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More Serious Games: Recruitment, teaming and …

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Language: english
Created: Tue Jul 11 13:44:52 2006

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More Serious Games: Recruitment, teaming and
experience
July 2006

Executive summary � Simulated environments are becoming second homes
for millions of people worldwide. And it isn't just for kids. Businesses are
using these environments for training and recruitment. Conferences are being
held. Ideas are being tested. People are learning to work in a virtual space.
It's too early to understand the full implications of Massively Multiplayer
Online Role Playing Games and their online cousins, but there is little
question that this will go beyond just entertainment. As games scale up to
millions more participants and generate billions of hours of human activity per
year, these environments may foreshadow an emerging business
environment. Think of them as constructs of innovation, for connecting,
reorganizing and redeploying hundreds of thousands of players around
specific endeavors; and enabling them to self-organize, based on their
capabilities, interests and reputational capital.

In this Executive Technology Report, Peter Andrews interviews Chuck Hamilton,
who works in the IBM Centre for Advanced Learning (CAL) from Vancouver, British
Columbia, our internal IBM team dedicated to learning excellence. CAL supports the
drive toward the On Demand Learning Strategy as defined by learning leaders
across IBM.

Peter Andrews To begin, what's happening within IBM in the area of Serious Play?

Chuck Hamilton IBM has begun to see Serious Play for Learning and Work as an
important theme to consider across many lines of business. In 2006, the Global
Innovation Outlook1 sponsored deeper investigation of this space through IBM
Research, supported by the Center for Advanced Learning. All of a sudden, this
theme is getting on everyone's calendar.

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 1
Peter Andrews Any guess on why?

Chuck Hamilton Two reasons, I think. The first is that gaming is the social
phenomenon of our time, where five out of every ten Americans, or about 145 million
consumers and employees, play video games in one form or another.2 The video-
game market alone accounts for US$22 billion of the US$1 trillion global
entertainment industry, growing to US$55 billion in 2008.3 Approximately 92 percent
of children ages two to seventeen in the U.S. have access to video games, and the
mean age of the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)
player is rising steadily, to between 21 and 29 years of age.4

So most of us intuitively understand that when we play, we learn. The four great
chords of mental health are the ability to love, to work, to play and to think soundly.5
It is remarkable how closely tied each [of] these chords is with one another.

The second big factor is that we are witnessing widespread organizational changes
� that [result in] business increasingly [being] conducted by virtual, massively
distributed, global teams undertaking multiple endeavors, rather than by a single
command and control-based enterprise. This phenomenon is challenging
established industrial-age organizing principles.

And we can quickly observe that games, as constructs of innovation, are connecting,
reorganizing and redeploying hundreds of thousands of players around specific
endeavors and enabling them to self-organize based on their capabilities, interests
and reputation capital.

Peter Andrews OK, I'm hearing two big interest areas, learning and collaboration.
Let's explore each. First, what can you tell me about the quality of learning in this
space?

Chuck Hamilton Well, we know what sorts of things make for great quality in
learning, and it seems that emerging play spaces mirror quality learning spaces. We
are observing various play tactics in use that mirror tactics we are applying in our
own learning design and delivery. Approaches that leverage self-representation,
reputation creation, use of narrative, timely and frequent feedback, use of ranking
and levels as guides, creation of new marketplaces, deep collaboration
communication, far-flung teams, reaction to simulated and realtime pressures,
simple and complex rule structures, shared task resolution, asset reuse and the use
of virtual worlds are all explored in learning at work.

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 2
Peter Andrews That shows the potential. What about the limits?

Chuck Hamilton There are limits here, as there are with all learning delivery
options. First and foremost, the "garbage in, garbage out" principle still applies.
Under engaging, poorly constructed play spaces yield little value. In addition, we
need to watch for the "gotchas" of play like the trivial factor, exhibitionism issues,
personal exposure concerns, as well as gender, geographic and other cultural
biases, which can happen in all spaces.

Peter Andrews Role-playing is a classic technique in education. Are there any
qualitative differences in using role-playing in a gaming environment for education?

Chuck Hamilton That is a current and topical research question, and the verdict is
not in just yet. It appears that role playing helps avoid some of the "gotcha" items I
mentioned, as you can play any role you like, regardless of who you really are.
Secondly, you can fail in one role, reconnect and try another role, learning from
each. I personally like that I can see highly collaborative connections between roles
and players, making for deeper engagement.

Peter Andrews Speaking of collaborative connections brings us back to the self-
organization you spoke of. Self-organization implies a high level of teaming in this
kind of a virtual space. Is there any evidence that the teaming carries over to "real
life"? That people become comfortable with essential practices and etiquette? That
genuine social capital is built?

Chuck Hamilton Yes, the evidence is beginning to show that this form of self-
organization transcends boundaries. Let's take the game "America's Army,"6 for
example. This was once just a realistic glimpse of actual army work, carved into a
play environment. But once the U.S. Army learned just how many skills were being
developed and to what level, they have begun to use the game as a recruiting tool.
Now the U.S. Navy is doing the same thing with its "Navy Training Exercise."7 The
self-organization skills applied within a virtual world carry through to our real world,
and there are other examples.

