State an obvious truth to any evil corporation and watch them turn red with rightful indignation:
- No, fast food can be part of a healthy diet.
- Come on, smoking is good for you. Right, Doc?
- Bullshit, 30 spoonfulls of sugar in a liter of beverage is in no way related to obesity
The list is long but thankfully, the point is clear with only three. Of course, the evilest will not disagree – they’ll sue you for defamation. One thing they all agree with?
Who knows, evil might be right this time. Games can be a time waster and productivity killer (even though research proves otherwise). Even so, they are just like the myriad of other things you can do during your working hours that are institutionalized, like regular breaks for a smoke or a coke (oh, another irony).
The reason games are bad is simple: they are a potential embarrassment to your boss. Your boss comes to you asking about those TPS reports. You tell him you are in a PUG, just before a boss fight. The tank can’t tank, the healer can’t heal, the mage sucks… in short, you ask him to come back another time.
Your boss’ imagination is running wild now. If the rabble starts fighting bosses at work, what happens next?
Let’s take an analogy from a world that is equally unfamiliar to all of us. (Trust me, it is the best kind of analogy).
OK, imagine you are a professional athlete. You and the team have given 110% during that evening’s training session. For 45 minutes straight, you have sweated over minute details that make a lot of difference during an actual game.
Instead of packing, you go to your coach:
“Coach, is it OK if we can have the lights on for another hour. We’d like to play a game … you know, just for fun.”
I imagine your coach will be ecstatic, even if you screw up the genre, i.e. he’s training you football, you decide to play a game of soccer.
Back to reality now: how do we start playing more? Enroll in a junior league?
The answer comes in two parts:
- You focus on performance, not just doing time in 8 hour chunkcs
- Your boss’ job shifts to keeping you in the zone, not roleplaying a respect-obsessed, prison guard
About the author: Krasimir Koichev is a Venture Partner at Delgen and Game Producer at Riftforge, an online RPG, played in a browser… at work. Go and sign up for the beta, chances are your boss has been playing for a long time now.