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Corporate Gaming Is Good For Business
The Economist is running a story about how gaming is on the rise in corporate environments, and how games are also becoming a popular tool for advertising. From internally developed games to commercial offerings to simply creating a framework in which employees can interact, game-based competitions and community building are leading to increased productivity, even for Fortune 500 companies. Quoting:
"Take Microsoft's own experience. Before it releases a new version of its Windows operating system, it asks staff to help debug the software by installing and running the system. In the past, project managers had to spend a great deal of time and effort persuading busy Microsoftees to help them with this boring task. So for Windows Vista, the system's latest incarnation, Microsoft created a game that awarded points for bug-testing and prizes such as wristbands for achieving certain goals. Participation quadrupled."
This makes a lot of sense.
A lot of companies like Microsoft have areas for playing other games like table tennis, snooker, etc. So why not have room for other kinds of games as well?
And having the games linked to work output would increase in productivity.
Just my 2 cents.
slashdot rocks
"Participation quadrupled"
so did the bugs
If they award points for finding bugs, of course participation is going to go up. It's so easy.
>>So for Windows Vista, the system's latest incarnation, Microsoft created a game that awarded points for bug-testing and prizes such as wristbands for achieving certain goals. Participation quadrupled.
;)
There may have been a lot of participation, but in Vista's case QA went right out the Window(tm)
Procrastinators, Unite Tomorrow!!
Awarding points for participation is rarely the most effective way to get people involved. Modded +5 insightful
So for Windows Vista, the system's latest incarnation, Microsoft created a game that awarded points for bug-testing and prizes such as wristbands for achieving certain goals. Participation quadrupled.
There's a piece of genius there... Worked like a charm. Keep it up.
Deleted
I know a good game, one that really motivates me to work more. It's called "Show Me The Money".
I thought they would speak about the need for good 3D cards in office boxen for lunch-time BF1942 smash-up between coworkers. This is boring. Corporate games as they describe it, are for suckers.
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
I'm not really sure how to take the news that bug testing in Vista was quadrupled.
Where they focused more on the game than on actual bug testing?
Where there that many bugs that a quadrupled test force still allowed it to be shipped as it was?
I mean really...I don't know what to think other than they should have released a better product if they had quadruple the bug testing as previous versions. With any luck those wristbands were actually shock collars to deal with the consequences of allowing so many bugs to go out the door.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Just another indication of attention spans going into the toilet. Who needs obsolete stuff like real human-to-human meatspace interaction and being rewarded after the completion of a task.
"When life is just a game, who's to blame?" -- Green Jelly
Participation may have quadrupled, but what about productivity or tangible results?
FreeBSD.org - The power to serve
Reports noted that the Microsoft games were crashing frequently - Users were told to reinstall their operating system.
> Microsoft created a game that awarded points for
> bug-testing and prizes such as wristbands for
> achieving certain goals. Participation quadrupled."
I predict Been-there-done-that syndrome. It'll work the first couple of times.
Sure I'll spend extra hours out of my day debugging vast company code to get some of that super-sweet wristband good-ness. I mean, who needs money or time with your family when you can have wristbands!
I mentioned tinker-toys once in a post - now I'm modded down for life.
just fine.
See how good Vista is?
One place I worked we had 'suggestion drives'. You got prizes for making suggestions, and such. The only result is that we got deluged with worthless suggestions - and we'd have to spend days writing justifications for denying totally boneheaded ideas.
I'd love to see the quality of the bug reports they got as a result.
So I get the chance to let Microsoft's new OS accidentally trash my system, getting me in no end of trouble, for the chance to win prizes?
Bah, who needs discretion?
I'm gonna write me a new minivan this afternoon!
in which the employee who fixed the most bugs won a car.
When asked what he was up to Wally said,"I'm coding up a Lexus!"
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
The game is now 99% bug free!
Oh... you mean we were supposed to debug Windows?
No pussy for YOU!
"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon" - Napoleon
The concept has been long-observed that people will work their asses off for a symbol of accomplishment.
I think the idea here of gaming that motivates, is part of a larger principle. That people will value doing things that they perceive will deliver value back to them. In other words, the ideal of selfishness, because nobody wants to row the boat just because an asshole beats a drum and cracks a whip.
When stories like this get on the front page, I start to wonder if Slashdot has stopped showing "news for geeks", and started showing stories that reinforce its readers beliefs. Only give people what they want to read, indeed.
Anything a company can do that shows they aren't just a replaceable grunt leads to better morale. A good company will make great efforts to express their gratitude to the employees for being there and making the company what is has become. More often than not, though, you have companies who treat their employees as thin mints. Use them for a while, then spit them out, because, "you can always be replaced." Picnics, luncheons, gift cards, on-line game tournaments...if this is what it takes to encourage more productivity, then do it! Productive workers make a company more money.
Bearded Dragon
Is everyone playing games, on Vista, I don't see any comments!
It's sad when we can no longer convince Americans that the work that they do is work that they should want to do because it's what the company pays them to do.
Now, Americans are convinced that work must be entertaining, enjoyable, and come with a reward that is supplemental to the salary that they work for.
What's going to happen next? Will workers at McDonalds not serve us unless we dangle a dollar in their face and tell them, "If my meal is ready in the next 60 seconds, you get this reward?"
Wow. I guess I might end up getting a job after all, if work is just a game. Maybe I'll move out of the basement of my parents house too...
