The Gamification of Work

The Use of Games in the Workplace

Emmanuelle Savignac

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781786301239
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119384557
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Despite the traditional opposition between play and work, games and their structure are increasingly used in workplaces. This phenomenon of using game elements or mechanisms in other contexts than games is named "gamification". In workplaces, the gamification is supposed to abolish the separation between work and leisure or between constraint and pleasure. This book reviews a century of game theories in the social sciences and analyzes the uses of games in workplaces. We critically question the explicit functions (learning, experimentation…) which are supposed to be conveyed by games. Finally, we show that game, understood as a structure, could have efficient social functions in the workplace.

1
Prelude: Fun, Play, Game, Ludus… A Survey of Game Theories

Several researchers have underlined two salient aspects from which we can embark upon research into games. First, they indicate the extreme complexity of elaborating a theory of games. A first generator of complexity in game theorization consists of the great difficulty of thinking of it as a global object: how to think the similarity between playing with a rubber band between one’s fingers without letting it fall (see [CHA 07]), playing a game of chess or playing a role-playing game, for example?

In the second place – and the second salient aspect of game research – we have the poverty and very relative interest brought to the field in French research communities, outside the interest of children’s games by educational and psychological sciences. In fact, well-behind Anglo-Saxon game studies, research on games only really developed in France during the last decade. It is strongly marked by the development of video games (videoludic practices) and new technologies, which tends to give second place to the study of non-digital games. Yet, these were investigated previously by some avant-garde (though isolated) figures in game research such as Roger Caillois in the 1950s and Gilles Brougère today. In the United States, though there exists a field entirely devoted to “game studies”, these researches concern themselves, as their name indicates, primarily with games (their rules, principles and structures) and not with play (the ludic attitude). We also find an interest in games among researchers into folklore, and this diversity and partiality in game research contribute to the difficulty of envisaging it as a global object.

Historically, as starting points for reflection on games, we could cite, on the one hand, research into animal games and, on the other hand those – as we stressed, a handful – on specifically human games (without restriction to the domain of childhood alone).

1.1. Animal play, human play

Karl Groos (1861–1946), a German psychologist, wrote “The Play of Animals” [GRO 96], then later “The theory of play” in “The Play of Man” [GRO 08], where he argued – on the basis of his observations of animal play – that play functions as preparation for later life. His research would later be seen as relating to a functionalist theory: play has a function, it serves a (biological) end, a heterotelic principle that might be controversial in theories on human play. As another point of discussion, many criticisms would be made of research into animal play, dealing with the acceptance of the word “play”: what a human calls “play”, is it play for the animal? Is there not an anthropomorphic bias in thinking about animal behaviors in the image of human behaviors?

These questions would further continue in anthropology, where some researchers such as Hamayon [HAM 12] underlined the great variability of what might be understood as relating to “play” in the populations studied, or again, in a more general questioning, such as Geertz [GRE 80], who called for critical examination of analogies with play and game.

Beyond these controversies relating to the ontology of “play”, these researches however bring to light a common element in animal play and in the activity of human play (ludic as well as artistic, moreover): behaving “as if”, pretending, the “not for real”; as in the example of puppies play-fighting, fighting “not for real”. Research in ethology [FAG 81, IMM 80] show that not all animals play. Practices called “play” have been identified mainly in mammals. Birds, for example, do not play (with the exception of corvids: ravens, magpies, jackdaws, etc.) and animals, according to which species they belong to, do not play the same games.

Three types of games have been categorized among animals. Ethologists speak of locomotor games and rotation games, play with objects and social play. Pierre Garrigues, a researcher in anthropological ethology, thus describes locomotor and rotation games among animals:

“Most locomotor games are distributed in a fairly uniform manner among the various animal species: running, running in a circle, jumping, bouncing, kicking, rolling, sliding. Others are more common, or alternatively, more original. Thus, the behavior “jumping in the air” has the widest distribution. It is found among non-human primates, cetaceans, rodents, carnivores and artiodactyls (including the hippopotamus). To this repertoire, some animals add their own specialties: chasing their own tails, as in domestic dogs or minks, or even hanging upside down, as in gibbons, red pandas or ravens. Some locomotor and rotation games involving the whole body or parts of the body, like those of young chimpanzees, have become popular in descriptions made by primatologists, whether young chimpanzees repetitively climbing up and sliding down their mother’s body, their acrobatics between tree branches, or improvising pirouettes while walking” [GAR 01, p. 12].

