Gaming is so addictive to some people, there are now clinics that detox sufferers just like alcoholics. Unfortunate for those individuals — but interesting to product designers. What company wouldn’t want a touch of that seductive juju to draw in consumers?

“I’m seeing clients come to me — a game designer — in banking, call centers, [software as a service] products, change transformation in companies, in all kinds of consumer products,” said Amy Jo Kim (pictured), chief executive officer of ShuffleBrain Inc.

ShuffleBrain (and Game Thinking, for which Kim also consults) helps develop games or game-like products and services for clients. “They might not be games, but they have the feel and the pull of games,” Kim said during an interview at Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco. She spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio.

Devouring the customer’s attention

Game designers have long known that multi-player games are stickier than solitary ones, according to Kim. The community of gamers around them keeps individuals returning even after the game itself has gone a bit stale. Companies trying build a product that devours customers’ attention, like League of Legends, should capture this element, Kim pointed out.

The crowd ethos of gaming fits in well in the social media realm, where video-sharing apps like Musical.ly Twitch are picking up users. But even clients in very traditional and unlikely industries are seeking to design game-like products. They include health, education and fashion, Kim stated.

“Right now I have a client who’s merging a game-like experience with a genealogy crowd source experience,” she added.

Aside from giving users something to master and a community in which to do it, Kim offers one more tip for product developers. While testing and reiterating are crucial, product developers should not begin testing on the core target audience, she stated.

Instead, they should first go for “superfans,” the high-need, high-value early adopters who will bring the average users along with them. By asking superfans product-focused questions, “you can build your product around what you know they want rather than guessing,” Kim concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Samsung Developer Conference.

Photo: SiliconANGLE