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Got Game 212

Posted by timothy from the a-a-b-b-up-down dept.
Eli Singer writes "Are gamer employees different? This is the question John Beck and Mitchell Wade answer in Got Game, How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever. They argue that yes, employees who grew up with Nintendo, TurboGrafix and Genesis approach their work in fundamentally different ways than non-gaming workers. If you grew up with games, you can use this book to teach your boss how to appreciate your gaming abilities in the workplace." Read on for the rest of Singer's review.
Got Game
author John Beck & Mitchell Wade
pages 202
publisher Harvard Business School Press
rating 7/10
reviewer Eli Singer
ISBN 1578519497
summary Got Game describes the unique abilites gamer employees bring to the workplace, and teaches managers how to harness these often untapped skills.

1980s-era Nintendo-thumbed teenagers are now adults moving into senior positions in the workforce. As they move up, a cultural rift is forming in the workforce between the old guard who've never held a controller, and those who grew up hunting for the Triforce. Got Game proposes how to bridge this gap.

Beck and Wade argue that a massive culture gap began in the '80s when video game systems like the NES suddenly appeared in tens of millions of households across North America. Games radically reshaped youth for a whole generation by creating a new leisure activity with a distinctive culture. Ever since, gaming has become deeply embedded in our society and in the lives of each cohort over the last two decades.

At its core, Got Game is a guide for senior managers stumped at how to manage their gamer employees. Its purpose is to teach them that they must treat video games as serious preparation for the workforce, and that gamers possess a unique set of skills necessary in the modern business world:

"Anyone who actually looks at the games selling and being played knows that the typical video game is not the blood-spattering, media-grabbing, parent stressing cartoon that makes the nightly news on a slow or tragic day. Instead, it's a massive problem solving exercise wrapped in the veneer of an exotic adventure. Or it's the detailed simulation of an entire civilization, or a pivotal battle that affected the course of world history. Or it's a serious opportunity to try coaching a sports team or setting military strategy. In short, even if their surface is violent, sexist, or simpleminded (which is not true nearly as often as non-gamers believe), games are incredibly complex computer programs that lead the brain to new combinations of cognitive tasks."

The book is divided into two parts. The first three chapters are a primer for non-gamers, outlining video game culture, dispelling myths, and generally building the case for treating games and gamers seriously. Chapters four through eight, though, are where I thought the most innovative thinking lies. Here the authors draw explicit parallels between the skills people hone to win video games, and those needed in our global, techno-centric workforce. These chapters also go the extra distance by instructing managers on how to restructure their style to harness the skills in their gamer employees.

As a casual gamer, I found these aspects of the book helpful. By outlining the instances where managers and executives from outside the game generation don't see things the way I do, and then translating into terms they can understand, it is possible for me to effectively bridge the culture gap. Building understanding and common language reduces tension, making work less stressful, more fulfilling (and ultimately more like a video game!)

Here are some of the top insights in the book for non-gaming managers:

Tap into the gamer instinct for heroism
Gamers "have a hero's appetite for a challenge that requires full attention. Meeting these needs, giving the potential heroes who work for you a challenge that will inspire extreme efforts - can unleash enormous commitment."

Don't let superficial badges of culture mislead you
"Remember the old fogies who thought men with long hair automatically couldn't be trusted? We boomers now have the chance to replicate the fogies' mistake, or to build on major assets that out less open-minded peers overlook."

Don't dismiss gamers' ability to focus and multitask
"Gamer employees will prefer to be surrounded by extraneous noise and attentional clutter. They might want to have two or three activities assigned to them at once so that when they tire of one, they can move to the next, and then come back to the first when they have something useful to add."

Manage your teams as group video games
"Structure team assignments like a game, providing clear high-level direction but also lots of room to explore. Tell your team, 'here are the boundaries; you can't go outside them, but inside try anything - open all the doors, run into the walls, find a way to succeed.'"

Beck and Wade support their points of view with a commissioned study involving 2,500 business people. Graphed results are presented throughout comparing how gamers and non-games view risk, teamwork, decision-making, and responses to authority. While I realize that providing statistical support of ideas is essential, I didn't find the graphs or conclusions very compelling.

