Health and lifestyle awareness has become a leading trend in the modern world. The emergence of AI technology, the widespread use of wearable devices, gamification and gamified fitness mobile apps have made it possible for people to get specific insights into their bodily functions. Gamification as the special technique is used in healthcare and fitness spheres to involve more and more people in leading a healthy way of life.
What is gamification?
Gamification appeared as a special method to encourage and motivate, so to say, influence human behaviour. The gamification process includes definite tactics that are meant to persuade users to perform some action that they wouldn’t have performed unless they had a certain reason.
The popularity of gamification elements in custom mobile app development in different types of industries is predetermined by the better business productivity statistics and growth.
Gamification has entered almost all industries – healthcare, finance, education, retail, lifestyle etc. and proves to be effective to serve the main purposes of the given sphere.
Gamification apps
Common uses of gamification apps include performance management, workforce engagement, client loyalty, e-learning processes, etc. Gamification applications provide businesses with a solution for their employee and customer engagement processes.
Top global companies such as Walmart and IBM implement gamification elements in marketing and workspaces. Some cases of gamification elements that are applied in the apps are: social connection and sharing, scores, leader boards, badges, purchase-based rewards.
Gamification exists even there where an ordinary no-techie person wouldn’t suppose it to be. Finances Online has gathered together the most interesting examples of gamification in business. Here’re some of the instances.
Spotify, an international media services provider, offered its employees a mobile game to complete their annual reviews – more than 90% of the employees took part in this game.
Domino’s Pizza used a gaming app – Pizza hero (the app offers customers to create their own pizza) to increase sales by 30%. The same way, due to Volkswagen’s People’s Car Project, allowing people to create their ideal car, got 33 million site’s visits and almost 120 thousand ideas.
Microsoft applied its Language Quality game to boost and improve Windows OS translations when about a thousand employees could perform 26,000 tasks.
Different gamified interactions helped Facebook increase the number of its daily logged in users to more than 2 billion.
Fitness Gamification
Fitness industry is where gamification elements prevail to create fun and challenge participants. The revenue in the fitness sector equals US$17,937 million in 2020, whereas in 2024, the online revenue of fitness apps worldwide is likely to reach 3,116.3 million U.S. dollars.
Social influences are crucial to create user engagement in the gamified experience, understanding how participants will react to the particular gamified effects allows the businesses to control and manage their clients. Due to gamified feedback, Nike urged more than 5,000,000 customers to achieve their individual fitness purposes.
Nowadays people are perfectly aware of the benefits of healthy living since a healthy lifestyle can help them to escape heart problems, obesity, premature skin ageing, and more.
A growing number of people keep to a balanced diet and engage in some sort of sport activities: cycling, football, jogging, and more. Many people use fitness gamification apps for different reasons, such as tracking their progress, boosting motivation, competing with other users of an app, etc.
However, many people find it very boring to use fitness apps that cannot boast gamification features. People want to turn their sport activities into a fascinating game.
That is why gamification in fitness is bound to achieve success. Gamified fitness mobile apps are very addicting in making people want to accomplish milestones and keep trying to do their best.
Top 10 gamified fitness apps to boost your motivation
Strava is the best activity sharing fitness app. On Strava you can share the main activities you are into with a large community, wish other people goodluck with their workouts, ask for a piece of advice and what’s more tempting – compete for the title of the virtual King of the Mountain for your location (and it doesn’t really matter whether it is a real mountain, a hill or just some high ground). Strava gamified fitness app has a very simple functionality, and even if you are not a tech-geek, you can easily install and use the app on your own.
Garmin Connect is the gamification fitness app providing users with multiple tools that help them improve and perfect their workouts. Garmin Coach is an additional function of this application which allows you to have your own virtual coach by customizing your training process. With Garmin Coach, you can watch videos, read helpful articles and even get personalized coaching advice. Garmin Connect employs some useful gamification elements. The fitness app can compare your daily stats with the daily average for a certain period of time thus motivating and encouraging you for the future training progress.
Google Fit focuses on the idea that any activity that makes you move has a great impact on your health. Google gamification fitness app was developed in collaboration with the American Heart Association to advance Heart Points functionality. This is a particular goal-based activity for which you score points. This gamified fitness app keeps track of your movements during the day and motivates you to be more active and sit less.
Samsung Health is an interactive gamified fitness app where you can set and track your personal goals, compete with your friends and/or family members, and also take part in global users competitions where you can be awarded with badges in case your accomplishments are really great. Samsung Health adopts the latest gamification techniques that help keep your motivation on a high level such as daily and long-term graphs that show the important health and workout statistics (heart rate, sleep, stress levels, nutrition, etc.). In this gamification app you can customize exercise programmes depending on your needs
If you are the owner of an iPhone, Apple Health is your best fitness app, which comes already installed on your phone. The app works automatically and counts walking and running distance, Apple Health can be customized according to your personal physical characteristics. It is especially important when you need to get the accurate information about how many calories you burn. The fitness apps can be paired with wearable devices and keep records of heart rate and sleep cycle.
- Pokémon GO
This gamified fitness app has taken over the world. It will make you get off the coach and start exploring surroundings in search of wild Pokémon, PokéStops, Gyms, and more. This game can be played by anyone and anywhere – a map in this game is based on the actual real-world map. You may also find Eggs that you can hatch in an incubator by walking a certain distance: 2, 5 or 10 kilometers. The more distance is required, the rarer Pokémon you will hatch. You can invite friends to join your adventure and spend time together outdoors.
- Ingress
This game will be chosen by owners of smartphones who did not give his/her heart to Pokémon GO. The gamification app is more of a team sport aspect, than the previous one. It is framed as a struggle between two fractions, and players can pick one of them. The players have to walk around to find new portals and capture them and link together to get control over the territory. This app is beloved by those who like science fiction since its story is based on a mysterious energy unearthed by scientists.
- Zombies, Run!
This gamified fitness app is a perfect choice for those who want to start jogging. It is a running game and audio adventure that was created with the help of a renowned novelist. Each of your runs will be different from others: you will have to undertake a mission to save yourself from zombies. The app will make you run at different speeds while you are listening to a story. You can also choose your own custom playlists before exploring one of 200+ stories available for subscribers.
- BattleSuit Runner Fitness
This gamification fitness app is also loved by runners who do not like zombies. Players can become a part of a sci-fi game by putting on their headphones, selecting workout time and a music playlist. The story is catching, and users of the app have to walk, jog or run to make it develop further. During each workout users can collect resources (like iridium) in order to upgrade their capabilities for a new mission. The app enables users to share their run to Facebook to show their results to friends.
- 7 Minute Superhero Workout
This app is the best match for those who do not like running and do not have enough time to visit a gym. A user plays the role of a pilot of the prototype AEGIS One battlesuit whose mission is to defend our planet against alien invaders. The app uses a front-facing camera of players to track their reps and calories. Besides, users earn achievements and medals for each workout. They can also track their progress with detailed statistics, such as how many calories were burned, how many workouts were done, etc.
Ready to get in the game?
We are sure that gamified fitness apps have bright prospects due to the high popularity of mobile apps and games. As one of the leading US software development companies EffectiveSoft is experienced in developing custom healthcare and fitness applications that allow the company to get in the game offering its own development products. And you?
Fancy joining the game?
