Games At Work dot Biz

Episode 49 – Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding

MichaelMartine — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:58:08 +0000

Episode 49, Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding was recorded Friday the 14th of June 2013.

While Michael R is recovering or enjoying (or perhaps even both!) from his 6-shot espresso drinks, Michael M and Phaedra discuss adaptable games, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and much more in this episode of the podcast. Concepts such as gaming as a service and simulations as a service are explored, as Phaedra and Michael consider how micropayments, donations and volunteerism can speed the delivery of key functionality in games for the education and defense spaces while leveraging marketplaces such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Waze and Dragon Box surface as some key examples, alongside some tried and true games such as Fold.it, Civilization, Ingress and oh, so much more.

Selected show links
From fantasy to reality: The story of Vugar Huseynzade — http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/bootroom/id/330?cc=5901
Football Manager — http://www.footballmanager.com
The Screen Savers — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240295/combined
Soda, Pop or Coke — http://web.ncsu.edu/abstract/science/you-say-tomato-i-say-soda-or-is-it-pop/
Civilization — http://civilization6.com
Railroad Tycoon — http://www.2kgames.com/railroads/railroads.html
Eterna — http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/
Fold.it — http://fold.it/portal/
Ingress — http://www.ingress.com
Waze — http://www.waze.com
Noah Falstein — http://www.linkedin.com/in/gamedesignexpert
Internet Response League — http://internet-response-league.com/
Crowdsourced searching for Jim Gray — http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/ff_jimgray?currentPage=1
Kickstarter — http://www.kickstarter.com
Indiegogo — http://www.indiegogo.com/
Dragon Box Algebra game — http://dragonboxapp.com
Microprose — http://microprose.com
Bean Traders — http://www.beantraderscoffee.com

We are just delighted to have had you dialed our way. You can find us on G+, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and more. Please comment, friend, tweet and favorite us with topics you would like to hear more about!

Episode 48 – Live at the Bean

MichaelRowe — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 13:20:24 +0000

A miracle occurs and our three co-hosts (Phaedra, Michael M. and Michael R.) all end up at the same location, at the same time, on the same day to record a Live show at our favorite coffee shop, BeanTraders. We begin by looking at how storytelling has changed over the years, and wonder if games like Haunting Melissa are the future, or just an expensive look into the past. We look into how incentives can back fire and what kind of cool games you could play for improved boarding of airplanes, and end the show looking at the latest startup festival in Durham, NC. So sit back, brew yourself a nice cup of BeanTraders Coffee (yes they do ship their beans!) and enjoy Games At Work dot Biz!!

Photographic Evidence:

Live from the Bean!

The Michael’s

Links:
Haunting Melissa
JRR Tolkien – Biography
Thumb Wrestling
Lucha Libre
Rock’em Sock’em Robots
Paradoxo
Palinka
Cherry Coke
World of Coca-Cola
Bean Traders

Episode 47 – Reward Substitution

MichaelRowe — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:00:12 +0000

At full strength the team discusses how reward substitution can be used for improved results. We also go on a bit of a rant about reward substitution in negotiations, and how it may be killing all the creativity in the Serious Games community. But before we start are Rant, Michael shares his experience watching the live stream of graduation from the School of Science and Math. Why he shares, you may ask, because it’s all about Star Wars, Jedi’s and reward Substitution. In honor of that we present you with two great Star Wars related pictures:

(for you Darth Vadar Mail Box fans!)

And –
(for fencing fans).
Michael R. then mis-remembers how you make a light saber sound- what he actually remembered was the sound of the blaster.

Michael M. gets us back on track with how Reward Substitution was used in getting people to inject themselves with interferon in early liver disease research. After this we decided that we need to get a bit more healthy by eating some bugs. Which left a bad taste in our mouth, and we ended up going on a bit of rant. And both Michael R. and Phaedra try to get Michael M. to jump on the rant with us! So we all get out our buggy whips and start beating on the car manufactures! What do you think of some of the ridiculous constraints that people are putting on serious games development? Comment below!

Show Links:
Dan Ariely
Screen Shot
LiveStream from Graduation
Cicada based Sushi
The Lost Colony and Cannibalism
Eating Bugs on Fear Factor
Call back to I game alone
Google IO
Unity 3D
Cocos2D/A>
Fold It
Flip Teaching
Diablo III
Microsoft One Announcement
Star Craft 2 – Heart of the Swarm
Zombie Level – Black Ops
Wasted Time App
Dots
Star Command
Dead Ahead

Episode 46 – Cards Against Humanity

MichaelRowe — Sun, 26 May 2013 19:33:00 +0000

The Michael’s decide to take a break from Electronic games and end up talking about some cool, fun, and mind expanding card games; while our co-host, Phadera, is unfortunately unable to join us. We check out both a highly irreverent game (Cards Against Humanity) and a much more serious game of One Hat At A Time. We quickly go back and forth between old school (physical cards) to new school (with applications like “unstuck”).