What I do appreciate is that in publishing this book, Harvard Business School Press is sending signals to the business community that video games are an important part of our culture and that we ought to consider the serious impact gaming is having in offices throughout the country.

The scope of this book goes beyond the 'important books for managers' genre. Proactive employees could easily benefit from strategically giving a copy to a boss to kickoff a conversation on refining a working relationship. For the more adventurous gamer, I'd recommend absorbing the business insights and using them to manage upward and get ahead in the workplace.

This will not be the last book about gamers in the workplace, but it does a good job kicking off the genre. I extend thanks to Beck and Wade for bringing attention to this real phenomenon.

Reviewer Eli Singer lives in Toronto. Apart from technology consulting, he blogs at singer.to and sends biking tours to Europe. You can purchase Got Game from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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  • Too many words... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:43PM (#11904844)
    Can someone give me a one sentance summery of the article? I'm in the middle of playing World of Warcraft while I should be debugging some filter engine code and cant be bothered to read it all.

  • which gamers? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by dmf415 ( 218827 ) *
    I think the Game Testers are the Gamers and the Game programers, like the ones at EA are too busy programing 7 days a week, LOL
    • Why is the parent poster marked a Troll? The people in their 20s and 30s who grew up with games are often the techies doing the hard work.

      The people in their 40s-50s+ are the non-gamers who are mostly managers making unrealistic goals cause they are absolutely foreign to details. They are doing everything according to budget. This can apply to almost any software development, not just games. The young talents are at the mercy of the old group sitting at the top.

  • the real measurement (Score:3, Funny)

    by promantek ( 866291 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:45PM (#11904868) Homepage
    what's your frags per minute?
    • I am a 'volume keyer' typing parts of addresses and are one of the fastest out of around 150 people, and have been for the past 2 years.

      Managers and others there don't know how I get consistantly high speeds. To put in perspective, I typically get 11,000-13,000 kestrokes per hour, whereas others are getting 6,000-9,000. As this job doesn't challenge me mentally, while typing postcodes and town names, my spare thoughts try and get me ever faster.
      Another thing most of my collegues don't understand is that
      • holy crap, hopefully you won't make a career out of this... what a waste of time

        • He probably won't. My first "computer" job was order entry and keying cigarette tax stamping reports into a terminal (we called it "data processing" then). It paid the bills and helped put me through college until I finally got a real programming job (for the princely sum of $8/hour).

          I can still numerically key at about 10000 kph (not kilometers!) as a result of that experience.

  • Another perspective (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:48PM (#11904892)
    Speaking as somebody who has played a wide assortment of computer games since the days of the Atari 2600 and Vic20, I would just like to point out that this has got to be the dumbest goddamned book to have come out in the last ten years.

    Do you want to know what's useful in the workforce? Communication skills.

    Learn to make yourself clear, in both written and spoken interactions with others, and stop praying that your high score on Ms. Pac Man will someday look good on your resume, because it won't.

    • Aww... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:57PM (#11904995)
      Somebody didn't make it past the Pretzel level! :)

    • Re:Another perspective (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MyIS ( 834233 )

      I think the idea here is to persuade the "old guard" to take us youngsters a little more seriously; and to use different management approaches. Since most of us greens have a pretty different take on how to do work, what with ADD and whatnot, this book tries to teach a manager how to utilize that.

      Noone's gonna argue that communication skills are important, but I don't think that's even relevant to the article. Ah well, back to IMing with 5 people at once.

    • Good point, but I don't really think that the book is trying to say that playing games will make you some sort of ultra-desirable commodity. Rather, it's pointing out the potential assets that growing up solving problems that are routinely seen in video games can give someone.

      Obviously, if you can't communicate effectively you won't succeed, but knowing that maybe 0.1% of the time you spend playing video games could be seen as developing your abilities, well, that puts a different spin on how you look at i
    • Not quite the dumbest: all 10 (or was it just 9) of the companies in On Excellence, held up as role models for toher companies, were in the toilet ten years later.

