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Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games 1st Edition
As one of the few entrepreneurs in the world with expertise building both social media and games, author Jon Radoff brings a one-of-a-kind perspective to this unique book. He shows that games are more than a profitable form of entertainment?the techniques of social games can be used to enhance the quality of online applications, social media and a wide range of other consumer and business experiences. With this book, you?ll explore how social games can be put to work for any business and examine why they work at all. The first part of explains what makes games fun, while the second part reviews the process and details of game design.
- Looks at how games are the basis for many everyday functions and explains how techniques of social games can be used by businesses as money-making tools
- Drills down the process of game design while focusing on the design, analysis, and creation of games
- Features screen shots, diagrams and explanations to illuminate key concepts, accessible to anyone regardless of game playing or design experience
- Reviews what works and what doesn?t using a range of real-world scenarios as examples
- Author Jon Radoff has a unique blend of experiences creating games, Internet-based social media, and Web technology.
Game On is not playing around. Discover how social media games make money?and how you can enhance your business using games.
Amazon.com Exclusive Article: “8 Businesses Changing the World with Game Mechanics”
by Jon Radoff, Author of Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games
Author Jon Radoff People are playing games more than ever before--but many of those games are less obvious than you might think. Games have influenced education, healthcare, retail, and consumer industries. Here are a few companies doing things with game mechanics that you might not have suspected, as well as questions you can ask yourself about your own business:
1) LinkedIn.com
The popular business networking website has turned networking into a game. People love collecting things--and on LinkedIn, the connections you form with other people are like a collection of virtual business cards. The more connections you have, the more you “win.” On LinkedIn, the rewards are social status; but collecting is fun in a wide range of businesses. What could you enable your customers to collect?
2) Dollar Tree
Exploration is fun, and many popular digital and social games are about finding hidden places, secret treasures and unusual artifacts. Dollar Tree attracts people with the premise that everything will be only $1 --but it’s the act of exploring that is fun for many people. Could your company give your customers the thrill of exploration? Better yet, could you let people use social media to spread the word of their discoveries?
3) Cold Stone Creamery
In games like World of Warcraft, many people enjoy “crafting” their own products. Creativity is fun--even when it comes from a well-worn process. Combine it with the pleasure of eating great ice cream, and you’ll understand part of what makes Cold Stone Creamery interesting. Beyond Cold Stone Creamery, other companies as diverse as Brighton (jewelry and accessories) and Build-a-Bear Workshop (stuffed bears) are tapping into the desire for personal, automated crafting to turn shopping and dining into an experience. How can you allow your customers to craft?
4) Upromise
Upromise has turned saving money for college into a game--it’s about discovering the products and companies that allow you to earn extra cash to invest in your kids’ education. It’s also a social game: you enroll your family, and make college savings a team effort. What makes it work is the continuous sense of progress. How can you give customers a sense that they’re always achieving something?
5) Nike
Nike has gone beyond being a footwear company--they’re about providing a complete experience that’s about running and fashion. Using social technology like Nike+, an application that let’s you record your runs and share them with others around the world, Nike promotes a sense of community with their brand. Likewise, Nike.ID allows customers to design their own look, and share them with others. By integrating multiple elements of competition, discovery and personalization into their products, it’s as if you’re playing the World of Nike game. How could you create an immersive experience for your customers?
6) Groupon
For many people, collecting coupons is more than a way to save money--it’s about discovery and reward. Groupon has taken it to the next level by making it a social experience as well: when you find an activity you like, you can save a few dollars while also uncovering an activity that you and your friends can enjoy together. How can you market your business better by turning a solitary experience into a social activity?
7) MeYouHealth
Successful games feature many small rewards to keep you focused and engaged. One of the largest areas where this could have a huge and positive effect on society is our health--but let’s face it: healthcare is rarely fun. MeYouHealth, a subsidiary of Healthways, is creating games and applications that get people to think about well-being by focusing on the small steps you can take to improve your life. How can you give your customers a pathway to success, one small (but rewarding) step at a time?
8) St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum
Almost every game is about learning: figuring out a strategy, improving a skill, or gaining an understanding of a set of rules; yet attempts at integrating learning with games have often yielded less-than-engaging results. However, when learning is made fun by crafting an experience enriched by story and discovery, the results can be spectacular. A great example of this is the St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum, which has turned learning about pirates into a fully immersive adventure. Rather than have your customers look at a world, how can you have them customers experience it?
