WoW Players need not apply

The job market at the moment is tough, and it seems tougher for some people than others, and in particular World of Warcraft players seem to have been singled out.

Gamesindustry.biz reports today that employers are specifically requesting recruitment consultants not to send them World of Warcraft players.

The post, spotted cites a recruiter working in the online media industry as saying that employers think WOW players are too sleep-deprived and distracted to be effective in the workplace.

“Employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players,” said the poster. “He said there is a belief that WOW players cannot give 100 per cent because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, et cetera.”

This seems to fly in the face of many recent articles which focus on the positive of MMOG games such as World of Warcraft, where the skills necessary to persevere and suceed in the game are the same types of skills that can develop a hardworking and diligent employee.  Infact President Obama’s cabinet advisors even include WoW players.

But in the meantime, unless you’re after a job leading the country, it may be best to keep World of Warcraft off your CV.

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Playing for Profit

An article in the Ecomomist, recommends that businesses encourage their employees to get gaming.

“ 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 MDs & 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 Mr Edery, who happens to be in charge of game planning for Xbox’s Live Arcade online-gaming system. (Mr Mollick is an academic at MIT’s Sloan School of Management). But there are good reasons to think that he’s right.

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.

To see why, consider one of the things it takes to become an ace at, say, World of Warcraft, a hugely popular online fantasy game inhabited by griffins, trolls and other mythical creatures. To make progress inside the game, players must engage in “grinding”—gamer-speak for performing a repetitive task, such as slaying a monster, many times over.

 

What makes people, both young and old, want to sit for hours in front of a screen, clicking away on their consoles? The answer, say the authors, is status and friendly competition. Games that track players’ progress against their previous achievements, or against those of others, can make grinding seem like—well—less of a grind.

Gaming also promotes community building. Popular games can attract hundreds of thousands of user-group members, who swap notes and develop their own modifications (or “mods”). In many cases, such as The Sims—the most popular computer game of all time (in terms of copies sold), which allows players to control a household full of people with very human attributes—these mods have deepened customers’ attachment to the product.

The authors argue that firms in other industries should look to video-gaming companies for inspiration when it comes to managing their own communities. They point out that good gaming firms must learn the language and rules of different customer groups, appointing staff to engage with them. They also offer prizes that encourage creativity, as well as tools and support that make it easier for users to come up with mods, while discouraging unwanted innovation. The resulting software can help predict what future products might succeed.

The evolution of gaming technology has definitely given companies the ability to create virtual sandboxes that can provide a competitive edge. So executives who still insist on all work and no game play won’t just be running dull workplaces; they will also be running less profitable ones too.

Exert From The Economist – Playing for Profit – 26^th August 2008.

All copywrite to The Ecomomist.

Full article; http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11997115