How Video Game Developers Have a Better Understanding of Human Behavior Than Corporate Managers

How do we get employees to do the things they need to be doing to bring in sales? How do we provide more specific direction without falling into patterns of micromanagement? These are the questions this article is looking to answer by showing the proof of concept game developers (devs) have given us free of charge.

Developers have learned to effectively incentivize players in a way that aligns the players’ and developers’ goals. We can apply this model to our own corporate environment in order to better motivate workers to accomplish our company’s goal.

As you wrap your mind around the concepts introduced in this article, consider your own role from the point of view of the gaming industry—managers as devs and employees as video game players. Doing so will give you a fresh perspective on your position in the corporate world.

Developers’ Goals Are Typically Not the Same as the Player’s Goals

Sit back for a second and roll with me on this one. What is the devs’ primary goal? 

They want people to play their game, and hopefully spend money on it. The more users play, the more invested they become and the more likely they are to spend. Even better, they will invite their friends along to play. This results in—you got it—more sales!

What if devs set quests for players, but offered no incentive in return? Imagine being told to cut down trees, but being offered no experience points to do so. Would you do it? Of course not. In addition, consider what would happen if players were simply told to play the game without specific quests to be completed for XP. They would not only would they be less engaged, but also be far less likely to spend time and money in the game.

So I ask you, why do we do this in the corporate world? Far too often, I hear managers telling their employees to “go get X amount in sales,” but they provide no specific direction on how to do so. Once we set the company’s goal, we think the job is done. That is rarely the case.

Two things to note here: 1) Specificity is important. 2) The company’s goals are NOT always the same as the employee’s goals. These need to be aligned. Let’s hold on to these thoughts.

The Devs’ Twist

Creators have devised an effective method of achieving their goal—a “twist” that I believe could bring a lot of benefits ($$$$$) to the corporate world. 

I’ll use the game Fortnite as an example to test this theory. If you don’t know what Fortnite is, it’s probably because you’re over 30 and reading an article on LinkedIn. That’s ok. I’m sure you have some younger folks in your life that can explain it to you. 

Back to the devs’ “twist.” Devs have put a great amount of work into aligning their goals with the player’s goals. The first thing they do is try to understand what it is that incentivizes players to play. They use the term “Experience Points” (XP) to measure a players’ progress. X amount of XP equals a level up. Once you reach higher levels of XP you get access to exclusive items, and your character is further enhanced with greater accessories. Every three months there’s a new season, with new levels and new items, resulting in a never-ending cycle.

In the case of Fortnite, something as simple as a skin or a specific dance for their character gets players to dedicate hours and hours to playing, and completing these “daily goals” that nobody pays them to do. On the contrary, they spend money on the game for even more exclusive items. In other words, through achieving their own goals within the game, players are fulfilling the goals of the devs. Somehow, devs have found a way to easily accomplish what managers have always strived to do.

We should be asking ourselves, how do we identify our employees’ personal goals and align them with those of our company?

What’s In It for the Player?

First, we need to find what incentivizes people—perhaps money, a better position or title, internal recognition or even a lunch with the CEO. The possibilities are endless, but you should do your own research with your teams to identify what gets your team members excited. Once you come to a conclusion about what those incentives are, put an XP threshold on them. This part is crucial. The goals need to be measurable and attainable. If you tell your employees something vague, like “If you continue to do a good job, better and greater opportunities will come to you internally,” there is no way to quantify that, and so there’s no motivation to achieve anything. It might work with some, but it will get old quickly. If your team knows that if they reach a certain number of XP, they will get X result, they will be incentivized to do their daily tasks, which are aligned with the company’s end goal of making a profit.

The Daily Tasks

Okay, so at this point we have identified the company’s goal, the employees’ personal goals and the XP it will take for them to achieve these goals. Now we need to define the specific daily tasks. What do we want employees to do daily so that we can reach our company goal? Remember when I said specificity was important? BE SPECIFIC! 

Here are some examples: Calling five customers and detailing the call on our CRM gets you 1000 XP today; getting a new account signed up this week gets you 25,000 XP; submitting an order today gets you 50,000 XP; doing a presentation for a prospect this week results in 10,000 XP; submitting an order over 100K this quarter gets you 100,000 XP. You can also set Quarter cumulative goals, such as, “By achieving X amount of revenue by the end of Q3, you obtain 500,000 XP.” Get creative! 

What’s important to remember is that tracking the XP is vital to the success of the system. Remember, this is how managers and the employees keep track of employees’ progress toward their personal goals, and without those attainable goals, there’s no incentive to achieve.

I know at first, this idea might sound ludicrous, but if it can work for gaming, maybe we can apply it in the corporate world. Why not give it a shot?

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