Badges, Barons, and the Game of No Prizes

We've stated before that prizes aren't really a necessary payoff to doing well in a game show. People tend to receive this statement with mixed reviews; on one hand, it's fun to give prizes. On the other hand, prizes can be difficult to come by, blow your budget, and tricky to price (too high and scrutiny and cheating go through the roof--too low and why bother?).

Never was the lack of a need for prizes more clear to us than when everyone here at LearningWare went to lunch together. Two of us immediately got out our smartphones and "checked in" to Yelp. "Ha!" one of us exclaimed triumphantly, "I'm now the duke of this eating establishment!" A non-yelper asked us what we got for being a duke or getting a badge.

"Well. We don't get anything. Except to be the duke."

Then it occurred to us; the currency of involvement in many social media outlets--from foursquare to the aforementioned Yelp--isn't any kind of prize or currency. These groups garner tremendous investment and involvement from participants simply by engaging their sense of competition and collection. They want to have the most badges, be the mayor or baron or duke of a place or even a city...to be king of the hill.

The same principle works with game show competition--and it's why you don't need prizes. In this fast-paced world of Millennial trainees and social networks, people are used to playing for bragging rights. This may also be why leaderboards can be incredibly effective--especially when you play a series of game shows, or keep the competition going through an extended period of time (a training session, a few days, a week, a month or even a quarter). Acknowledgment of success over one's peers can be a powerful motivator.

If you'd like, you can even give out your own game show badges. Just for fun, a little brainstorming:

Fast Finger: For the person quickest to hit the slammers every time and ring-in.
Know-it-All: The person with the most correct answers overall.
Wicked Wagerer: The person taking big risks in wager games or on final questions.
Team Titan: The person most helpful to their teammates.
Short Answer Sherpa: The queen or king of the short-answer question.
Multiple-Choice Maven: Either by guess or by guile, this person owns the multiple-choice question.

...or maybe we'll just stick with scores, leaderboards, and the natural appeal of competition.