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 3
Closer to home, we need only look at the self-organization principles of the Open
Source Community and how software gets built today to understand just how
credible self-organizing virtual communities are becoming. We (IBM) already "get"
this one and support it. Another real world example is L'Or�al, the cosmetics
company, that uses a global recruiting game to bring people up to speed on
products and services before they enter the interview process.8 L'Or�al wants to
see people work locally and think globally, before engaging them deeper. L'Or�al
has being doing this sort of play-based interview process for four years.

Peter Andrews More generally, could you update me on what's been going on in
this arena? Do we know anything more about serious uses, for business and
government, now than we did a year ago?

Chuck Hamilton Yes, we are beginning to understand a lot more about application,
while at the same time I honestly can say that [the] more we know, the more we feel
we need to know. The space is evolving at lightning speed. To gain an
understanding of some of the options see the "Related references of interest"
section at the end of this paper.

Peter Andrews On the topic of environments... There's a lot of buzz around
Second Life, even a BusinessWeek cover story.9 Could you tell me a bit about it
and some competing platforms?

Chuck Hamilton Sure. It's interesting that we now see more and more people
talking about Play versus games, because of spaces like Second Life
(www.secondlife.com). Second Life is an immersive world or Metaverse10
experience (meaning an online representation of reality, more play words for our
lexicon) that is not really a game, although there are plenty of games going on within
the worlds created there. It's about having a second life, another persona and
representation in another space or world, over which you can have a much greater
influence. We have a growing list of platforms and we have some new partnerships
with companies to help create new platforms.11 Hoplon is one such example.

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 4
Peter Andrews Does gaming have a role in enabling innovation?

Chuck Hamilton Well, you have hit on a big topic with that question. If I was to
circle one word on a chart, from everyone talking about Serious Play, it would be the
word "innovation." First, everyone already believes that there is plenty of innovation
happening in these play spaces. Numbers suggest that games like EverQuest and
Worlds of Warcraft may be among the largest economies in the world, and yet they
don't even exist in a real-world setting.12 There are innovative business models
going on here. Secondly, there is a real opportunity to teach innovation through a
game and hopefully change behavior. If you meet up against barriers to innovation
in play space and overcome them, you will recognize these characteristics in the real
work space and overcome them [there] as well. This represents a catalyst for
innovation.

Peter Andrews Any final thoughts? Ways people should participate?

Chuck Hamilton Consider this. We may only ever be in three spaces in our lives.
They are: at work, at home and at play. Increasingly, many of us experience these
spaces in the same physical or virtual spot. Think of play as a complement to work,
and I think you will see endless opportunity.

Technology to watch
Massively multiplayer online games
(MMPOGs)
Presence awareness
Simulation
Web 2.0

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 5
References
1
Global Innovation Outlook 2.0: Innovation opens up. IBM Corporation.
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/www_innovate.nsf/pages/world.gio2004.html
2
Beck, John C. and Wade, Mitchell. Got Game: How the Gamer generation Is Reshaping
Business Forever. Harvard Business School. October 2004.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
5
Blatner, Adam and Allee Blatner. The Art Of Play: Helping Adults Reclaim Imagination and
Spontaneity. Brunner/Mazel. 1998.
6
The Official U.S. Army Game. America's Army. http://www.americasarmy.com/
7
Guttridge, Luke. "U.S. Navy Game Sets Sail: `America's Navy' announced." Ferrago
Intelligent Gaming Option. July 12, 2005 http://www.ferrago.com/story/6230; "Navy Training
Exercise. http://nte.navy.com/index.jsp
8
"Graduating to L'Or�al: Business Games." L'Or�al.
http://www.loreal.com/_en/_ww/index.aspx?direct1=00002&direct2=00002/00002
9
"My Virtual Life." BusinessWeek online. May 1, 2006.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm
10
"Metaverse" was coined by Neal Stephenson in his novel, Snow Crash. 1992.
11
"IBM joins forces with small and medium game companies around the world to accelerate
innovation." IBM press release. March 21, 2006. http://www-
1.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/summary/imc/a1023996?cntxt=a1002583
12
Castronova, Edward. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Worlds.
University of Chicago. November 2005; Summarized online by Russell Brown. "Virtual
Cheating.The New Zealand Listener. "Castronova studied the results of more than 600
EverQuest-related auctions, averaged them out and determined that a platinum piece was
worth about one US cent � more than the Japanese yen or the Italian lira. EverQuest players
were creating wealth at a rate of 319 platinum pieces ($US3.42) an hour. This, he noted, was
higher than the minimum wage in most countries. EverQuest's GDP per capita was
$US2266, greater than that of India or China. Norrath, the imaginary world in which
EverQuest is based, was the 77th richest country in the world."
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3343/columnists/2067/virtual_cheating.html;jsessionid=5CCE
598A195C98D587171F408E815372

