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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."
"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.
Awarding points for participation is rarely the most effective way to get people involved. Modded +5 insightful
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 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
You have to be careful not to breed a Defect Black Market
Basically, you have developers colluding with testers. The developer intentionally drops a minor bug into the system (inverting an AND and OR, for example). The tester magically "finds" it. The tester gets the reward, and splits it with the developer. Repeat until the system is scrapped.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
It did marvels for Vista indeed.
Only 5? Hmmm... You know, I really want my employees to express themselves. If you think that 5 pieces of flair is enough just because you're getting by and doing the bare minimum, I'm a little disappointed. We really want to encourage team players. ;-)
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Yeah, I'm wondering if those "bracelets" were the shiny metal kind that take keys... and that's how they kept Vista testers at it. I can't imagine any other way to get people to actually use it :-)
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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
The problem being that the accounting department has been grinding productivity marks all day, and now are fully clothed in epic accounting gear.
Now we in the engineering department can't go to the water cooler without being ganked. :P
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
At least they're not teabagging you...yet.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I spotted 100 bugs for Vista and All I got was this lousy wristband.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact