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« New EEOC Commissioner sworn in | Main | January 2006 issue of TIP »
HR practices in video games? Yep.
On January 5, 2006 by Jamie Madigan
A different kind of post today. When not doing I/O type stuff, I've been playing a computer game called "World of Warcraft." For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's an online, fantasy-themed game where you create a character and play with (or against) thousands of other, real people from all over the world. This human element adds all kinds of new twists to things, one of which is the organization of, well, organizations in the virtual world.
These assemblies of players, called "guilds," come together for a variety of reasons. Many of them are just social groups comprised of people who know each other outside of the game or who have become friends through it. Others, as I've recently found out, are way more like businesses. They have officers, jobs/roles, rules, policies, budgets, mission statements, performance appraisals, and selection processes for new members. Some of them even have formal work (or in this case, play) hours where you're expected to show up on time and put your virtual nose to the virtual grindstone!
My friend, who is in one of these guilds, was telling me about them today and all this made me think how much their operations sometimes resemble real organizations. When my friend applied for membership in the guild, they took his application and reviewed his qualifications and work/play history. They then brought him along for an employment test of sorts --a foray into a particularly dangerous part of the game world that demands skillful performance and cooperation with other team members in order to succeed. During this test, the guild's officers evaluated my friend's performance with a number of tools that gave hard data on his and others' performance.
These tools assessed things like how much damage team members did to enemies, how much they endangered their teammates, and how well they used their special talents. It was, in effect, the data-driven decision making of Total Quality Management adapted for use in a video game. Certain players were expected to fulfill certain roles or jobs (attacking, healing, enhancing, controlling the actions of enemies, etc.), and these statistics made it easy to see who was doing his job and who wasn't. If someone consistently failed, there were escalating levels of reprimand. Depending on the nature of the infraction, there could be warnings, performance improvement plans, training, demotions, or even expulsion from the group. These guilds were handling things more efficiently than many real life businesses I've seen!
There are differences, I know, so I'll try not to overstate things. Consequences in real life are more dear, though you may have difficulty convincing the more fanatical players of that. And there are completely different mores in games and in business. You wouldn't, for example, tolerate an office full of people screaming vulgarities when your Hunter adds two elite MOBs while trying to kite an instance boss. ...So to speak.
Anyway, I don't have much of a point beyond the observation that organizations and various Human (or Elf or Orc) Resources functions almost seem endemic to human nature when the circumstances are right. Similar problems in real-life and in games lead to similar solutions, even if one results in increased stock price while another results in a dead dragon.
Existing comments:
Posted by BryanB at January 6, 2006 3:20 PM:
Used to be a WOW player myself. I see these games as sort of a window into a world where personality rules, almost to the exclusion of technical skills and cognitive ability (although certainly fast fingers and fast thinking help). This may offer a glimpse into the future of work where automation, both in terms of physical abilities and AI, will result in an increased emphasis on what humans can offer that machines/systems cannot. It would be interesting to place a real work team into WOW and watch the dynamics...
Posted by Jamie at January 6, 2006 3:28 PM:
I kind of disagree with you about technical skills and cognitive ability being unimportant to these games, at least in certain parts of them. The most dedicated and "best" players amass an incredible amount of data and learn extremely complex systems that would put most business analysts to shame.
There's a pasttime called "TheoryCraft" (a wordplay on the game's name) where people endlessly speculate on optimal combinations of character abilities and equipment for various situations. It involves hard math, algebra, logical reasoning, and memorization to peel back and leverage the game's underlying (and very complex) mechanics. Also, take a look at the "raid guides" on the 'net that explain the delicate and precise choreography required to beat the game's most challenging areas. Sure, other parts of the game could be done by a half-drunk chimp, but I'm totally convinced the more complex and advanced parts really do take some raw mental horsepower.
Posted by Omer at March 6, 2006 2:44 AM:
Actually I disagree with Jamie too.
though I do not play WoW, I play an online FPs (First Person Shooter) called Wolfenstein :Enemy Territory (get it online, its a free download).
The game requires a fantastic amount of co-operation to acheive objectives. The players need the intelligence to recognize this, and moreover fluidly change roles as the variables change in-game. Id say cognitive ability is MORE important but interacts with personality and co-operative factors seamlessly. In other words, though the whole game could feasibly be played by a drunk chimp, to play it EFFICIENTLY and well requires a lot of cognitive horsepower
Posted by Bryan at March 7, 2006 11:17 AM:
Actually I was the one who was questioning the value of cognitive ability in contributing toward game performance, although what I was trying to say (not very successfully) is just that it's a remarkable example of an environment where cognitive ability is certainly important, but other KSAOs are as well, including leadership, communication skills, and extroversion.
Posted by Bryan at March 22, 2006 8:20 AM:
The latest issue of Wired (14.04) has several articles dealing with the influence of gaming on various aspects of life. One (page 120, should be available 3/23 at www.wired.com/wired) discusses how experience in gaming (e.g., guild leader in WOW) could help someone land a job.
One quote from this article stuck with me. In describing how he sees his new job, the new senior director of engineering operations at Yahoo! says, "I used to worry about not having what I needed to get a job done. Now I think of it like a quest; by being willing to improvise, I can usually find the people and resources I need to accomplish the task."
Posted by Jamie at March 22, 2006 8:32 AM:
Cool, thanks for the heads up, Bryan. I think I'll go out and pick up that issue today. It's kind of funny, because I manage my day-to-day priorities and tasks with a spreadsheet. Each row is an actionable (is that a word?) task that's assigned to categories/projects.
The name of this spreadsheet? "Quest Log." :)
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