The Problem With Gamification

Points. Badges. Streaks. Leaderboards. Heart systems. The green owl that guilt-trips you if you miss a day. Gamification made language apps wildly popular. It also made them wildly ineffective. Here's why.

Optimizing for the Wrong Thing

Gamification was borrowed from mobile games. Its purpose is retention—keeping users coming back. It works beautifully for that. Daily active users go up. Session times increase. Investors are happy. But retention isn't the same as learning. You can optimize for one at the expense of the other.

When your business model depends on engagement metrics, you build for engagement. Easy wins. Quick dopamine. Skippable challenges. The hard work of actual language acquisition becomes optional—and users, being human, opt out.

The Streak Trap

Streaks are particularly insidious. They create a psychological commitment that feels like progress. But what does maintaining a streak actually require? Opening the app. Completing some activity—any activity. It doesn't have to be effective. It just has to count. So people do the minimum to keep the streak alive. The metric goes up. The learning doesn't.

A Different Model

dubchat doesn't have streaks. We don't guilt-trip you for missing a day. We focus on one thing: did you actually learn to say it? That's harder to gamify. It's also what actually matters. Real progress is its own reward—and when you can suddenly order coffee in Tokyo, you don't need a badge to feel accomplished.