So next time you have a problem take a look at a deck of cards and perhaps you will get a few new ideas. If not, how about a drink with our favorite new Raspberry Pi kickstarter – Bartnendo!

Show Links:
Cards Against Humanity
UnStuck and Site
One Hat At A Time
Creative Whack Pack
Bartendo – Kickstarter
The Robot that wants you to drink
Bender
Michael’s new Bag

Episode 45 – Googlely Fun

MichaelRowe — Sun, 19 May 2013 10:00:13 +0000

Michael, Michael, and Phaedra get back together for an exciting show all about the latest games related to Google Glass, and while we are at it we talk about the incredible Google IO Keynote and Larry Page’s triumphant return to the stage. Google comes out swinging at this year’s Google IO conference, talking about openness, games, education, and it’s all available on Google Island. If you’ve not seen it, watch it here:

After talking about 3D printing the other week, we discover even more craziness with a high capacity assault weapons now available from your nearest 3D Printer, and While we talk about all this Googlely fun, we also play a bit of GeoGuessing.

Show Links

Google Glass Games
Google Island
Google in the classroom
Cheap 3D Printer Kickstarter

Tweet

Episode 44 – Machine Games

MichaelRowe — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:00:23 +0000

Michael R talks about listening to last week’s show while on a plane, and he liked the “Mother fudging snakes, on the Mother fudging plane.” And all the cool things he’s been up to lately, including how machines can be social when they all start talking to each other. While you may have had M2M communications for 40 years now, we are living in interesting times as all the machines are starting to get more social and integrations are driving cool new solutions which will start changing human behavior. Imagine the game that many people play with Usage Based Insurance and trying to drive down their car insurance rates. Michael M, however will only entertain the idea of the social machines but is it really here?

We then look at Mind Meld, a cool new social way of pulling things together by listening to your chat and conversations to pull together a mind barf of all the related thoughts. This get’s us to talking about the drinking game – Everything is related. Which takes us to drinking games at work! Check out the keggorator story!

Finally, we get to talk about last week’s episode on snake reciprocity! We’d love to get your ideas about how reciprocity and incentives could be used to drive more collaboration across a development team. Drop us a tweet or a note.

Show Links:
Connexion 2013
Augmented Reality car repair
Peter Coffee
WarpStock 1999
Facebook making an offer for Waze
Mind Meld App
Beer drives civilization

Episode 43 – Snakes on a Game

MichaelMartine — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:37:53 +0000

Michael M and Phaedra discuss San Francisco Gamification Summit, the ModSim conference in Virginia and touch on gamification, loyalty, collaboration, wearable computing, ethics and much more.

Rajat Paharia’s keynote from the Gamification Summit sparks some interesting thoughts on Loyalty 3.0 — not just to products and services, but also to missions and organizations. Harley Davidson is often cited as an example of customer loyalty and the ecosystem/community that surrounds a product, service, or in the case of HD, the lifestyle. It will be interesting to see how games build loyalty.

Michael and Phadera riff on the idea for how gamification and business analytics could help by envisioning how a mobile device salesforce could be encouraged to take action based on what is selling when certain team members are on the floor and how to handle stock out situations in one location with available supply in another, driving a collaborative win for the company using big data and real time feedback.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out is used as the jump off point for this salesforce riff, given the April-May game within a game where players collect snakes to win virtual prizes and eggs, which have no value to the player collecting them, but have high value to friends of the player, who may ‘hatch’ those eggs to collect the snakes within them. By giving away eggs, a player may receive eggs from her friends to continue the gameplay. Consider how a serious game designer leverage this principle for business use, where an asset for one player has no value to that individual, but to another player, that asset does have value.

Simpsons Tapped Out: Lots of Eggs

Google’s “a Google a day” game is an intriguing game to make you a more adept searcher, or perhaps Google a more responsive search engine, or maybe something much, much more…

Looking forward to next week’s show where we will be back at full co-host power!

Selected show links

San Francisco Gamification Summit — http://gsummit.com/sf13/speakers/

Will Wright — http://www.stupidfunclub.com

Nolan Bushnell — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell

Rajat Paharia — http://www.bunchball.com/about/management

Rajat Paharia’s new book: Loyalty 3.0: How Big Data and Gamification are Revolutionizing Customer and Employee Engagement – http://www.amazon.com/Loyalty-3-0-Revolutionize-Engagement-Gamification/dp/0071813373

ModSim World 2013 — http://www.modsimworldconference.com

A Google A Day — http://agoogleaday.com/#game=started

Episode 42 – Physiotherapy Games

MichaelRowe — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:24:33 +0000

The Michael’s have special guests Marilyne Lopes and Alexis Biller on this week. Marilyne is a French Physiotherapist working in the United Arab Emirates, using games and technology to help children improve balance, recovery from injuries, and cerebral palsy. Alexis, a long time listener to the show and husband of Marilyne, also brings a history of technology to the show and provides us with a sanity check on many of the medical terms. Between the two of them, we also get a great lesson in Latin!

