Part of an initiative to boost youth participation in this year's election,
Microsoft's move shows how gaming technology can have an impact far beyond the
narrow confines of a display screen. In a forthcoming book called "Changing the
Game", David Edery and Ethan Mollick argue that many skills and lessons from the
gaming world are applicable in the business world. The smartest firms, the
authors argue, will not only allow game-playing in the workplace, but will
actively encourage it.
To CEOs who throw a tantrum every time they catch someone playing solitaire
on an office PC, or who consider video games to be the exclusive preserve of
pasty-faced teens, that may sound like daft advice. It may also smack of bias
coming from Mr Edery, who happens to be in charge of game planning for Xbox's
Live Arcade online-gaming system. (Mr Mollick is an academic at MIT's Sloan
School of Management). But there are good reasons to think that he's right.
...
Admittedly, game-based marketing has had its downs as well as ups. Many
marketing efforts in virtual worlds such as Second Life have
flopped. But to judge the potential value of gaming to business solely on the
basis of its ability to promote products is to miss the bigger picture.
According to Messrs Edery and Mollick, by making work more fun and by allowing
firms to tap into wisdom beyond their walls, game playing can dramatically
improve both productivity and bottom lines.
To see why, consider one of the things it takes to become an ace at, say, World of Warcraft, a hugely
popular online fantasy game inhabited by griffins, trolls and other mythical
creatures. To make progress inside the game, players must engage in "grinding",
gamer-speak for performing a repetitive task, such as slaying a monster, many
times over.
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