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.Bing Gordon is a video game man. He was the Chief Product Officer for Kleiner Perkins, a consultant to Amazon, and an advisor and mentor to dozens of gaming and social-tech start-ups. Before wading into the buttoned-up world of venture, Bing was co-founder, Chief Creative Officer, and long-time executive at Electronic Arts, from its founding in 1982 until his “retirement” in 2008. Bing was awarded the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. He has an MBA from Stanford and a BA from Yale. Bing’s favorite games of all time are World of Warcraft, The Sims, Diablo, Pogo, Civilization, and FarmVille.

Chloe Gordon grew up around the gaming industry. Chloe now focuses on bridging the gap between TV, film, and video games. She created, wrote, and produced Amazon’s first scripted comedy show for Twitch (Two Joysticks and a Couch) and is currently directing The New Hollywood, a feature-length documentary about EA and the early days of video gaming.