      So did the author become a laughing-stock? Nope, he wrote a sequel, and it too became a best seller.

      Bizarrely, there's always a market for this kind of babbling nonsense.

      hawk

  • Too Bad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheKidWho ( 705796 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:48PM (#11904894)
    Not every single task that you can do in a workplace can be equated to finding the triforce and saving princess Zelda.

    Otherwise, from the review, it seems like a very interesting book, especially for someone like me who grew up on videogames.

    I think an analysis on what kinds of games people grew up with also needs to be made. For example, someone who started on an Apple II vs an Atari, or a IBM PC vs a NES. Same Generation, different kinds of people imo.

    • Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Funny)

      by decipher_saint ( 72686 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:22PM (#11905174)
      Not every single task that you can do in a workplace can be equated to finding the triforce and saving princess Zelda.
      Yeah, but when they do; boy am I ready!

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:40PM (#11905324)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Not every single task that you can do in a workplace can be equated to finding the triforce and saving princess Zelda.

      Sure they can. Working at Burger King? Gather the needed tools (meat, buns, etc.) to make the triforce quarterpounder, and serve it to the Ganon-like customer to save the Princess.

      Then, do it again for the second quest, slightly different (no pickles) and then the third and forth and fifth until your shift is over and you can afford to buy the new zelda game.

      Repeat.

      • Or you can simply partake of the greatness that is Burgertime.

        Whippersnapper. Here, have some pepper. (shake shake)

    • For example, someone who started on an Apple II vs an Atari, or a IBM PC vs a NES. Same Generation, different kinds of people imo.

      I started on Sega Master System. :( Everybody else had a NES. I still feel less valuable than my peers.

  • What? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by lachlan76 ( 770870 )
    Tap into the gamer instinct for heroism Gamers "have a hero's appetite for a challenge that requires full attention. Meeting these needs, giving the potential heroes who work for you a challenge that will inspire extreme efforts - can unleash enormous commitment."

    What makes you think that writing code is the kind of thing that gamers want to make them feel like a hero?

  • What a load of BS (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation@@@gmail...com> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:48PM (#11904900)
    Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music.

    With credit to Marcus Brigstocke.
  • OK I'll give you Nintendo and Genesis, but Turbo-Grafix? I can say without reservation that Turbo-Grafix had to effect on my life as an adult: I never played it.

    If you need a third game console, for God's sake at least have the decency to throw in Atari.

    • Re:Turbo-Grafix? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheKidWho ( 705796 )
      You are one of those people who sees a tree and ignores the forest behind it.

    • Re:TurboGrafx? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Goner ( 5704 ) <nutateNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @07:15PM (#11905575) Homepage
      Not to freakin' dis, but anyone who put's a bloody "i" and a dash in TurboGrafx clearly didn't grow up with it. TurboGrafx-16 man! not to mention the other systems and the cd add on. noting that NEC made some of the first external cdrom drives for ATs at the time.

      I'll challenge you to some Bonk's Revenge or Alien Crush any day.

      Ok, I'll admit, I'm still trying to justify why I asked my parents for that instead of Genesis... given the price of about 2x an NES with 1.5x the performance...

      I must stop before I start weeping openly in public.

      It did have the best pinball games, though. Time cruise anyone? any one?
  • Yet another attempt to create a business buzzword and sell books.

    Think habits, moving cheese, Japanese management, Good to Great, and anything with Trump or "rich" in the title.

    This might just be the lamest one yet, though. And that's saying a lot...

  • Now if only I could find the Warp Zone...

  • not sure... (Score:4, Funny)

    by SpongeBobLinuxPants ( 840979 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:49PM (#11904908) Homepage
    for some reason my boss doesn't apprecient me fragging my co-workers
    • You mean they don't just re-spawn? Uh oh...

      • Re:not sure... (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Your Hindu coworkers will get reincarnated. Does that count?

