🎮 What a $369 Billion Industry Can Teach Us About Student Engagement

$369 billion dollars. That’s the current value of the global gaming industry. Billions are spent researching how to hook, engage, and consume the attention of adults, teens, and children alike.

From Fortnite to the subtle gamification of your robot vacuum app, game mechanics are everywhere. So why do we still hesitate to bring them into the classroom?

There’s often a lingering stigma around using gamification in education. But here’s the truth: if you’ve ever…

• Given a student a sticker for good work

• Challenged your toddler to get dressed in under 60 seconds

• Used a classroom star chart or scoreboard

• Offered a game or quiz as a class reward

…you’ve already used gamification.

And you’re not alone—70% of the world’s 2,000 biggest companies actively use gamification strategies. The most common techniques?

• Points

• Levels

• Progress bars

• Goals

• Friendly competition

• Instant feedback

All of which can be seamlessly adapted into education.

As teachers, we already understand the power of gamification—whether we realise it or not. If you can hum the Kahoot! lobby music and have witnessed the chaos it unleashes when the students see you put it on your screen… If you've seen students go to wild lengths to protect their Snapchat streaks… Or if you've experienced the drive they show on platforms like Quizizz to stay on the leaderboard…

Then you’ve seen just how effective gamified engagement can be.

So the question is: why limit it to just a few digital tools or end-of-lesson treats? We’re teaching a generation that’s grown up—for better or worse—with screens in their hands and games at their fingertips. They are primed to respond to gamified learning the same way we are compelled to log our daily progress on Duolingo.

That’s where EdQuest comes in. EdQuest bridges the gap by providing a complete platform built with research-backed strategies, designed by an award-winning teacher with real classroom experience. It takes the best of gamification and embeds it into a pedagogical tool to make learning what it should be: modern, meaningful, and fun.