As for play with objects, one critical doubt arises (in the absence of the ability to question the animal about what it is doing) between observation/exploration by the animal of the object, use of the object as a tool, and playing with the object. As Garrigues [GAR 01] says, there is no firm line between the three activities. “In fact, at what moment does playing with an object become the discovery of a tool?” [GAR 01, p.13], he asks. Playing with objects covers different activities such as picking up, carrying, shaking, biting or pinching, pulling to pieces, throwing up and catching, throwing away as well as pushing [DES 06].

In 1976, Egan described the behavior of a cat (quoted by DES 06, p. 52]: “typically, an object begins by being sniffed at or batted with a paw. The nature of the object determines whether it will be bitten or not; furry toys are those most commonly bitten. If it is bitten, the object may be kept in the mouth, shaken and tossed (behavior that helps stun live prey), or carried (to a corner where prey could be eaten in peace, for example). For the other type of object, an initial small blow with a paw might make the object roll, in which case it will lead to squatting and pouncing (the movement being the triggering stimulus for these two behaviors) which, as for prey, has the effect of immobilizing the object”. Games with marbles, jump-rope and playing with a ball (outside of the game structure present, for example, in a soccer game) could be seen as play with objects in the human setting. This latter here has a clearly ludic function. This goes even more for objects with which one prepares to play: balancing a pen on one’s finger, etc.

As for the last category of play, the social, it is very distinct among animals from human play and we seem to meet here again the difference between game and play. Animal play, when social, seems to refer only to the latter category, as opposed to human games, which socially structure play: tennis, soccer, or monopoly, for example. By social play, we mean in ethology – still according to a functionalist reading – the fact that play allows members of a group to get to know each other and to be able to agree. In addition, play explores social positions (who is dominant). Play, by promoting interactions, reinforces links between the members of the group.

Social play among animals involves fighting, agility (primates sliding down their mother’s body, for example), pursuit or possession, serving either biological or social purposes. Ethologists note that social play among animals is mainly a game of simulation: simulating aggression, defense or mating. Klaus Peter Köpping thus says of play that it is a “pivot” category, “linking the social and the natural” [HAM 12, p. 298].

If in these theories play has a function in the development of the young animal, this is greatly emphasized for children’s games [PET 84, MIL 79, WIN 80].

“Through the superabundant physical activity deployed, games doubtless participate in the physical development of the animal, but this is not the only benefit. In its interactions with the environment the young animal develops its social and cognitive skills. It experiments, in conditions which are relatively safe, in varied situations, in the frame of which it learns to find solutions to new problems: find the appropriate distance in interaction with its peers, or discover the use of a tool. Through its explorations, the young animal thus develops behavioral regularities with regard to the physical and social environment. From this point of view, the central function of play is to allow in the young individual the “unlocking” of different activities, belonging to its species’ repertoire or developing from gradually acquired patterns of action” [PET 84].

The function of development is one of the recurring arguments for the use of games in training. However, limiting “play” to a function of development does not work as well for the case of “games”: does a game of monopoly or cards help us develop¹?