    • Re:not sure... (Score:3, Funny)

      by drxray ( 839725 )
      Well, if you aren't changing jobs every 20 seconds, you're camping. And camp-frags don't count.
    • Well that's just because he knows he's next in line...after you get all the little guys, you always have to beat the boss, who, I might add, will require multiple hits and have a distintive pattern to his counterattacks. Unforuntately, in real life, there is no save, no continue, and you only have one life left. And there is no princess, not even in another castle or skyscraper.
    • for some reason my boss doesn't apprecient me fragging my co-workers

      If you don't mind early starts I'm sure the Post Office would take you.

  • TK away (Score:3, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:50PM (#11904916)
    If you grew up with games, you can use this book to teach your boss how to appreciate your gaming abilities in the workplace.

    My TK'ing skills came in really handy last time we had a cutback, saving a substantial amount in redundancy payments for the company and my boss occasionally gets me to TW anyone he feels in not pulling their weight on the team.

  • I've noticed this at work... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sonofagunn ( 659927 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:50PM (#11904925)
    Gamers problem solving strategy in the workplace: while (!success) { trySomething(); } Non Gamers: while(planMightFail) { thinkMore(); } finallyTryPlan();
  • I learned how to read by watching my older brothers play video games and having them read the words to me. I knew how to read before kindergarden, and by the time i hit the 3rd grade i could read novels and playing plenty of video games myself.
  • Hey, I should put "being an adictive gamer" in my resume. But, we should brainwash all managers by the book. I will buy one for my boss!

  • mastering the ALT-TAB while keeping a consistent facial expression.

  • It's fascinating that we need this book... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:52PM (#11904956)
    I was always under the assumption that businesses were "competitive" and they would understand the need for game playing and/or outmaneuvering your competition.

    But the normal logic seems to be to avoid competition at all costs and the company momentum should be A + B = Profit! And when you ask "Well what happens if that doesn't work out?" you get the stock "Well, we'll all be out on the street, won't we?"

    I see this in companies with very intelligent people as well... Now you're telling me it's because I'm a gamer and they're not? It's an appealing idea, but I'm not sure if it's that simple a reason... (To wit, I know several gamers who couldn't problem solve their way out of a paper bag in real life... But can tell you how to pull off the super Dragon Punch...

    • Your comments, as well as others on this issue, are thought provoking but there is another issue that I have not yet noticed anyone mentioning that gives the book potential value.

      Whether or not gamers are best suited to this task or that task in many cases is irrelevant. Like it or not, the many of the people in our workforce are gamers or have touch of gamer culture that affects their work habits and perspective. Unless, however, I want to pay their welfare check, they require employment as we all do

  • I got game! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LqqkOut ( 767022 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:55PM (#11904985) Journal
    I browsed through this book at the local B&N and the two things that really struck a cord with me were:
    • Many of the challenges faced by the gamer generation have attainable solutions - which leaves us open to try any approach
    • A gamer can become an expert in whatever game world they land in - which makes us more willing to learn a new concept, program, technology, and crack open a ton of black boxes to find that knowledge
    In all it was a decent book, but I lost interest when I was drudging through the business-oriented "intro" chapters.

  • Data please? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kgruscho ( 801766 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:56PM (#11904990)
    I am kind of concerned that at least from what i read in the review, this "advice" is just an unempirical opinion. I don't see much of citations about gamer's being motivated differently or doing better multitasking, etc. There are such things as social sciences, you can actually study these things in an organized and meaningful fashion. you know formulate a hypothesis, collect data, test hypothesis.. I would guess that some gamers actually are actually very good at single-tasking. The problem is making the job the exciting thing and not the game. (anyone besides me have a roommate who just did nothing but play starcraft for 3-4 straight days, skipping all classes...when he actually did somethign productive it was about the same method of operation.)
  • I play emacs tetris all day at work, and probably get more work done than anyone else in my entire group.
  • i tried left-mouse-click-dragging some of my colleagues, but right-clicking on my boss did not work :/

  • Justice! (Score:5, Funny)

    by xsupergr0verx ( 758121 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:58PM (#11905007)
    Oh how my family criticized me, saying things like "you won't be able to put your Contra high score on a resume."

    The day I dreamed of is getting closer...