We discuss various technologies and how they are used in therapy and speculate on what the future may hold as more and more technology goes from being high end, custom developed solutions, to more off the shelf but significantly more engaging.

Show Links:
KUUR Rehabilitation – twitter
Wii Balance Board
Google Glass
Leap Motion
Flexible Sensors
Moves App
Garmin Swim
Self Quantification
Cool Tech from London 2012 Olympic Games
Blood Oxygen Levels
Jawbone Up
Kinesio Taping
Jane McGonigal

Audio Only Games – Thank you WideawakeWesley
The Pit
Papa Sangre
Blind Side

Episode 41 – The Paymeium Currency

MichaelRowe — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:48:59 +0000

The Michael’s are on together and get to talk about some incredible architecture, the long tail, and generational change before we jump in deep on some cool and fun games to help change the way you do things. Both Habit RPG and Chore Wars are great ways of leveraging your love of Dungeons & Dragons to help you game your way to new behaviors. We even talk a bit about how we can leverage this to improve our attendance for the show! We also include a great listener link on gamefication. We wrap it up with a bit of Nimble Quest: Go check out a video we’ve posted here and .

We are a including a ton of link references this week for your benefit.

Show Links
Sagrada Fam The Pillars of the Earth – by Ken Follett
Pompeii
Habit RPG
Chore Wars
Dungeons and Dragons
White Box Set and Reprint notification
Vile in a Vial
More Pixel People
Cialdini
Dr. Dolittle
Super Stickman Golf – iOS
Super Stickman Golf – Android
Midway Arcade – iOS
NCAA Leg Break – don’t watch if you are squeamish
Gauntlet Video
Nimble Quest

Listener Link:
Gameification by Deloitte

Episode 40 – Solo Games

MichaelRowe — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:00:43 +0000

Michael Rowe has to do a solo show this week, and weaves a narrative between our three links below. Can you figure out where he’s going?

Links:
Lumosity
Facebook Home
App Economy

Episode 39 – Dating Google

MichaelRowe — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:13:43 +0000

While Michael M. is hiding out in central Europe, Phaedra and Michael R. have some fun speculating how you can use Google glasses while dating your customers. Well not dating your customers, but during courtship. Wait, not really courtship, but while in sales. Can Google glasses really help your sales force and your customers connect better? We think so, and so we talk about it.

Do you think that Google glasses are in your future? What business games do you foresee bring to your workplace?

Will it cause a new era of fake sincerity? Or will it cause an era of CIA like recall?

Let us know what you think!

Show Links
Google Glass Dating
Tattoos for brainwaves
Samsung S4
SciFi Influence on Tech
Apple iWatch Leaks
Google Smart Watch
Total Recall
Total Recall Tech
iEEE Webinar – Mobile DevOps – Why should you care?
Google Glass and Privacy
Google’s Data Center
Cell Phone Jammers

Episode 38 – Dragon Box

MichaelRowe — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 17:00:37 +0000

The Michael’s are on together, unfortunately Phaedra could not make it this week due to unforeseen events. We talk about the game Dragon Box, which helps little kids learn the concepts of Algebra. The game so interested Michael M. that he actually shelled out money for the game and is testing it out on his own kids.

We then go down on a bit of a rathole on can you truly use your tablet for content creation, or is it just a consumption device. Is MyScript Calculator content creation?

We also theorize about the new Facebook game – “Bang with Friends” and how you can use it at your work place. Talk about an exciting show! Could this be a great parallel to security testing? Will this game break your heart – just like the Simpson’s Tapped Out? Do you have your golden ticket?

Show Links
Can video games make your kids smarter?
Perhaps this video can explain
The Books of Neal Stephenson
iTunes U hits 1 Billion downloads
Michael R’s Zagg Folio for his iPad
Bang with Friends
Bang-Bang Sauce
The history of Auctions

Episode 37 – Sticky Games

MichaelRowe — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:00:24 +0000

While the snow is falling in Budapest, and the freezing rain is falling in North Carolina, the team gets together to play a few games of games – duh-duh! We also follow-up on our discussion from last week on game stickiness for business, and how the stickiness factor impacts productivity. We also play a bit of buzz word bingo, with big data, mobile, and gameification. We also help Phaedra get setup with a new microphone, while fighting thru some technical difficulties. We look for the magic algorithm to make games sticky. We ask our listeners to give examples of games they are working on and what makes them more sticky. Is it just telekinesis tattoos?

