Video games are the biggest entertainment industry in the world—and they have a lot to teach us. How can we recreate the satisfaction we feel playing games in day-to-day life? How can we harness that feeling to make better products?

These are the questions Bing Gordon has been trying to answer over his 40 year career in tech. Affectionately known as the godfather of the video game world, his influence and canonized “Gamification Checklist” have shaped the companies we engage with every day: Amazon Prime, Zynga, Spotify, Audible, Twitch, Duolingo, and Cameo, to name a few.

Gamification, as explained by Bing, is motivation with rules and scoring mechanisms. It’s a framework for amplifying productivity and building social capital, leading to improved relationships, self-satisfaction, and professional achievement.

Everybody Wins draws on Bing’s Gamification Checklist and decades of fascinating in-the-room, behind-the-scenes stories to tell readers how to make products that people love—including a few life lessons along the way. Each chapter delves into one of the eight concepts on the Checklist, such as Wow Moments, Invest and Express, and Retention Hacking, to explore why we come back to certain products and games again and again.

With candid, first-person narration and Bing’s signature wit, Everybody Wins helps readers level up their products and services by understanding that what makes video games so fun, so easy to emotionally invest in, is the gold standard we should strive to replicate everywhere.

© Bing Gordon and Chloe Gordon 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026