Gamification to Engage Manufacturers with Servitization

Servitization can include many kinds of processes and outcomes depending upon the contexts in which it occurs. This means that servitization is difficult to model accurately in simulations. Games, on the other hand, prioritize the provision of engaging experiences for participants over modelling realistic processes, while Serious Games can combine elements of both games and simulations. Gamification is a more recent term than either ‘simulation’ or ‘serious game’ that has been retrospectively used to describe the process of combining game elements with simulation models to create serious games. As the knowledge base of servitization is quite broad, and specific processes of transformation have yet to be verified, serious games and gamification may be more suited to engaging manufacturers with servitization than simulations. Having co-created several gamified software applications based on servitization, we discuss our findings in relation to this process.