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Microsoft (News - Alert) recently announced that it had purchased Incent Games, the makers of FantasySalesTeam (FST), a sales gamification CRM platform. In a CRM market where the top five companies have almost half the market share, Microsoft is hoping that the impressive results Incent Games’ customers have seen will give it an advantage over its competitors.

According to Gartner (News - Alert), nearly half the CRM software market (49.6 percent) in terms of 2014 revenue is controlled by giants: SalesForce, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM (News - Alert). SalesForce is the overwhelming leader with 18.4 percent market share; SAP is somewhat close with 12.1 percent; the others are in single digits, with Microsoft having a 6.2 percent share.

Also coming from Gartner was a 2012 study predicting that 80 percent of gamification applications would fail. The approach was maligned as being “driven by novelty and hype”, focusing too much on meaningless achievements like points and badges.

Whether FST is one of the 20 percent or Gartner is flat out wrong in the 2012 report are open to debate, but at least in two cases, the results from using FST speak for themselves. According to TechCrunch, Service Corporation International ran a pilot program to test FST’s effectiveness. The sales team that used FST closed 88 percent more deals than non-FST teams at 213 percent of the average contract value.  Wireless Zone increased total sales 176 percent; specific product sales 35 percent; and a 9 percent increase in profit the first month it used FST.

According to Inc. contributor Bob Marsh, sales gamification done the right way provides a few important benefits. The scoring system promotes competition, pushing sales team members to perform better than they would otherwise. It can also encourage collaboration as team members collaborate with each other on successful experiences. As a result, team members who are struggling gain insight on what they can do to improve their numbers. This in turn, leads to the development of mentoring relationships

FST will eventually have a new identity as part of Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM platform. It remains to be seen whether or incorporating gamification will give Microsoft the boost it needs. Bunchball, a company that claims to be the leader in gamification, supports SalesForce and RemedyForce (which runs on top of SalesForce). If SalesForce were to acquire Bunchball, Microsoft would no longer have the gamification edge.