes in terms of time, number of participants and goal. Pim: ‘The questions and assignments in a custom-made game are tailor-made. We use fixed game elements to let participants interact with each other and the environment in a playful way, and we integrate the vision, core values, corporate culture, products and more informal aspects of an organization.’ UP Digital does this with internal content – and, for example, the corporate identity manual for the organization’s writing style and use of color so that it really becomes its own – but also, if necessary, with specially recorded content. Pim: “For example, we can also go on location filming for a day for special content. That way we forge a playful weapon to send visitors home inspired and surprised!’
Streamer: ‘Serious Gamification is the way to create more interaction and connection between your guests’