Serious games are designed for a purpose other than entertainment such as education, miilitary, research and etc. Although they have similar designs as recreational games, serious games have an additional pedagogical value derived from entertainment and competition. On the other hand, gamification is the use of game mechanics such as levels, rewards, budgets in non-game environments. Gamification is used for many reasons such as; motivation and user engagement, incentives to meet goals, incentives for loyalty.

One of the main differences between serious games and gamification is the way of players. Serious games provide same road to all players. Objectives of the game is the same for all. On the other hand, gamification can provide different missions to different player type. For example, through gamification there can be surprise mission or reward for players who have lower sales numbers or lower level. The other difference is gamification motivates physical activities, learnings or performances of players. Gamification uses game mechanics for players’ physical activities. However, seious games happen in a virtual world. In addition, gamification usually follows the typical structure of a game – the leveling-up part, more specifically – to tap  human drive for competition and achievement. For successful gamification, player types and what drives players, and in turn, should be paired them with the correct game mechanics needed to activate them. On the other hand, serious games already follow the typical game structure.