Show Links:

BunchBall and Harvard
Duh-Duh video
NSF review of PS4 Announcement
Emotiv
Brain wave tattoo
Mandiant – Chinese Hackers Report

Episode 36 – Maps With Games

MichaelRowe — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:36:48 +0000

We are back! Phaedra and the Michael’s are back for an exciting episode of games at work, and this week it’s all about pixelated pavlovian responses – and we don’t mention Waze once!. Michael get’s us all to play a few simple games to make a point about pavlovian responses. We start with the cute kitten in Rescue Rush – where you leverage local maps to help rescue animals. And once again, Michael M. shows that while he loves playing the game, he refuses to help the developers by making the obligatory in app purchase. Or is he just showing the courage of his convictions, that he won’t get sucked into the trap! Phaedra then thinks about how the Girl Scouts could benefit from these type of Augmented Reality games – can you really share your cookies?!?!

We then move over to Pixel People, where we you build a city and people for the purpose of discovery via cloning and mutating people. Encouraging discovery and causing flow. Michael R. informs us that he’s flowed out on a few of his reason games, include the Simpson’s Tappd out game.
We ultimately decided that it’s not just a badges or point question, that it is really the Pavlovian bell question. Do you have enough bells in your day job, what is the cool factor that would get you to keep playing at work?

We’d like to go deeper on the subject of game stickiness and rewards, and how it should play out for a business environment. So drop us a comment, email, or tweet, and we’ll discuss in more detail next time on – Games At Work dot Biz!

Show Links:
Rescue Rush
FarmVille goes Hollywood
Segway History
Pixel People
The Game of Life
G Summit – San Francisco

Savings Throws:
Phaedra – Superman Lands in Russia

Michael M – Cards Against Humanity
Michael R – Moves for iPhone

Episode 35 — Pirates of Pizzazz

MichaelMartine — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 23:16:29 +0000

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport. The thrill of choose your own adventure, and the agony of crafting for hour upon hour. The human drama of gaming competition. This is Games at Work’s Wide Virtual World of Games.

For the first time in a long while, the co-hosts are all together virtually, while physically in Raleigh, North Carolina, San Francisco, California, and Budapest, Hungary. Michael M, inspired by an @ibogost tweet, spent 15 minutes (and it shows!) to create the Games at Work Podcast Game using Twine, and walks Michael and Phaedra through one of the branches. You can play the game yourself!

The team talks about Minecraft — it’s got a crafting part, it’s got a mining part, it’s got a farming part, it’s got an electrical engineering part and oh, so much more. With the generation playing Minecraft and other such building games that are focused on the player’s imagination, rather than the game designer’s / author’s imagination, Michael R observes that today’s creativity and content will place new demands on the appropriate laws governing the technology. Phaedra brings up the similarities to Lego, and after the recording was long over, Michael M learned a little more about Youth Digital Studios for app and game design classes for kids in Durham and elsewhere.

Michael R was looking forward to Fred Armisen’s talk on the use of technology and the creative process at Macworld.

Michael R is practicing for his role with Durham Savoyards, celebrating their 50th anniversary with their production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance March 14-17 and 22-24th.

Phaedra is excited about the upcoming East Coast Game Conference April 24-25 at the Raleigh Convention Center.

This episode was brought to you by the letters X,Y, ZZ and Y. Was one smart dressed, rockin’ recording, this was…

Show links:

Twine — http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/
Lost Treasures of Infocom — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lost-treasures-of-infocom/id577626745?mt=8
Minecraft — http://minecraft.net
Twitcraft on TWiT — http://mc.twit.tv
Tekkit Minecraft Mod — http://www.technicpack.net/tekkit/
Rube Goldberg — http://www.rubegoldberg.com
Minecraft computer built using Minecraft — http://www.geekosystem.com/minecraft-16-bit-computer/
Minecraft on iOS — https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/minecraft-pocket-edition/id479516143
Eden — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eden-world-builder/id405743220?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2
Lego — http://www.lego.com/
Lego Mindstorm — http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx
Futurehunting — will.i.am and Brian David Johnson — http://www.macworldiworld.com/special-events/futurehunting/
Macworld/iWorld — http://www.macworldiworld.com
Michael Rowe blog — http://triangleappshow.com/2013/02/final-day-future-visions/
Crazytalk for Mac at the show — http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/
Durham Savoyards — http://www.durhamsavoyards.org
East Coast Gamers Conference — http://www.ecgconf.com

Episode 34 – One Way Ticket to Mars

MichaelMartine — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 21:26:32 +0000

You too can apply for the one way ticket to Mars by participating in the www.mars-one.com other worldly event. You need to be ready to leave planet Earth, for good. By round three of the selection process, the TV audience, just like on American Idol, will select the group of four pioneers to travel to Mars. There have been over 1,000 applications already, before any announcement was even made! This is a novel way to select our future interplanetary pioneers by leveraging entertainment for funding & publicity. Michael M and Phaedra imagine other such games that could be use to fund big, big things like this, while missing Michael R for this week’s episode.

Rounding out the episode, Michael and Phaedra touch on Facebook’s Social Graph for how friends & connections are used for better searches and Phaedra’s recent trip to Singapore. For their saving throws, Phaedra just can’t get enough of the Mars-One story, while Michael highlights the iOS game Storm Raiders and praises Tune In Radio which provides him with WUNC FM 91.5 radio all the way in Budapest. He is a sustainer, and glad to have his Morning Edition, even if it is in the middle of the day.

