The Millennial generation, which will comprise the majority of the workforce in just a few years, grew up on GameBoys, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online. IBM has already studied whether participation in massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) develops leadership skills. They found that having to recruit a guild, fulfill a series of tasks, motivate, and retain a guild led to the development of leadership skills. MMORPGs can be nonviolent, virtual-world–building games as well, with experiments in teaching math and science already under way.
FarmVille is a real-time farm simulation game developed by Zynga, available as an application on Facebook. In April 2010, 1 percent of the world was playing this virtual game. Zynga promises new elements of collaboration and social partnership with the game, which is largely individual in nature. If 82.4 million people are learning how to create a farm, imagine what can happen if learning departments could apply this process to teaching employees in a company.
Companies and universities have been using simulations with management teams for years, allowing senior executives to practice running the company. As markets become increasingly complex and specialized, it is difficult for an executive to get a chance to see the whole picture. A management simulation provides the ability for what Michael Schrage has called “serious play”—an opportunity to innovate, take risks, and practice in a safe environment.
But games and simulations aren’t just for management. New-hire games can be used even in advance of hiring to allow players to become familiar with a company’s products and services. Collaboration is increasingly important at most companies, and games could take a key role in teaching collaboration skills