Changing the Game: How Video Games are Transforming the Future of Business

Citation

Barone, M. (2009), "Changing the Game: How Video Games are Transforming the Future of Business", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 468-468. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610420910989794

Every so often, a news report or TV commentator will rant on the idea of video games as a great destroyer of the world's moral and civic virtues. Certainly, they say, nothing good can come from such a plague. It is about time that something was written about the positive functions of video games, and in all improbability, their many positive uses in the business world that have recently emerged. It is fair to think that the premise of video games as important business tools might be flimsy at best, but the deeper that readers venture into their book, the more they will find that authors Edery and Mollick might actually be onto something.

First off, an admission: I love to play a good video game when free time presents itself. Given that not everyone is an aficionado like myself, the authors dedicate the first section of their book to explaining the differences between broad gaming categories such as single‐player, multi‐player, enthusiast, and casual games. Readers who may not know the first thing about video games are encouraged to read through this portion; those who have a good grasp of video games can make do with a simple skim, if only to familiarize themselves with the terms the authors write about in later chapters. A light skim may well turn into a slower‐paced read through, however, as the writing style always stays light and entertaining.

After completing the initial section of the book, readers hit the real meat of the text. This next section deals with games and their relation to consumer advertising. The authors do an excellent job of illustrating the positives and negatives (especially the negatives) associated with advertising in and around game worlds. Not all attempts at video game related advertising are successful, and the authors hand pick plenty of relevant examples to showcase what works, what does not work, why those that do not work fail miserably, and why those that do work succeed.

As readers progress through the text, the authors turn to writing about concepts where the line between the video game and advertising endeavors becomes increasingly blurred. The content showcases the authors' prescience. The 7 March 2009 issue of The Economist contains an article highlighting the growing popularity of alternate reality games (ARGs), whose popularity the authors highlighted. Along with ARGs, a moderate‐sized chunk of the middle of the book hits upon the concepts of “advergames” and “adworlds”. As with the rest of the book, both positive and negative real world (cyber world?) examples are drawn upon for relevance. Such examples show, above all things, the importance of making sure a brand and the integrated product placement you are trying to achieve fit together. Failure to do this becomes the failure of the advertising effort.

The subsequent section switches things up a bit. The authors move away from writing with near exclusivity on advertising‐related topics to writing about the way games can improve management concepts such as employee morale, team building, learning and recruiting practices. This comes across as a particularly interesting section that happens to showcase some unusual uses for video games, which many people may not know exist. Far from being vague conjecture, however, the authors use very real examples ranging from army war games, to massive multiplayer online RPGs with relation to MBA programs, and recruiting in the virtual world, all of which showcase the usefulness of these games.

Everything is capped off with a look towards the future of video games in the business world, showing off some novel ways in which games are being used in cutting edge business applications as well as the appeal of user innovation communities. The idea is that a collection of people with similar passions have the ability to drive innovation far better than, say, computers can. And it brings a smile to my face to see a chapter title like “Why Gamers are Better than Computers, Scientists, and Governments.” Perhaps this foresight and optimism can best summed up by a passage from the book:

We are in the early days of an extraordinary time … Games present opportunities to engage people in ways that no media before has ever made possible (p. 200).

They certainly make the case for it.

The book is an extremely smooth read. Each chapter contains “box inserts” with interesting asides relating to whatever you are reading at the moment and end with a handful of bullet points capturing the main ideas that were made in the chapter. There are also plenty of statistical tidbits that give the normally fluid and sometimes admittedly empty prose a bit of backbone.

Practitioners of internet and interactive advertising and people in human resources would do well to take a look at this book. It is both intelligently written, relevant, and light enough to not be a chore to read. The authors have a keen grasp of the broad picture, and their insight should prove useful to advertising practitioners and others, functioning as “food for thought.” Hopefully it can give readers an appreciation for video games as a medium with acceptable business uses.