Show links:

Mars-One.com — www.mars-one.com
Truman Show — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/
Survivor — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239195/
Mad Max — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079501/
Biosphere 2 – http://www.b2science.org
Virginia Dare — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Dare
Steve Jobs yacht — http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/29/tech/web/steve-jobs-yacht/index.html
Love Boat — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075529/
Old Salem — http://www.oldsalem.org
Astronaut Ice Cream — http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/9e07/

Saving Throws:

Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sky-gamblers-storm-raiders/id574375380?mt=8
Tune In Radio — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tunein-radio-listen-to-live/id418987775?mt=8

Episode 33 – Podcasters Make Bad Spellers – Verbally

MichaelRowe — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 19:29:23 +0000

Show Links:
Rescue Rush
FarmVille goes Hollywood
Segway History
Pixel People
The Game of Life
G Summit – San Francisco

Savings Throws:
Phaedra – Superman Lands in Russia

Michael M – Cards Against Humanity
Michael R – Moves for iPhone

Episode 32 – The New Year

MichaelRowe — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 19:00:00 +0000

The Michael’s kick off the new year with a few technical difficulties and some self quantification. Since many people start the new year with resolutions to lose a bit of weight, or get more healthy, etc. we decide that there are some really cool ways to game your health using new digital devices and gaming mechanics. Michael M tells us all about the cool experiences with the Jawbone Up, while Michael R gets excited about how well Downcast App works with the Apple TV he got for Christmas.
We then jump over to an interesting discussion on how Production Support can benefit from the simplicity of communication that you see in games like Super Mario Brothers. And we end the show with a bit of reminiscence of Leeroy Jenkins famous WoW raid! So sit back, fire up Your Gaming Rig, and get ready to play – Games At Work!

This Week’s Links:

Jawbone Up and Companion App
The Human Face of Big Data Book and Companion App
Apple TV and Downcast App
MacBreak Television Episode
Leeroy Jenkins

Episode 31 – Gaming our Audience

MichaelRowe — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 17:08:14 +0000

Michael R and Phaedra B finally disprove the rumor that they are the same person by co-hosting a show together for the first time in a long time unfortunately Michael M. was unable to join us.

We look at sites and games that are helping students learn more and teachers engage their students more. Sites like Brain Nock and Brain Pop aim to help pull students and teachers into competitions with other schools and classes.

Thinking about the holidays makes us decide to brush up on our wine skills, with a few apps, including Blush and Bottlenotes, before we decide that no one should actually drink Rhubarb wine. We then get into discussing a bit of our latest games.. and can you believe it? It’s Mine Sweeper!

So lean forward, grab a nice glass of your favorite beverage, and write us a review while listening to this week’s episode of – Games At Work DOT Biz!

Links:
Brainnock
Techcrunch Article
Brain Pop
Quiz Bowl
National Forensic League
The Flipped Classroom
BottleNotes
Blush
Playing Skyrim as a Pacifist
Mine sweeper – FTW!
Flattr – Social Micropayments

Episode 30 – Gaming Health

MichaelRowe — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 17:30:56 +0000

A blue moon must have occurred, because Michael M and Michael R are together in the same room for this week’s show. We do, however, miss Phaedra due to circumstances beyond our control. We look at gaming programming education and gaming your health. Michael R. gives a read out on the new class he’s been taking via Code School (check out Episode 12th – Going Oldschool from way back on July 8th). This class allows your to learn iOS programming without investing in a Mac. Then we turn over to discussing Michael M.’s desire to game his work outs, with a review of various devices which provide insights to your daily work out, etc.

This week’s Links:
Brain Health:
Try iOS class
Mr. Higgie
Body Health:
Nike Fuel Band
Lark Life
Jawbone Up
FitBit

Big Data and self analytics

Episode 29 – Simon Says

MichaelRowe — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:01:27 +0000

Games don’t stop just because it is a holiday week in the U.S. and neither do podcasts about games at work. After a bit of looking at things differently – can you say might-tight? Our friend Ian Bogost has a new game out, that Michael M. discovered while being all peckish, and we discuss the history and speak a little Latin. When then ask – are persuasive games really that persuasive after all?

We also discuss how we can make our mundane, boring, and overloaded todo list much more fun to work on. Or do we? Can you make it fun to deal with all the crap you have to do? How do you make all the things that pile up – doable? We discuss the impact of intrinsic verse extrinsic rewards on doing your tasks. Is “clippy” enough to make you happy?

Now that the Thanksgiving Holiday is over in the U.S. it’s time for everyone to get Back to Work and hopefully our little gaming your todo list will be helpful.

If you want to play games with us on Apple’s Game Center – you can find us at MichaelRowe01 and Michael_in_nc.

This week’s links:
Simony
Simon Says
Cow Clicker Episode
Geek Rock – Barcelona
They Might Be Giants
Are persuasive games really that persuasive?
Security Now – ROCKS
Back to work!

