Research has shown that multiplayer online games can and are crucial to the way we do business. Byron Reeves; a Professor at Stanford University and author of over 100 published studies, and J. Leighton Read; physician, inventor, successful biotechnologist founder, CEO and venture capitalist together co-authored the book, Total Engagement: : Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete. The book teaches businesses how to incorporate the principles of gaming into the work place. Their research shows how computer gaming applies to the work place by addressing such topics as, selecting game design features that can address your company’s pain points, using avatars to increase engagement and productivity, employing virtual currencies to help employees set priorities, share resources, and meet goals, implementing participant driven communication systems to facilitate team building, discovering untapped leadership skills by shifting collaboration to game-like environments, and mitigating possible negative effects of game applications at work.
Reeves and Read show how implementing elements of the game into the workplace can solve problems such as morale and communication and can help hone skills like data analysis, teamwork, recruitment and leadership (Read, 2010). “This isn't just possible, say Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read; it's inevitable. As employee productivity and engagement become more critical, the user experience provided by game technology offers a tantalizing solution for business. This is far more than a quaint metaphor or a twist on e-learning.”
Gaming is a social trend that is here to stay. Jane McGonigal, author of : Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, uses scientific research on what happens with the brain when gaming to show how gaming effects human behavior and creates better, happier and more productive people. She points out the four aspects of gaming that businesses can incorporate. They are: The ability to have satisfying work, the opportunity of learning with a hope of success, the ability to interact with people and a sense of epic meaning that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.
McGonigal shows that the amount of gamers across the world continues to grow. There are currently 183 million ‘active gamers’ in American alone. There are 4 million in the Middle East, 10 million in Russia, 5 million in India, 10 million in Vietnam, 10 million in Mexico, 13 million in Central and South America, 100+ million in China. In America 69% of head of households, male and female are gamers and over 97% of youth participate in online and console gaming. 40% are women one out of 4 gamers are over 50, the average 35 year old has been playing for 12 years and most players plan on playing for the rest of their lives (McGonagal).
The Creighton University College of Business had this to say about gaming and business,
“For a long time (and still to this day) video games have had a negative connotation. Gaming was thought to be a prominent source of violence, laziness, damaged relationships and even addiction. While gaming may affect different people in different ways, some health professionals and business people alike are starting to promote the positive aspects “gaming.”
There’s an entire slew of recent research supporting video games and their positive impact on human brain functionality. A study from Nottingham University says that video games can actually improve one’s mental capacity. And for those who are opposed to “shoot ‘em up” type games, think again! Those who engage in shooting games can reap the rewards, as they “improve visual skills by increasing the brain’s capacity to spread attention over a wide range of events,” according to one study at the University of Rochester (M., 2011).”
Major companies are using gaming to increase productivity and reduce cost. According to David Edery, worldwide games portfolio manager for Microsoft’s Xbox live arcade and research affiliate of MIT Comparative Media Studies Program, and Ethan Mollick, who studies innovation and entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, MBA from MIT and BA from Harvard University, in their book, Changing the Game: How Video Games are Transforming the Future of Business, “Microsoft has used games to painlessly and cost-effectively quadruple voluntary employee participation in important tasks. Medical schools have used game like simulators to train surgeons, reducing the error rate in practice by a factor of six. A recruiting game developed by the US army, for just .25% of the Army’s total advertising budget, has had more impact on new recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined. And Google is using video games to turn its visitors into a giant voluntary labor force; encouraging them to manually label the millions of images found on the Web that Google’s computers cannot identify on their own (Mollick).”
So, having problems in the workplace with enthusiasm, morale, communication, productivity...well, just find that gamer in the group and get to work on a strategy for turning it all around!
Sources:
McGonigal,Jane: Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
Reeves, Byron & Read, J. Leighton: Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete.
Edery, David and Mollick, Ethan:Changing the Game; how video games are transforming the future of business:
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