Gamers Poses the Secret Executives Want?
Video games brings up the pitfalls of unproductively, lack of social skills, and violence; however, motivation gurus consider the area a untapped opportunity. As someone who used to play a lot of video games and had knew a fair amount of people who did the same, I can see where this theory is coming from. “Gamers” (people who play a lot of video games) will rack up hours upon hours in the attempt to gain a virtual badge as a reward for overcoming a challenge (beating a hard enemy, achieving a certain time in a racing game, etc.)
Management gurus want to discover why people will give up so much time and opportunity for an intangible “badge.” Certain businesses have started copying games by handing out badges for performing a task a certain amount of times or some other sort of achievement for unskilled, boring work. Gamers do not dedicate much of their lives for badges though, it’s not the extrinsic motivators that drive them towards goals, it is the intrinsic pleasure derived by accomplishing a goal that one has worked so hard to achieve. Businesses shouldn’t therefore use “gamification” to motivate low-level, manual workers, it should be used to motivate workers whose posistions require higher mental process.