GamesAtWork.Biz Classic Mug by michaelrowe01

Happy Thanksgiving!
Michael get’s some science wrong
Melatonin – has nothing to do with skin color!
The Mythbusters get it right!

Episode 28 – Dating Flashmob

MichaelMartine — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 22:43:51 +0000

Michael and Phaedra express their love of martial arts, and how they don’t mind deceiving themselves in the least, by gaining cardio exercise benefits while doing something inherently fun. “Dirt runs faster than I do” says Phaedra, thinking that zombies chasing her would be a great motivator to run even faster! Talk about living in the undead moment!

Phaedra and Michael talk about a wide variety of alternate reality games (ARGs), from the recently started Google Niantic Project, to the stolen Audi (from 2006 if you can believe that!) to the MIT Game Lab’s Smithsonian game.

Then, the concept of applying games to dating is raised, and while you may think that Phaedra and Michael would start thinking about The Dating Game – no, they take it fully in the more modern way, with phones acting as agents and helping to arrange Dating Flashmobs!

Concluding this show with saving throws featuring videos from Rhett & Link, Michael and Phaedra agree that if you have a tough problem, call the bacon bot ARG and have a good laugh. And a hot tip… if you watch the video in full screen view, there are some hidden videos interviews to find.

Selected show notes links

TechCrunch article: Are Games Really That Persuasive? — http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/10/are-games-really-that-persuasive/

Quest Center — http://chquestcenter.com

American Ninja — http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/American_Ninja.mp3/view?searchterm=american%20ninja

Zombies, Run — https://www.zombiesrungame.com

Niantic Project — Day of Weirdness — http://www.nianticproject.com

That’s Niantic — not to be confused with Nyan Cat — http://www.nyan.cat

Requesting an invite via Ingress — http://www.ingress.com

Audi game — find the stolen Audi — http://kotaku.com/038191/stolen-audi-could-be-viral-marketing-game

MIT Game Lab Smithsonian ARG — http://www.fastcompany.com/1748531/mit-creates-one-video-game-youll-be-thrilled-see-your-kid-get-hooked

saving throws

Michael M — rub some bacon on it video — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSReSGe200A

Phaedra — the breakup song — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyfNZs2dPto&feature=relmfu

Episode 27 – Creative Spaces

MichaelRowe — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 11:15:03 +0000

The Michael’s are at it once again, and once again we are stuck with only two of our show hosts. We miss you Phaedra!

We decide to have a bit of fun talking about podcasting, social media, and creative 2D spaces from Linden Lab. Michael R. decides to tease Michael M. with his Letterpress strategery. We also discuss how games can become quickly popular and the implications to IT infrastructures, like Apple’s GameCenter platform. Are you using random-social matching for your head to head gaming? Could you do this at work?

Michael R. also tries to figure out what Linden Lab is doing with their first ever iPad app – Creative Spaces.

Show Links:
Linden Lab – Creatorverse
Letter Press game
Fischer Technik
Little Big Planet

Savings Throws:
Michael M – Election Night Coverage:
Wailing saxophonist from the Air Force band http://t.co/lcrs13Do #electionnightbudapest
Sweet Home Chicago in the main ballroom with the Légierö Zenekar Hungarian Air Force Band http://t.co/0YXRS4Gd #electionnightbudapest
Michael R – Windows 8 Experience:

Episode 26 – Business Process Management and Immortality

MichaelMartine — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:22:14 +0000

Phaedra and Michael M, missing Michael R, have a very rare in person walk through memory lane conversation on how the Innov8 game was used to help explain Business Process Modeling, and how rapidly it was adopted buy universities all over the world. Such repurposing first person shooter and then later real time strategy game engines in support of marketing and understanding BPM was highly successful in many ways.

Phaedra expanded on the subject by commenting that now, such process optimization games are being used to help expose the optimized new processes as a byproduct of gameplay, by how the game players actually play the game. One of the best things about games is that they reduce the focus to the most important parts of the subject, removing all else. This is a continuing thread, reminding us of the conversations had with Ian Bogost and Chris Hazard on earlier episodes. Gameplay helps to optimize the process because of the focus on the most salient part of the game, and when there are real world elements incorporated, the game can make sense of the deluge of data because of the players who are playing.

For her saving throw, Phaedra shares that process optimization games are a hot topic — per Garnter & Forrester, 50% of organizations that are focusing on process optimization will be using games. And for Michael’s saving throw, he muses on immortality and how the digital breadcrumbs that we leave everywhere could form the input to artificial intelligence agents which could consume all this information, and then provide insight as to how an individual may approach a problem or answer a question, long after that person is no more.