  • Games HAVE had a drastic effect on a generation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LithiumX ( 717017 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:03PM (#11905047)
    Games have had positive and negative effects. My generation, or at least a majority of it's members, has spent years being driven half-insane by puzzles and intellectual challenges both to reasoning and patience. There have always been such challenges, but nowhere near as often, as common, as widespread, or as twistedly intricate and lovingly built as what has existed since the early 80's.

    On the positive side, from an early age we have been taught the value of patience, and the rewards of outright persistance. Anyone who's played many games has seen what happens when you give in to impatience and end up blowing anywhere from 5 to 60+ minutes of effort in one badly timed move. And without persistance, you couldn't beat many games in the first place - to achieve your goal, sometimes you have to bang away at it until it's done. You become very goal-oriented, having played games, and you also become competitive - not so much competitive in general, but competitive about doing your work faster, more intelligently, and more efficiently than anyone else around you.

    On the negative side, we're quite a bit more reward-oriented than previous generations (when we accomplish something, we damned well want to see something come out of it). We do have a collective taint of what amounts to ADD, being able to focus tightly on short tasks like no generation before, but having trouble sticking to one course of action for the long haul. We're always looking for the shortcut, believing fully that it exists. And sometimes, even though it's often an asset in business, we can be a bit inhuman in our logic, dispassionately accepting losses, risks, and sacrifices when it furthers our goals.

    Reminds me of a quote: "If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
    • We're always looking for the shortcut, believing fully that it exists. And sometimes, even though it's often an asset in business, we can be a bit inhuman in our logic, dispassionately accepting losses, risks, and sacrifices when it furthers our goals.

      I think this is why there is no anti-war movement on U.S. college campuses. That may change if there is a draft, but many of them think they were too smart to be a grunt, and feel superior to those that are killed, and blithley accept the Bush mantra that
      • I think this is why there is no anti-war movement on U.S. college campuses. That may change if there is a draft, but many of them think they were too smart to be a grunt, and feel superior to those that are killed, and blithley accept the Bush mantra that death is part of winning the war.

        I don't think it's so much blithe acceptance, but a different focus. The Hippie Generation asked "At what cost of life?". The Me Generation asked "How will this affect my pocketbook?". Generation X, especially the you
    • Games have had positive and negative effects. My generation, or at least a majority of it's members, has spent years being driven half-insane by puzzles and intellectual challenges both to reasoning and patience.

      Hogwash. Nowadays games are meant for almost-instant gratification. A gamer must be able to overcome any challenge quickly, or he will be bored with the game and go on to something else.

      I was 20 years of age when I got my C64. Before that time, I did math puzzles for entertainment. The most inte

  • ...reviews along the lines of this one [kuro5hin.org] that I've written over the years that I've been meaning to collect together on a web site. (Inspired by Stanislaw Lem.) But this review shows that someone has beaten me to it!

  • Self help books for the slashdot crowd (Score:5, Funny)

    by 3dWarlord ( 862844 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:14PM (#11905122)
    Also from John Beck include:
    Got Skills: How linux administration leads to improved sexual prowless in the bedroom.
    Got +1: How WoW helps develop superior social awareness.
    Got Post: How posting on slashdot turns you into an expert debater.
    Got Subterrain: How living in your parents basement qualifies you as CFO of a large corporation.

  • This qualifies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:32PM (#11905265) Journal
    For the dumbest story and worst book linked ever on slashdot.

    No data to back it up and dumb references to making work like a video game. How any publisher let the green light on this is surprising.

    How about communication skills and looking at work problems more cognitively since kids on video games have a great ability to do.