- ISBN-100470936266
- ISBN-13978-0470936269
- Edition1st
- PublisherWiley
- Publication dateApril 12, 2011
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.1 x 0.9 x 9 inches
- Print length432 pages
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Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
This may be the most revolutionary book you read this year
We all played games as children. Today, millions of us lose ourselves in massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, strategy games like League of Legends, and social media games like FarmVille. Games satisfy our need to interact, compete, and exercise our imagination. And they're fun.
What if your business offered those rewards to your customers?
Consider looking at your businesswhatever it isas if it were a game. Open this book, turn your imagination loose, and discover how fun can generate energy that boosts your bottom line.
Are you?
A marketer who wants to find and keep customers?
A product designer who wants to create a memorable customer experience?
A website designer who wants to keep visitors coming back?
An executive who wants to make customers happy and boost profits?
A game designer who wants to create a better social game?
This book is for you!
About the Author
Jon Radoff is an entrepreneur who focuses on entertainment and social communities. He created one of the original commercial games on the Internet, Legends of Future Past, and founded a content management system that foreshadowed modern blog and wiki technology. His newest startup, Disruptor Beam, is a social game publisher.
Product details
- Publisher : Wiley; 1st edition (April 12, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0470936266
- ISBN-13 : 978-0470936269
- Item Weight : 1.14 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.1 x 0.9 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,555,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #778 in Social Media for Business
- #1,283 in Computer Graphics
- #1,661 in Social Media Guides
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I draw your attention to this detail for two reasons. First, so you'll take the time to click the "Helpful" button when you finish reading this, and secondly because this is what Game On is all about. How many 'friends' do you have on Facebook, followers on Twitter, contacts on LinkedIn? Did you get a 'like' on your recent blog post, or a little prompt last time you logged into some on-line app telling you that your profile was 75% complete and promising you riches beyond belief if you completed it?
Gaming has penetrated the entire social media world, and most of the time we don't even notice that it's there. Competition, cooperation, rewards and quests are common place, and if you want to understand how these principles of gaming are being applied, then Game On is one of the best places to start. If, like me, you're working on applying some of these ideas in developing your own social media application, then this is a more than useful reference work.
There is a good mix of practical experience and solid theory behind this easy to read book. The take home message for me in this book is that 'gaming' is not something just for teenagers welded to their computer screen playing shoot them ups or whatever. Gaming is mainstream social media practice, something that you are involved in every time you enter social media space, and if you want to get your head around how it all comes together, buy this book.
And now - with the power of your mouse and in the spirit of Game On - you can move me up or down from position 94,597 by choosing to click the 'Yes" next to the question "Was this review helpful?".
Jon Radoff's brilliant new book has captured the essence of using gaming to make the engagement memorable and fun. His writing style is an excellent blend of technical/business and story telling, making the premise of his book easy to grasp, benefit from and interesting to read. The book is organized so that whether you are a developer, an impressario/commercial user or an artisan/designer, that you have different paths of the text to choose from making it read as if the book was written just for you. Radoff's business game advice is not just timely, but is a novel approach to helping any company demonstrate their corporate culture, vibe and soul. In particular, he advises companies to view customers as "players" and to use human behavior analysis of customers to decide what your player (ie- customer) experience should include... well, er - its just fascinating!
If you are an entrepreneur, web content developer, a seasoned marketing executive or everyone in between - you should make it a point to take advantage of Radoff's book...it's that good.
I Loved the Virality Chapter... it explains so methodically why Facebook Games work, and how to measure and improve Virality.
I Enjoyed the ideas of Life/Work as a Game.
I Liked the Game Design topics as well (even though I'm not a designer), as it applies contextually to "business/system design" of which I am both.
Want:
More references and illustrations to research would have been helpful (with URLs on the pages, so I can get PDFs/etc.).
More pictures of the games mentioned (in color would have been nice too!). (use as examples).
Details:
When I started the book, I was a little taken aback by the "read this book as a game" idea... but as I played my way through the chapters, I realized that I was thinking constantly about my "knowledge score". I started making little +1 marks near anything I learned I didn't know before. My total score is +134. How many books can you read where you can actually say you learned 134 new things, that you can use in your everyday life? The heaviest chapter for me was the one on Virality. +48 from that chapter alone.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in: Business, Society, Games, Game Marketing, Marketing, Game Design, or even has a passing interest in Facebook and/or Virality.
I think the technical editor of the book, Ethan Kidhardt may have plentiful experience to build up the framework of the systematic game design.
Nowadays game productions have to be managed/produced with the system or pattern to control/promote the emotional flow, like that the older entertainment productions, movies or TV show series, does.
Unfortunately each section of this book just suggests the idea, not to deal something to practical level.
It would be great if this book presented a big flow to build up an example game producing project.
But it's very rare to meet the book on game system itself like this.
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