And with this, we’re taken right back to the start of the show with business process modeling as a strong method of capturing corporate memory.

additional links

Innov8 trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZnfBOoriaM
Innov8 gameplay -http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-bpm-innov8/index.html
Innov8 and CityOne - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjiQTWZ_MK8&feature=plcp
Gray’s Anatomy (the book) - http://www.amazon.com/Grays-Anatomy-Classic-Collectors-Edition/dp/0517223651
Gray’s Anatomy (the tv series) - http://abc.go.com/shows/greys-anatomy
Michael Hugos Enterprise Games - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023715.do

Episode 25 – Social Reciprocity

MichaelRowe — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 15:28:11 +0000

As the the day are getting shorter, and our day jobs are getting busier, the Michael’s have a lot of fun talking about the latest tech news and how it ties back to playing games at work. Michael R even gushes a bit about the possibilities of Microsoft’s Surface RT, and how well they presented it to the market on Thursday. While there was no Oprah moment at the announcement, there were multiple people who walked away with one.

Links:
Windows RT Announcement
Apple’s iPad Kickstand
Data Visualization Widgets
Windows 8 is NOT Metro
Bean Traders
Awesome Coffee Visualization
LinkedIn Skills Profiles
Today’s Podcast on Storify
Michael’s iPad mini Review
Demon Costume

Episode 24 – Stop Zombie Mouth

MichaelRowe — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:00:47 +0000

The Michael’s talk about how you can leverage gaming technology to achieve zero-overhead in your business processes by leveraging good gaming design principles. How can you enable your customers, employees and partners to level up on your business processes? We tell you how! You too can become CPO (Chief Procurement Officer) by playing games. So sit back, grab a big cup of your favorite beverage and play with us!

Links:
Zero Overhead principle Healthcare
Raph Koster – Fundamentals of Game Design
Stop Zombie Mouth
Microsoft Clippy
What is Halloween
Zamfir for your diet
The Rock Doctors
Upcoming Tech Announcements
Google’s financial woes

Episode 23 – Mystic Transitions

MichaelRowe — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 21:15:21 +0000

We continue our discussion of the Freemium model, to talk about platform expansion and extracting customer value! (Welcome to business school). Trying to figure out the fine line between fun fermium and painful exploitation, as well as how can a business successfully transition from the pay model to the Freemium model. We talk about the musical instruments we want to play, thanks to Ian Hughes who brings us a review for RockSmith. Which get’s us to think about the transitions of musical styles and musical learning. So lean forward, grab your rhythm guitar, and jam with us at Games At Work dot Biz!

Nick Lowe and Eric Hodge at Rocktoberfest in Chapel Hill, NC.

Links -
A Real Educational Game that Rocks!
The Simpsons Tapped Out
Castle Walls from Styx

Nick Lowe
Dave Alvin
Yep Roc Records

Episode 22 – Play for Free on Free to Play

MichaelMartine — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 09:36:21 +0000

Phaedra and Michael M discuss free to play game economics — both from the game designer and the game player perspective as well as how this changes when the game is focused on individual paying players vs larger enterprises as the target market. With micropayments for in-game purchases being the revenue source for free to play games, Phaedra mentions that at the recent Game Developers Conference that free to play games can be more profitable than $50 boxed games. Michael shares that he likes to avoid such in-game purchases, hence the title of the show.

Cross genre gameplay also gets the GamesatWork.biz treatment when Phaedra and Michael brainstorm on what may make for a good cross genre game. An interesting idea emerges combining maps, geocashing and Habitat for Humanity Restore opportunities.

Some of the games mentioned on today’s episode include

Simpsons Tapped Out — http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-simpsons-tapped-out/id497595276

Tiny Tower — http://nimblebit.com

Plants vs Zombies — http://www.popcap.com/games/plants-vs-zombies/home

SimCity — http://www.simcity.com/en_US

Monopoly City Streets — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_City_Streets

Hivemind — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hivemind_(software)

Episode 21 – Gaming the Game Genome

MichaelRowe — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:14:17 +0000

The Michael’s are back at it again this time with a new website that claims to be able to figure out your gaming mood. Thinking back to the Music Genome Project, which we can’t believe is over 13 years old now, we take a look at the Game Genome Project website, which we can only hope will do the same thing for gaming. We miss our new co-host Phaedra Boinodiris again this week, but soldier on with this weeks show. We look at other ideas for Genome projects to figure out what other cool relationships we can figure out. We also talk about Legos and Fischertechnik, and the freakish contraptions you can build by mashing together building sets with a bit of 3D Printing. We also play with the idea (thank you Andy Ihnatko) of how could you game cleaning up the Apple IOS 6 map issues.

This week’s Links:
Game Genome Project
Music Genome Project
Sade
Warp 11
Pandora Media
Good Reads
3D Printing and Lego
Stack Exchange and Lego
FischerTechnik
STEM FischerTechnik
Tim Cook and Maps
Ride the Duck

Episode 20 – Social Live Improv

MichaelRowe — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 15:39:08 +0000

The Michaels are without Phaedra this week, and talk about improv, monkeys, and the intersection between gaming technology and social technologies. FedEx launching new Social Collaboration. Michael M doesn’t realize that Ping is dead! But They Might Be Giants lives on with custom ring tones, just like Carl Kassell on Wait, Wait, Don’t tell Me.

