Playing for profit

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: As the Democratic National Convention got underway in Denver recently, so, too, did a novel attempt to drum up interest in the American electoral process. Microsoft has tweaked its Xbox video-gaming consoles so that they can be used to register to vote in the presidential election and to participate in opinion polls and online forums.

Part of an initiative to boost youth participation in this year’s election, Microsoft’s move shows how gaming technology can have an impact far beyond the narrow confines of a display screen. In a forthcoming book called ‘Changing the Game’, David Edery and Ethan Mollick argue that many skills and lessons from the gaming world are applicable in the business world. The smartest firms, the authors argue, will not only allow game-playing in the workplace, but will actively encourage it.

To CEOs who throw a tantrum every time they catch someone playing solitaire on an office PC, or who consider video games to be the exclusive preserve of pasty-faced teens, that may sound like daft advice. It may also smack of bias coming from Edery, who happens to be in charge of game planning for Xbox’s Live Arcade online-gaming system. (Mollick is an academic at MIT’s Sloan School of Management). But there are good reasons to think that he’s right.

Much (electronic) ink has already been spilt about boosting sales through online promotional games. These ‘advergames’ have become a staple of viral marketing campaigns for firms such as Burger King and Intel. Intel’s ‘Silicon Commander’, for instance, lets users manoeuvre a fleet of robots through a host of IT-related dangers. Players advance more easily by upgrading their fleet to ‘Pro’ models—which happens to be the name of a processing technology developed by Intel.

Admittedly, game-based marketing has had its downs as well as ups. Many marketing efforts in virtual worlds such as Second Life have flopped. But to judge the potential value of gaming to business solely on the basis of its ability to promote products is to miss the bigger picture. According to Messrs Edery and Mollick, by making work more fun and by allowing firms to tap into wisdom beyond their walls, game playing can dramatically improve both productivity and bottom lines.