You may not be familiar with the term “gamification” but it’s likely you’ve encountered some aspect of it, and Interactive Ontario’s last iLunch of the season on Wednesday saw Gabe Zichermann giving the audience a primer on the ins and outs of the term .

The concept has been around for a number of years and has become a hot term among businesses. Zichermann, a Toronto native and founder of The Gamification Summit in San Francisco, defines it as “the process of using game thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage users.”

“Game designers live, breathe, eat, sleep motivation,” he explained. “They’re always thinking about what motivates a user’s desire to be part of a story.”

Breaking down Richard Bartle’s player personality types — killers, achievers, socializers and explorers — he doled out what initially appeared to be non-game examples to illustrate them.

The TV series Storage Wars, for example, is what Zichermann describes as a classic killer game: in which participants attempt to outbid on the unknown contents of unclaimed storage units. “These guys are out to fucking kill each other,” he described. “And it’s not just wanting to win, it’s ‘I want to win and you have to lose.’”

Why does gamification work? It creates a process to follow that plays on everyone’s intrinsic journey to master aspects of their lives, whether that’s education, career and relationships. (e.g. Weight Watchers.)

But, warned Zichermann, “people don’t need you to create a fake virtual world to understand the world around them.” Instead, he says that all users want SAPS: status, access, power and stuff.

One of the biggest mistakes made is giving the user too much choice, but this is a mistake that game developers in particular do not make — in the tutorial level of Zynga’s FrontierVille game, there is only one option, making it impossible for users to fail, and they are then rewarded after completing the task.

When Netflix, as another example, asks the user to rate a film or TV show, there are only three choices and no wrong answers. Submitting a response actually trains you how Netflix works — the more you tell it, the better the recommendations will be for the user.

Zichermann will be bringing a gamification workshop to Toronto on May 27, his first outside the US.

For more information, head over to w.gsummit.com or //www.amiando.com/GamificationToronto.html