View your job as a Game Session in order to Succeed

Hearing people complain that their job is boring sets my teeth on end. Hearing people in the game industry complain that their job is boring makes me absolutely furious. We are the most privileged people in the world. We make games for a living. If we can’t make our daily work fun, what right do we have to push our games onto customers? What does it say about us, if we can’t create fun in the work place?

So, instead of seeing your office as a place where you go to compete with your co-workers, or where you go to hang out for 7 hours a day before you sneak off home early, try seeing your office as a game. The Corporate Game. The game you and your co-workers (actually, your Gamer Buddies) build — together. This is game development, this is game play. So start acting as if you played the game to enjoy it.

Helping out is what Gamer Buddies do

When you play a game with some friends, the goal isn’t always personal gain or leaving early. The goal is, instead, to have fun. To have fun with a game, you all help each other. You keep an eye out if your gaming buddies need something. Maybe you even get up to get coffee or sodas for everyone?

At the office, we should do the same thing. Help a troubled co-worker out, even if she’s very focused on her task, get her a hot beverage or a soda.No interruptions or quid-pro-quo arrangements are needed. Just do it.

The goal is for all to have more fun and be more productive. Sometimes this means sacrificing a tiny sliver of personal comfort, to help a friend out (and, yes, all your co-workers are considered friends. The Enemy is always on the outside of the office walls, your competitors who want to see you all fail). Other times this means that you get that cup of coffee, or that assistance you desperately needed.

We help each other. It is what Gamer Buddies do. Especially at work.