  • Good thing we aren't anonymous (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Infinityis ( 807294 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:54PM (#11905437) Homepage
    I can tell you one thing, it's a good thing the business world isn't a world of anonymity. I've played enough online games to know that the day that happens, the collective maturity of individuals will decrease. Competitive atmosphere = Good. Competitive atmosphere + Anonymimity = j00 R a l0s3r

  • Lo and behold, WoW is teaching me basic econ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 5n3ak3rp1mp ( 305814 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:59PM (#11905461) Homepage
    Within the context of the World of Warcraft auction house and the /2 trade channel, I find myself learning the basic skills of supply and demand, negotiating a price on an item, marketing, etc. etc... I've actually never had this much practice negotiating prices in my whole life. I've found that the more data you have to back up your price point, the better... just like in real life (for you WoW'ers out there, look up LootLink and Auctioneer for some great in-game info) In fact, I'm getting pretty wrapped up in finding good deals (cheap buyouts) and doing turnaround sales. Which is strange, since I'm pretty much a geek and not a sales guy, but I'm actually doing OK at this. Lastly, I realized that I needed an angel investor to REALLY start earning the G's (just like in real life!), so I had 2 guildies lend me 50 gold each and that has seriously improved my profit margins, I will be paying them back soon...

    This may sound funny but this all seems based on actual business principles
    • Within the context of the World of Warcraft auction house and the /2 trade channel, I find myself learning the basic skills of supply and demand, negotiating a price on an item, marketing, etc. etc... I've actually never had this much practice negotiating prices in my whole life.

      I'd rather go out to a flea market to do that. And walk home with a good deal on a rare game cartridge. But then I'm an oldskool game collector and we're cheap bastards.

    • Like Everquest? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MemeRot ( 80975 )
      I read an aritcle on Wired a while back from a journalist who bet that he could make as much money buying and selling Everquest items as he could from his real job, over the course of a month. The result? He came within about 5-10% of doing it. Of course, that month also included all the ramp-up time to meet people, establish a name, etc. Over that month he made the equivalent of a $45,000/yr, so I guess he's paid pretty well as a journalist. One of the most humorous suggestions I've ever heard for end

  • How about females? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Faeton ( 522316 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @07:05PM (#11905501) Homepage Journal
    If this actual book is accurate, we're really talking about males here. Males overwhelmingly comprise the gaming generation. Nintendo, Sega Genesis and all that were mostly played by boys. Even now, XBox, PS2 and such are still played mostly by boys. We're not talking a 55/45 split here. It's more like 85/15.


    So where does that leave females? Did they "miss out"? Or are most of these observations "guy" oriented to begin with?

  • Downsides? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by null etc. ( 524767 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @08:00PM (#11905932)
    I wonder if this book also covers the negative aspects that can be associated with gaming, such as:
    • Using cheat codes to bypass the rules of the game.
    • Developing a tendency to "push the reset button" when things don't work out.
    • Winning the game in the easiest way possible, since actions performed in a game don't have lingering ramifications (except online games).
    • Quitting the game due to boredom or frustration.
    • Throwing the controller through the window.
    • Camping out and using your friends/roommates console or computer 24/7, because you don't have a life and he does.
    • * Forgetting a game for a few months, then returning to the last saved position.
      * Arguing about which game system is the best, and how all the others are for drooling gays.
      * Using a mod chip and playing "backups".

    • Re:Downsides? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bar-agent ( 698856 )
      Whoa, there, buddy! These are all positive things. Let me show you...
      • Using cheat codes to bypass the rules of the game.

        Find the shortcuts, the tricks your competitors don't know.
      • Developing a tendency to "push the reset button" when things don't work out.

        If you fail, try again, rethinking your solution.
      • Winning the game in the easiest way possible, since actions performed in a game don't have lingering ramifications (except online games).

        Make your money ASAP and move on to better things.
      • Q
  • Whenever a new management gimmick like this comes along a million "target employees" roll their eyes. Anything like this where the aim is for management to connect with the younger elements in their company by communicating "on their level". This usually means trying to appear like you understand where they're coming from by implementing some BS program like this.

    Speaking as someone who was a kid in the 80s, I don't want my bosses to make work "like a game".
    How about:
    a) listening to what your employees nee

  • A metaphor taken wayyyyy too far (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10, 2005 @08:09PM (#11906002)
    From this article, the book appears to be a really big stretch of some very basic ideas in behavioral psychology (re: goal theory, Locke). Goal theory basically says that people accept and work towards goals that meet their needs and that they agree with. Goals must be proximal (i.e. you get the reward at the end of the month, not during your evaluation next year) and salient (i.e. useful, wanted). Trying to make gamers feel like they are some special group of individuals (man, nobody understands me maaaaaaannnnnnn) with some nonsensical special powers in the workplace is laughable. As someone else said: where is the data? There are plenty of kids who have not played videogames for 10,000 hours + during their lives and a simple quasi-experiment could be designed to examine this hypothesis. My guess is the author is some blowhard gasbag trying to stop feeling guilty about wasting his youth in his friend's basement playing Dragon Quest.