--
Burninating the peasants
One man with a gun can control 100 without one
Vista Whack-a-Bug! Enjoy this new game from Microsoft where you try to smash every bug from Vista before the end of service life timer runs out. Featuring 45,000 unique levels as well as multi-player levels for no more than 10 simultaneous players!
A great game for only 3000 points!
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
Wait, what? I beta tested Vista and all I got was this copy of Vista Ultimate! I want my wristbands!
...you short-sighted bean-counting jackasses. I hate you. Where the hell is my cellular porn?
Andy
I run the protein folding software on my PS3 cause they give me points.
lovely lovely points.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
no one took much interest in the bug fixing game.
then again I hear chair-toss is a fairly popular redmond game.
Good people go to bed earlier.
So for Windows Vista, the system's latest incarnation, Microsoft created a game that awarded points for bug-testing and prizes such as wristbands for achieving certain goals. Participation quadrupled.
And nothing of value was gained.
It is a shame so many companies just don't get it, still. Disney recently killed its Virtual Magic Kingdom advergame because the corporate executives didn't understand how it could actually make them money. So while Webkinz cleaned their clock, Disney execs forked over $700M for Club Penguin and ignored the product they already had.
Classic trend manufacturing. No doubt pitched by companies who organize these games to manaufacture a trend and create a perception of popularity with a few isolated examples.
This are the sort of blatant PR masquerading as news of features that have ruined the credibility of the old media, It happens on the web too of course but its too dissipated to succeed in creating a false perception.
Economist may not be the best example cause they do have good content but most business mags are one big pr exercise. The old media is well on its way to irrelevance. Good riddance.
Greg Mankiw was right.
Economics is a load of bullshit.
If you can quadruple productivity of well-paid individuals by giving them junk jewelry and alpha-wave stimulation, then you really shouldn't have had to pay them well in the first place.
becasue management made a big deal out of it.
It's like when they were studying ways to increase productivity at Ford when the noticed dimming the lights a little bit increased performance.
What was actually happening was that the employees realized they were being watched and stepped up the appearance of production.
This turned out to be a short term effect.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Not to mention what the McCain campaign is doing. Their supporters were effluent with praise!
Back when I was fresh out of college (graduated in 1978), I found myself constantly having to learn new operating systems (mostly mainframe and minicomputer), new editors, new compilers (and languages), and so on. Heck, in my first year out of college, while at General Dynamics/WDSC, I worked on four different computers (CDC mainframe, Perkin-Elmer minicomputers, a Harris hybrid analog/digital computer, and some other mini-computer that I can't remember at the moment -- other than that I could tell what stage the compilie/link process was in by the noise the hard drive [5 MB and occupying a box the size of a 2-drawer file cabinet] was making).
So, one of my 'coming-up-to-speed' techniques was to write a program that interested me. In this case, I wrote a program that would randomly roll up and print out D&D monsters and NPCs, complete with stats. By the time I had that program working, I pretty much knew how to use the system and how to do software development on it. I think I still have some of those printouts in my files at home. ..bruce..
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
I thought this article was going to be like that episode of the Office where they all play call of duty. Um.. sniper rifle.
If the Vista experience tells anything, that's probably that the boring, systematic professional quality testing is not really replaceable by in-house bug-testing game.
Vista is like it is because they created more bugs in order to win more prizes!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
"The concept has been long-observed that people will work their asses off for a symbol of accomplishment."
Sistine Chapel.
'cause I once got a set of bugs against my documentation where each instance of the same typo (a function name) on the same page was entered as a separate bug. Wow, you guys found 5 bugs today! What phenomenal QA work.
Whichever dimwitted misanthrope came up with "number of bugs found" as a metric for QA "engineers" should be shot. And then drawn and quartered. And then dipped in boiling oil. And then forced to use Vista for a month.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
But I doubt that it's the solution to Debian's endless release cycles.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Obviously, promoting a business or a product through the use of a web based game, of course it makes sense! The trick is to create a game appropriate to the business and/or product you wish to push onto people.
It's a nice form of advertising and most of all, it provides a strong form of interaction. Imagine a game to promote Vista.
You make it work on other platforms, say on Mac and/or Linux :) The object of the game is to shoot off boxes that represent all non-Windows based OS off the screen. Kinda like a duck hunt or shooting gallery based game :) you lose points when you shoot Vista boxes!
:P
Yeah in order to compete in games you have to actually remove the spyware from your computer to make it faster, wow look more profit.
They played this game while testing vista, this totally explains the stock jump of 8000% in wrist band manufacturing...
I spotted 100 bugs for Vista and All I got was this lousy wristband.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Ever since watching Office Space and Wanted I've always viewed corporate initiatives as soul-crushing mediocrity. Now they're trying to combine my favourite escape from life, gaming, with said soul-crushing mediocrity. NOoooooOOOoooooooooooooooo
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
-your first thought when seeing the title is, "Well, of course. Gaming the system is always done for profit motives." And on good days, you also say, "But selfish systems always collapse from corruption-rot in the end." And on not-so-good days you add, "Of course, they'll take the rest of us down with them when they go."
-FL
Me and a friend have been bringing our laptops into work for over an year... playing Quake 3 all night long (night shift), i've been getting really good at strafe jump and my friend is a Railgun master..
Thanks! It's very good to know that i'm helping my company a lot by doing corporate gaming.
That's how we do at my firm. We stay nice and close that way. Works well well you do not take a bath for a few days.
I was wondering how odd D&D shit like the Bullette land shark, the Otyugh, and half-elves came to be.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.