The Game of Work
Some researchers have noticed that in online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft, players are doing what looks like work. In Star Wars Galaxies, for instance, players can be pharmaceutical manufacturers, gathering raw materials and coordinating production. Seriosity, a company co-founded by Stanford professor Byron Reeves, is looking at ways to embed real work inside games, or at least to use the incentive structures inside games to make work more appealing. Seriosity and IBM also are studying how companies can identify future leaders by how they lead teams inside such online games.