Could the shopping be fun as a game? If you’re a male, probably not.

Well, you can anyway play a game based on shopping.

Starting from the idea taken from a post about the “Free to Play” mode (it will be published next Monday), and following the example of Socket Puncher, I have built up three another games. As for my previous game, feel free to use these ideas for spreading the “Word of Gamification” in you business community.

You’ll see that those games are similar to existing ones. Why to invent something absolutely new if there is already something that works great for your target? I usually create new game mechanics to test relationship between player, but  is very rare that no existing game meet your business requirement.

Be careful only about the core mechanics: they are really  important in gamification, even more important than in a “simple” game (which only target is to give fun and to sell good).

A brief description here summarize any game. I’m already working on a Pdf data sheet with full game specific (it will be available only by request). However, what here is enough to understand core mechanics, target and business model of these games. And, obviously, I hope they can be an inspiration for your own project.

Any game listed here is under category of “free to play“. I tried also to develop games economically sustainable by themselves, without considering much marketing and brand reinforcement: please tell me if you think the business model for any game could not work, and why. I’m happy to discuss about it.

Shopping Lord

Business requirements: a “playground” where to discover customer’s choises; a training/marketing activities to evidence the best offer from mall or shop; a game attached to an e-shop to increase selling; a game to inform about good nutrition.
Game: this is  a competitive game: choose your category (fast – based on time; and slow, with no time limit) and choose your mode: (economy – buy as much food as you can; heavy – buy more weight of food possible, chubby – more fat as possible; proteic – more protein as possible; fiber – do I have to explain? and so on). You have a fixed amount of money to spend in a virtual shop, with products equivalent to the real ones (even with brand, size, weight and so on). When your game is finished, you score points according to the mode you have chosen, and can see your score in the list of scoring points. Here, you can also see the “bags” of others players.
Business model: this game allow a great variety of business models, starting from the simpler (a e-shop where you can “test” your shopping before buying, and see what others players/buyers do) to many others. Some other examples can be an educational use for increase wellness, a very deeply market research about shopping choices on given limit of time, money and diet. And here I’m only focusing about its possible usage in “food” sector: obviously the game mechanics can be applied in any consumer market.
Purchaser: any industries targeted to consumer can find a very wide range of options in using this kind of gamified approach to e-shop and “customer marketing”. Any market and supermarket can use that: it just need a “Shop Now!” button with delivery to customer’s house! I’ve not still told about how much rich and valuable analytics you can drag out from these activities. Finally, a side effect: you can increase customer awareness when shopping, so be careful. Maybe your business counterpart doesn’t want active, ready and smart customer that can compare their shopping bags with another.

Path of shopping

Business requirements: a brand/marketing game to reinforce perception of how a mall works. It can be useful in generic brand awareness increasing, to point out some specific structure or functioning of mall/shop different from competitor (like daily, or faster, refreshment of products).
Game: it’s a simple “Tower Defense” style game, where players have to create a path for customer to maximing shopping and avoid queue. Any area of the game board is refreshed with new product every X time (an amount depending on platform) and a lot of additional feature can be added to the game basing upon Business requirements.
Business model: this game probably have the most difficult business model, to make it sustainable by itself. It simply need a marketing-branding approach to assure economic return.
Purchaser: any company operating in mall, market and so on. Biggest and complex are structures we’re simulating, more will be interesting the game.

Shopping Rampage

Business requirements: …no idea about that, except the usual ones.
Game: It’s Opening Day in a mall. Take all you can before the others. The game can be a simple 2d scroll run, or can be more complex with a map of the shop and interactive people you have to go through.
Business model: pure marketing and brand management. Maybe, you can also help your customer to manage stress very busy days 🙂
Purchaser: any company in the market.