Gamification is a strategy, methodology, or activity that has picked up pace over time and has been successfully deployed in organizations. Despite massive efforts to capture the success of the deployment of gamification in implementing innovation, its failure in this regard has hitherto been ignored. Until recently, it has been difficult to understand such failure from a contributing factor perspective. In bridging this gap, we conducted our study through the lens of problematization and social cognitive theory. We drew qualitative data from the field by recording the experiences and observations of stakeholders involved in attempting and failing to implement gamified projects in the retail industry. Our qualitative analysis was aimed at developing a signposting suited to help firms answer the fundamental question of “Why does gamification fail as an innovation strategy?” Our results highlighted four main factors that lead to the failure of gamified projects: a) self-efficacy, b) immersive dynamics, c) the personalization privacy paradox, and d) disengagement. Our study offers a conceptual framework suited to act as a guidebook for firms and consultants who wish to implement various gamified solutions at various stages. Further, we discuss the implications of our findings and propose future research perspectives.

游戏化是一种随着时间的推移而加快步伐并已在组织中成功部署的策略、方法或活动。尽管人们付出了巨大的努力来捕捉游戏化在实施创新方面的成功，但迄今为止它在这方面的失败却被忽视了。直到最近，还很难从影响因素的角度来理解这种失败。为了弥合这一差距，我们通过问题化和社会认知理论的视角进行了研究。我们通过记录参与零售行业尝试和失败实施游戏化项目的利益相关者的经验和观察，从现场获取定性数据。我们的定性分析旨在制定一个适合帮助企业回答“为什么游戏化作为创新策略会失败？”这一基本问题的路标。我们的结果强调了导致游戏化项目失败的四个主要因素：a）自我效能，b）沉浸式动态，c）个性化隐私悖论，以及d）脱离。我们的研究提供了一个概念框架，适合作为希望在不同阶段实施各种游戏化解决方案的公司和顾问的指南。此外，我们讨论了我们的研究结果的含义并提出了未来的研究观点。