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Video games can be good for business
By Wu Jiayin |
December 12, 2009, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
MANY employers frown at the mere mention of video games in the workplace. To them, playing video games and serious business are as incompatible as fire and ice.
However, David Edery and Ethan Mollick, authors of "Changing the Game," suggest businesses take a different view and consider the positive aspects of gaming.
"Games, and most especially video games, not only belong in the workplace but can make all the difference between success and failure," the authors write.
"Far-sighted companies are using games to recruit, train, motivate and make employees more productive," the authors find.
Indeed, perhaps the best way for a company to dissuade its employees from playing undesirable video games on company time is to provide carefully chosen or designed educational video games.
For example, games like "World of Warcraft" can help boost leadership skills while "Everest" trains people in teamwork.
Sun Microsystems has even developed its own video game, "Rise of the Shadow Specters," to train its employees about its culture and values.
Video games must be made interesting enough to attract employees, but instruction should be the ultimate goal.
The authors quote a famous game researcher Bill Ferguson, who developed a concept that educational games should be "eighty percent fun." The games need only to be 20 percent as efficient as traditional classes, since employees "willingly learn outside of formal training."
True, good video games may motivate people to learn.
I know many people who started to learn Japanese because of attractive Japanese video games, but many stopped after acquiring enough Japanese to play the game.
So it's worth asking how long enthusiasm for acquiring certain knowledge persists after playing video games.
The authors have other challenging ideas. They suggest developing video games and putting them in communities online to collect innovative suggestions and solutions from customers.
They admit it's not easy to develop this kind of games without divulging company secrets.
For instance, years ago, a community of clever users figured out the way to manipulate AT&T's system to get free long-distance calls.
Still, the authors may be right in saying that "using innovation communities will appear around your product whether you like it or not."
However, David Edery and Ethan Mollick, authors of "Changing the Game," suggest businesses take a different view and consider the positive aspects of gaming.
"Games, and most especially video games, not only belong in the workplace but can make all the difference between success and failure," the authors write.
"Far-sighted companies are using games to recruit, train, motivate and make employees more productive," the authors find.
Indeed, perhaps the best way for a company to dissuade its employees from playing undesirable video games on company time is to provide carefully chosen or designed educational video games.
For example, games like "World of Warcraft" can help boost leadership skills while "Everest" trains people in teamwork.
Sun Microsystems has even developed its own video game, "Rise of the Shadow Specters," to train its employees about its culture and values.
Video games must be made interesting enough to attract employees, but instruction should be the ultimate goal.
The authors quote a famous game researcher Bill Ferguson, who developed a concept that educational games should be "eighty percent fun." The games need only to be 20 percent as efficient as traditional classes, since employees "willingly learn outside of formal training."
True, good video games may motivate people to learn.
I know many people who started to learn Japanese because of attractive Japanese video games, but many stopped after acquiring enough Japanese to play the game.
So it's worth asking how long enthusiasm for acquiring certain knowledge persists after playing video games.
The authors have other challenging ideas. They suggest developing video games and putting them in communities online to collect innovative suggestions and solutions from customers.
They admit it's not easy to develop this kind of games without divulging company secrets.
For instance, years ago, a community of clever users figured out the way to manipulate AT&T's system to get free long-distance calls.
Still, the authors may be right in saying that "using innovation communities will appear around your product whether you like it or not."
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