Games Could Make Work Flow

Using games and game dynamics might be as powerful a model for organizing knowledge work as the assembly line was for organizing industrial work. We have been taught to consider play the opposite of work and games the opposite of jobs but maybe it’s time to reconsider that.

 

Traditional boundaries between work and the rest of life are blurring and have been for a while now. Often it is work that’s invading every other part of our lives. So how do we balance this out? Maybe we let play and games become part of work. It might just make work a lot more fun and productive. If we’re spending so much time on work anyway why not give it a try?

 

[ I do lively presentations on this and related topics – www.MichaelHugos.com ]

 

 

What Exactly is a Game?

 

We all have a sense of what a game is. Regardless of whether we are talking about sports games or card games or board games or video games, we can see they all share a core set of traits in common. Games are skills based, results oriented and structured by rules. The four defining traits of a game have been defined as: 1) A Goal; 2) Rules; 3) Feedback System; and 4) Voluntary Participation.

 

The goal of a game defines what the game is about, its purpose. The goal defines what the players will strive to accomplish. It is what the players focus on throughout the game as events unfold. They continually refer to the goal as they weigh their options for action and make decisions in the game. 

 

Rules place limitations on how the players can accomplish the goal. Rules channel the activities of the players into directions that are beneficial to and supportive of the game. Rules are what make the game work. They need to be clear and enforced uniformly on all players. 

 

A feedback system is what keeps the players constantly informed on how well they are progressing toward the accomplishment of the goal. Feedback in a game is delivered in different ways. It can be in the form of the game score, or in the form of reports and communications showing players the status of their resources and their reputations. Players continually use the feedback system to assess how effective their actions are and to try out different courses of action and learn new skills as they move toward the goal.

 

Voluntary participation means that people in the game understand and willingly accept the goal, the rules and the feedback system. This willing acceptance creates the common ground that unites all the players in a game and makes it possible for them to play together.

 

When these four traits are employed effectively they create a self-reinforcing dynamic that helps us focus and engage in a series of activities that is so engrossing and satisfying that it induces a state of mind known as “flow”. Flow is that place where people lose their self-consciousness, where time becomes distorted and the pleasure and satisfaction people get from the experience is an end in itself. 

 

Why is Work Often Alienating and Depressing?

 

Many of us have been taught that play is the opposite of work and that a game is the opposite of a job. This belief that play and games are frivolous is what motivates many to instinctively reject the idea that any of that can be part of the activity we call work. But maybe we should think again. Boredom and alienation and depression are everywhere. Boredom comes from our lack of engagement with each other and with our jobs and our institutions, and that lack of engagement leaves us feeling isolated and alienated. And that leads inevitably to the state of being called depression. 

 

Perhaps our depression is a direct result of the design of our social and economic and political systems. Maybe systems and institutions that worked well enough in the last century during the Industrial Age are now obsolete and need to be redesigned. Maybe games could be a significant part of that redesign. 

 

In her book Reality is Broken, a prominent game researcher and game developer, Jane McGonigal, describes games as “an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at something we’re good at (or getting better at) and enjoy. In other words, gameplay is the direct emotional opposite of depression."

 

Professor Byron Reeves and venture capitalist J. Leighton Read, working together through the business school at Stanford University, make a case for using games to change the way companies operate. They state in their book Total Engagement, “We believe the highest use of games will be to redesign work so that it is more like a game and to allow work to be conducted within games.”  They believe work will be “hopelessly confused with play and the result a possible win-win for the players and the businesses that sponsored them.” 

 

Look at what young people are doing in every country in every culture and there is a huge common activity that cannot be ignored. They are using mobile devices like smartphones and netbooks to tap into social networks and communicating with each other all the time. Look at what working people are doing in every country and every culture and there is a huge common activity that cannot be overlooked. They are using smartphones, tablet computers and PCs to tap into e-commerce networks and transacting business all the time. The four traits of games are rapidly emerging in all of these networks. 

 

Games are coming. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

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