How did a game get 57,000 amateurs to match protein-folding algorithms?

By making the science a game. In Foldit, designed by the University of Washington, players compete to manipulate proteins into more efficient structures, and a 2010 paper in Nature credited its 57,000 players with useful results that matched or outperformed algorithmically computed solutions. That is gamification: adding game elements such as points, badges and leaderboards to something that isn't a game, to raise engagement and motivation. In crowdsourcing, research suggests these elements shift participants' focus from just completing a task to taking part for intrinsic reasons.

It works by leveraging people's desires for socializing, learning, mastery, competition, achievement, status, self-expression, altruism, and closure, or simply their response to framing a situation as a game. Points let a player's behavior be measured and give continuous, immediate feedback, while badges are visual representations of achievements that can be earned and collected.

The effects can be dramatic. In August 2010, the website builder DevHub announced that the share of users completing their online tasks jumped from 10% to 80% after it added gamification elements, and research from the University of Bonn found that gamifying a wiki increased contributions by 62%. But gamification is not a free lunch: leaderboards motivate players who are close to the next rank, but Werbach and Hunter found they can demotivate players stuck near the bottom, and gamification can also build resentment in workplaces, even driving unsafe behavior such as employees skipping bathroom breaks.