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Does Gaming Reduce Productivity?
Scott Taulbee writes "Bob Mandel of AVault has given us his interesting views on why playing games does not reduce productivity, but rather is a stimulating alternative to 'snoozing, daydreaming, overconsuming food and beverages, or sitting like a mindless slug waiting for time to pass.' He suggest that '..compared to other forms of recreational activity that could be enjoyed during work breaks, computer gaming has the greatest chance to hone skills useful for productivity in the workplace.' Should we all take this article to our bosses with requests for installing a GameCube on every desk?"
People that will waste time with games when they could/should be doing something else will waste time doing something else (posting on slashdot). I don't see having an outlet like a game changing that.
Reality:
You code in the shower in the morning and transcribe your ideas into your IDE. You take long breaks at work to figure out problems. You think best when your hands are occupied or when some other minor task is distracting you slightly. You frequently work late or at home because thats when your mind is working. You are paid based on an avarge number of the lines of code you write per time measured. Big, time-consuming projects are intersperesed with smaller, less intenstive projects.
Your Boss's Fansty World:
From 8:00AM to 5:00PM your mind belongs to the company. You are able to transform business ideas into code every minute of that time and can do so without fail, regardless of the problem being presented. You are interchangable with other programmers and need not understand the whole project you're working on at any given time. You are capable of producing bug-free code on the first revision given normal working conditions. Application code is a commodity and is of the same quality, regardless who wrote it. You frequently work late because you are a salary employee and can be demanded to make more application code per work-day. You are paid per workday rather than code per average unit time.
The result: You sneak goofing off when you're able and end up working more 'off the clock' hours.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
For those of you who actually RTFA, those who take breaks doing what they want to do during those breaks will be more prepared to tackle the chores in front of them back in "the real world." To which I agree. If I were able to play a little Civ3 here and there throughout the workday, I'd be a much happier camper than how it is now, where I go and BS with my coworkers (who, although I really like 'em, they're not as fun all the time as a non-emotional computer game).
Of course the obvious ability to abuse such a system exists, but when it is encouraged as a stress reliever for little breaks here and there, rather than discouraged completely, it becomes a VERY USEFUL "tool" in the workplace. IMHO, anyways...
I know it. Imagine if we farmed out our development projects to the Chinese prison system. There, they only eat, sleep and write software. Every bug discovered by your manager results in a 100 volt zap to your left nut.
The problem with western people is they don't understand they are alive to serve their manager, nothing more. Eastern people however... they have a long and elustrious tradition of efficiency. India still has their wonderful caste system, the perfect social system for labor. China just prefers to use "prisoners" for the real dirty work.
The Americans better realize that you cannot be both free and be productive. If you have to work, you better shut the fuck up and do your job at all times you are conscious and not eating, sleeping, defecating, fucking...
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Today's video games are too time consuming. Back when arcade games were popular, they'd be a nice break because they only take a few minutes to play and leave, but most of today's console games take over half an hour before you get somewhere satisfying in them. They often space the opportunity to save far apart so if you spend less than half an hour you lose your progress. Simply having to save your progress is a nuisance, because you have to remember where you are after you stop, which means the game stays on your mind after you return to work. Arcade games always let extra players join in at any time, but today's console games force you to restart if you want to change the number of people playing. Startup screens alone now take over a minute. Some Gameboy Advance games are pretty brief, but it's low tech, uncomfortable and only supports one player per unit.
The sad fact is, today's console and PC games are designed to take over your life, which is just what the boss won't allow on the job.