Gamification Mechanic Monday: Invite Friends
In casual games such as Candy Crush Saga, Farmville and others, the option to invite friends is built into the game. Every time you start you have the option to invite friends and when you run out of lives the same thing happens, you can ask friends who have already joined the gamed or invite other friends to join and help you with the game. In my Facebook circle of friends these invitations are either welcomed and enjoyed or totally loathed and the source of angry status updates. (you can switch off invites from games in settings)
It is great recruitment and marketing in one sense and they play on the motivation games are better when you enjoy them with friends. In effect that makes an existing player do the recruitment of new players.
Invite a friend is also something I have experienced at events, where you are invited to bring along a friend, because events can be daunting on your own. If your target audience are ladies, definitely involve friends, because our decision making process does rely heavily on feedback and input from friends. One of my favourite stores does it for their VIP days, you as the main customer receives the invite and then you get to bring a friend.
Where else have you seen this technique used?