    Lets see the suggestions:
    >Tap into the gamer instinct for heroism
    Gamers "have a hero's appetite for a challenge that requires full attention. Meeting these needs, giving the potential heroes who work for you a challenge that will inspire extreme efforts - can unleash enormous commitment."

    You mean give people non-repetetive, interesting work? God knows only gamers can appreciate that!

    Don't let superficial badges of culture mislead you
    >"Remember the old fogies who thought men with long hair automatically couldn't be trusted? We boomers now have the chance to replicate the fogies' mistake, or to build on major assets that out less open-minded peers overlook."

    Um...this sounds like a cultural shift, not something that gamers have a corner on the market. It's like saying "women in the workplace? Only gamers can appreciate that because of their exposure to female heroes."

    >Don't dismiss gamers' ability to focus and multitask
    "Gamer employees will prefer to be surrounded by extraneous noise and attentional clutter. They might want to have two or three activities assigned to them at once so that when they tire of one, they can move to the next, and then come back to the first when they have something useful to add."

    I don't have much to say about this one, other than that it sounds like total bullshit, and there is no telling about what the QUALITY of a product made by a multitasking, distracted person might be like. I'm not sure why this is gamer specific...kids who grew up with annoying siblings always fighting and blasting music may have the same abilities to work in "busy" environments...

    Manage your teams as group video games
    "Structure team assignments like a game, providing clear high-level direction but also lots of room to explore. Tell your team, 'here are the boundaries; you can't go outside them, but inside try anything - open all the doors, run into the walls, find a way to succeed.'"

    Thank you for reinventing goal theory, which has been shown to apply to that special group of folks we call humans.

    Again, a metaphor taken way to far in order to provide gamers an excuse to complain about how lame their jobs are.

  • Job Opening (Score:2, Funny)

    by Khashishi ( 775369 )
    Job Title: Enterprise Solution Architect

    Job location: Lordaeron

    Job Responsibilities:

    Generate enterprise level solutions for maximizing vespene gas resource flow
    Work with key stakeholders and provide leadership to increase frag count
    This position requires the ability to translate business strategy, goals and objectives into complete pwnage.
    This individual will support a team of technical, management and business development professionals in performing fatalities on the competition.
    Responsible fo
  • Gamers "have a hero's appetite for a challenge that requires full attention.

    I'm sorry, but that doesn't even make sense, particularly when it goes on to say that gamers like multitasking, which I'd think flies in the face "requires full attention". (Maybe gamers have a task-switching brain, rather than a true multitasking one?)

    I'm a gamer, but I don't go out of my way to do "hard" stuff in Real Life. I'm not out climbing mountains because they're there or because they popped up in the machine room or a

  • Lessons from games that may not work so well in the workplace:
    • If at first you don't succeed, reload your last save.
    • Sucking up to your mates may get you the latest warez.
    • Cheating gets you the highest scores.
    • It is far more important to beat your latest highscore than eating, sleeping, or bathing.
    • You can't do any good work without the latest hardware.
    • If it is not entertaining, it is not worth doing.
    • Any conversation can be handled by choosing between three clear-cut options.
    • Most girls have a DD rack,

  • Buy a copy of Peopleware [amazon.com] instead. It's full of good stuff, most of which is backed up by hard data from the authors' studies, and not just some "Hey, why don't we make work like a game?" nonsense. Plus, trying to implement the advice in that book will keep most companies busy for a few years yet.

    This book sounds like a crock. I mean, encouraging managers to tell their team:

    "open all the doors, run into the walls, find a way to succeed."

    That doesn't sound patronising at all. I can see all these

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