Life's A Game

Yesterday, I sat through a colleague's presentation on gaming. He was giving the lowdown on Jesse Schell's talk on how gaming is busting through to reality. The talk took place at the recent DICE 2010.  You can view the video here. Schell made a prediction; a future where everything will be related to gaming.

Today, I came across an Advertising Age article which also talks about "game-ification of life". That article can be found here.

I don't know whether to be alarmed or excited about the future Jesse Schell predicted.

We're gonna see a lot more brands getting into games. We've seen before how branding got into computer games. And very soon, we'll be seeing a different kind of Farmville with advertisers in them.

My worry here is that some brands are gonna jump onto this bandwagon without thinking through whether they should. Gaming is expensive to develop. Not a decision to be made on a whim. Or just because everyone else is doing it.

I think the best bet could still be getting into a game as an advertiser. A popular game, I must qualify. And I think the new Farmville will be a new kind of advergame.

But it has to be the right game. From the article I mentioned above, Green Giant frozen vegetables is a perfect fit with Farmville. Chanel No. 5 in Farmville is not.

Back to Jesse Schell, in a way, the future is here already. I mean, we have loyalty cards. From the supermarket cards, frequent flyer miles to credit card points, we're already collecting points. It's just the whole thing is not marketed or has the appeal of a game.

And how about work? Win new accounts, score more billings....sounds like a game to me.

Even spiritual matters, it is in a way, a game. We're constantly extolled to do good. Collect enough brownie points and you go to heaven. Collect sins and it's hell for you.

The sad thing is that some 'games' may not be sexy enough to play. And those 'games' may be the ones that truly matter.