To continue on the subject of animal play, ethologists have shown what we can call “codes of communication” that are linked to it. When animals fight “in play”, they show the signs of “not for real”, characteristic of play – and which approach, for many theoreticians, the game of fiction. This indication of “not for real” becomes necessary so that a playful bout does not turn into a real fight (this being true for animals as well as humans). This is what Bateson, as we will return to at greater length, calls the metacommunication pertaining to play. Bateson tells us that when we play, animals as well as humans, we send a message indicating: “this is play”. This message is non-verbal for animals and, for humans, can be verbal (“let the games begin”, “game on!”) or non-verbal or even arise from the context or the accessories of the game (taking out a monopoly board puts the act of buying real estate into a different context, meeting a troll avatar means a priori that someone is not attacking you for real, etc.). Not knowing or being able to understand this metacommunication, that is, the figurative dimension particular to play, is a symptom of schizophrenia according to Bateson.

So it is that for animals, we remark that if dangerous tactics are used in a fight between animals, “in a game in contrast, [these tactics] and bites are absent, as well as the stereotypical signals of threat and submission. (…) the “physiognomy of the game” is always present, as an indicator superimposed on acts modeled on those of actual combat, but without the same amount of violence” [GAR 01, p. 15]. Garrigues adds that the “physiognomy of the game” […] “is used by individuals to indicate their availability to play and prevent their partners from any misunderstanding during playful combat” [GAR 01, p. 16].

It is thus this physiognomy of the game that signals play among animals. In this sense, by using metacommunication, animals show that they are playing. Play may sometimes be solicited by an animal using a very particular message:

“The best known is found among canids, under the form of a “play bow”, displayed by the dog to invite a peer or a human to begin or continue a session of play. Crouched on the ground, the back bent in the arc of a circle and the thorax pointing towards the partner, the dog keeps its front legs flat in front of it; he is ready to jump one way or the other. This posture is only seen in the context of play” [GAR 01, p. 16].

Ethologists thus show that, in play, there is not only intentional communication among some animals but also use of the figurative dimension.

1.2. Theories of human play

The French word jeu, meaning both play and game, comes etymologically from the Latin “jocus” – “joke, or play on words”. Consulting historical dictionaries of the French language, it is explained that jocus was frequently associated with ludus (play in action) and eventually absorbed its meaning.

“Jeu”, since its first appearances in 1080, has indicated, again according to the dictionary, “free amusement” and “ludic activity in as much as it is organized by a system of rules defining success and failure, winning and losing” (1160). Its dimension of regulation led to the word applying to sporting competitions (1160) and then to the theater (1200). A century after its appearance, “jeu” also applied to battle [HAM 12].

1.2.1. Precursors

One of the earliest theorists in the field of games study is Johan Huizinga (1872–1945). In his 1938 work, Homo Ludens [LED 38], he examined the “social function” of play, to which he allocated a role for humanity equal to that of Homo faber (the capacity of humans for creation and work) and Linnaeus’ Homo sapiens (knowledge, intellectual power). Huizinga’s thesis is very all encompassing (in the history of humanity, everything started as play), something which would be critiqued by those who followed up his reflections on play. He says that play was the origin of culture: that play was not born from culture but that from play, he argued, culture came.

Thus, Huizinga was led to consider “all human activity as nothing but pure play” [HUI 38: 11], in addition to which “human civilization begins and develops within play, as play” [HAM 12]. Differing from the tradition of condemnation of play by religion in Europe, his theory removes it from the solely moral register. Historically, and particularly as a simulacrum or representation (“acting as if”), play is condemned by religion – in particular, by Christians – as Roberte Hamayon reports, citing Tertullian (theologian of the second century after Christ): “Can theatrical masks please God? If he forbids the likeness of any living thing, all the more shall he forbid that anyone disfigure his image. No, no, the author of truth loves not that which is false”. Tertullian again: “games trick human beings and thus betray the will of their creator”. Play is assimilated to the inauthentic, to trickery, to artificiality – which is still often the case: fooling, feinting, simulating, etc. An often-quoted formula of Freud argues that “the opposite of play is not seriousnes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Introduction: Journey to the Heart of the Gamification of Work
• 1 Prelude: Fun, Play, Game, Ludus… A Survey of Game Theories
• 2 Games in Business
• 3 Performativity of the Game: Games and the Structuring of Experience
• Conclusion: From the Territory to the Map
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement