Everybody Wins

From the visionary force behind EA’s most beloved video games, a must-read book on what the billion-dollar secrets of game design can teach us about building products better and making customers happier

Video games are the biggest entertainment industry in the world—for a reason. Games tap into human psychology and drives like nothing else. So how can we recreate the satisfaction we feel playing games in day-to-day life? How can we harness that feeling to grow better businesses?

These are the questions Bing Gordon has been trying to answer over his 40 year career in tech. Affectionately known as the godfather of the video game world, his influence and canonized “Gamification Checklist” have shaped the games and companies we engage with every day: EA Sports, Farmville, The Sims, Amazon Prime, Zynga, Spotify, Audible, Twitch, Duolingo, and Cameo, to name a few.

Now, in Everybody Wins, Bing dives into each of the eight core elements of his checklist, lessons extracted from a lifetime in games:

• Wow Moments: Lead with unforgettable moments of exaltation
• Everybody Wins: Engineer wins to be frequent, evident, and earned
• Invest and Express: Create opportunities for self-expression and recognition
• Session Economics: Make every session feel worth the time it took
• Social Integration: Prioritize integrating social connection, always
• Retention Hacking: Build “forever franchises” that delight and grow
• Game Loops: Design satisfying repetition
• Quantify Everything: Measure achievements at the micro-level

Packed with unforgettable stories of Bing’s mind-boggling career, Everybody Wins imparts hard-earned wisdom that any business and anyone can implement for creating irresistible products and experiences. As all well-designed games show, when these principles are applied, you’ll always feel like you’re winning.