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 6
Related references of interest
Places, blogs and wikis
Anarchy Online. A top ranked list of games. http://www.mpog.com/index.cfm?bhcp=1
"Before `The Apprentice' There Was L'Oreal's E-Strat Challenge." L'Oreal press release.
September 9, 2004. http://www.csrwire.com/article.cgi/3002.html
Boyd, Clark. "Games blur news and entertainment." BBC News, Discussion Points on
Gaming and learning. September 16, 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3653294.stmDefinition of an MMORPG, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG and Web 2.0, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
Brown, John Seely and Douglas Thomas. "You Play World of Warcraft? You're Hired!"
Wired. April 2006. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.htmlMedia X.
Stanford University. http://mediax.stanford.edu/index.html
"Games help you `learn and play.'" BBC News, Discussion Points on Gaming and learning.
January 18, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4182023.stm
Jakobsson, Mikael and T.L. Taylor. "The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Social Networking in
Massively Multiplayer Online Games." Melbourne International Digital Arts and Culture
Conference (MelbourneDAC), May 19 - 23, 2003,
http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Jakobsson.pdf
Mitchell, Alice and Carol Savill-Smith. "The use of computer and video games for learning: A
review of the literature." Learning and Skills Development Agency, 2004.
http://www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1529.pdf
PBS. "The Video Game Revolution � PBS Special project." September 2004. See The
History of Gaming Interactive Timeline.
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/history/index.html
Prensky, Marc. "The Seven Games of Highly Effective People: How playing computer games
helps you succeed in school, work and life." www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-
The_Seven_Games-FINAL.pdf
Saveri, Andrea, Lyn Jeffery and Alex Pang. "New Entertainment Media: Transforming The
Future Of Work." Institute For The Future, The Future Technology Horizons Program. August
2003, SR-813. http://www.iftf.org/docs/SR-813_New_Entertain_Media.pdf
Second Life www.secondlife.com
Serious Games - http://www.seriousgames.org/about.html
Sailes, Paula. "An unconventional way to recruit." CNN.com International. May 25, 2004.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/05/24/go.e-strat.loreal/index.html
Social Impact Games - http://www.socialimpactgames.com/

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 7
Steinkuehler, Constance A. "Massively Multiplayer On line Games (MMOG) Research:
Selected Papers & Presentations." University of Wisconsin.
http://website.education.wisc.edu/steinkuehler/papers/SteinkuehlerICLS2004.pdf
Stitt, Jason and Les Chappell, "Games that make leaders: top researchers on the rise
of play in business and education." Wisconsin Technology Network. January 20, 2005.
http://www.wistechnology.com/article.php?id=1504
Terranova: Exploring Virtual Worlds. Commentary and another virtual world list.
http://terranova.blogs.com/

Books and magazines
Aldrich, Clark. Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and Perhaps
Revolutionary) Approach to e-learning. Pfeiffer, September 2003.
Buchanan, Mark. Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks. W.W.
Norton. June 2003.
Gee, James Paul. "High Score Education." Wired, May 2003.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html?pg=1
Michael, David and Sande Chen. Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train and Inform.
Course Technology PTR. October 2005.

About this publication
Executive Technology Report is a monthly publication intended as a heads-up on
emerging technologies and business ideas. All the technological initiatives covered in
Executive Technology Report have been extensively analyzed using a proprietary IBM
methodology. This involves not only rating the technologies based on their functions
and maturity, but also doing quantitative analysis of the social, user and business
factors that are just as important to its ultimate adoption. From these data, the timing
and importance of emerging technologies are determined. Barriers to adoption and
hidden value are often revealed, and what is learned is viewed within the context of
five technical themes that are driving change:
Knowledge Management: Capturing a company's collective expertise wherever it
resides � databases, on paper, in people's minds � and distributing it to where it can
yield big payoffs
Pervasive Computing: Combining communications technologies and an array of
computing devices (including PDAs, laptops, pagers and servers) to allow users
continual access to the data, communications and information services

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 8
Realtime: "A sense of ultracompressed time and foreshortened horizons, [a result of
technology] compressing to zero the time it takes to get and use information, to learn,
to make decisions, to initiate action, to deploy resources, to innovate" (Regis
McKenna, Real Time, Harvard Business School Publishing, 1997.)

Ease-of-Use: Using user-centric design to make the experience with IT intuitive, less painful
and possibly fun
Deep Computing: Using unprecedented processing power, advanced software and
sophisticated algorithms to solve problems and derive knowledge from vast amounts
of data
This analysis is used to form the explanations, projections and discussions in each
Executive Technology Report issue so that you not only find out what technologies are
emerging, but how and why they'll make a difference to your business. If you would
like to explore how IBM can help you take advantage of these new concepts and
ideas, please contact us at insights@us.ibm.com. To browse through other
resources for business executives, please visit
ibm.com/services
Executive Technology Report is written by Peter Andrews, Consulting Faculty, IBM
Advanced Business Institute, and is published as a service of IBM Corporation. Visit
ibm.com/abi

IBM and the IBM logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of International
Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of
others.

References in this publication to IBM products and services do not imply that IBM intends to
make them available in all countries in which IBM operates.

G510-6307-00

ibm.com/bcs Executive technology report 9