We also brainstorm a bit on good examples of two way conversations in social business. Small businesses do this well, and a few of our favorites are Waze, Bojangles, Bean Traders and local gaming development community in the RTP area.

Don’t forget about Dance where you are day!

Episode 19 – Now Playing Seriously!

MichaelMartine — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:26:18 +0000

Michael M and Phaedra welcome special guest Gwen Gordon of Seriously, the Movie for this week’s episode focusing intently on play. From inventing a nose flute for Snuffleupagus to a basketball court for Slimy the worm, Gwen gained experience early on in applying creativity and innovation in a playful, fun and extremely rapid way. Focused now on the fundraising for a feature length film and then following up with a series called “Now Playing:” — at work, at home, at school, for life (health and wellness), for the future (innovation & creativity) and for change (social justice), Gwen shares with Phaedra and Michael her reasons, hopes and dreams for this project. We were impressed, and think you will be too!

If you want to help with the Kickstarter project, please dial on over to see Gwen and her wonderpup Garbonzo, where they are Occupying Kickstarter until they raise the necessary funds to get this important work off the ground.

Also don’t forget that September 18th is “Dance where you are” day, and you can win fabulous prizes from taking part in your own playspark.

For more social media, follow @seriouslymovie and friend on Facebook

Some examples of play that Gwen mentioned in the podcast

Burningman — http://www.burningman.com

Wanderlust — http://www.facebook.com/Wanderlust

US Play Coalition — http://www.usplaycoalition.org

Maker Faire — http://makerfaire.com/newyork/2012/index.html

Episode 19, Now Playing Seriously! — brought to you by the letters B, U and the number 34,969.

Episode 18 – Don’t Kill Your Pigs

MichaelRowe — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:52:27 +0000

The Michaels welcome our new co-host Phaedra Boinodiris. Phaedra just returned from the Serious Play Conference and provides us some insights in to the state of Play at work. We then discuss a listener recommended post on the “Six”, count them “SIX” reasons why gamification will rule the world! Okay, by now we are all sick of that term, but it seems to be sticking and we have to talk about it. Listen to Michael rip apart the post. Thank you to our listener for providing this link! And finally we discuss fantasy leagues and what value they provide. So sit back, pour a nice cup of coffee and let us know what you think! (We apologize for some of the audio difficulties we had this week and are working to improve this in future episodes).

Links:
Serious Play ConferenceM
Phaedra’s presentation
Time Magazine and Gamification
CDC Zombie Apocalypse
Small Ball
Gamification and HypeCurve

Episode 17 – Things are weirder than expected

MichaelRowe — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:35:14 +0000

Michael and Michael welcome a special guest this week – Dr. Ian Bogost“. Many of our listeners will know Ian from his work – Cow Clicker. We have a deep discussion on how games do and do not change the world, while focusing on the essence of games – seriously! Even though we have a few audio problems this week, it doesn’t stop Michael from talking about pranking!

Links we discuss:
Privates
From Cronkite to Colbert
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Cow Clicker
DrawSomething

Ian’s Books Mentioned during the show:
How to do things with Video Games
Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing (Posthumanities)
Persuasive Games

Episode 16 – Going Mobile

MichaelRowe — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:17:28 +0000

Michael and Michael promise not to dance or sing, but instead to talk about a great post found via Michael R’s RSS feeds which he spends way too much time on. Techcrunch announced back on August 1st about Mango Health, which gamifies people keeping up with taking their medications. Currently being invested in by Mark Pincus from Zynga, and Keith Rabios COO of Square, which just announced a big deal Starbucks for mobile payments. Michael R. then provides a little shameless cross-self promotion of TriangleAppShow, and tons of Podcasts about Mobile. App called Dromo – monitor’s your Drobo. We also hit a few of Michael R’s favorite apps including Meal Snap, Chirp and Plague.

Episode 15 – A Short Interlude

MichaelRowe — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 14:18:41 +0000

In this week’s episode, Michael R. gets caught up on a few thoughts and discusses some upcoming activities for the Games At Work dot Biz team. He also rambles on a bit about a few books he recently finished …

Episode 14 – Games for Cats

MichaelRowe — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 12:41:07 +0000

Episode 14 – Games for Cats

The Michael’s find a great how to guide on designing games for cats. How is this relevant for business… Well it’s Friday, it’s Hot, and it’s possibly even the end of the world! So come listen and find out!

Link:
5 Tips for Making Video Games Your Cat Wants to Play
End of the world tweet!

Episode 13 – Programming for the Brain

MichaelRowe — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 13:29:52 +0000

Michael M. and special guest Phaedra Boinodiris make a few book recommendations to help program your brain on using gaming for business, while Michael R is off this week. Phaedra also announces that she is writing a book and is currently working on the chapter about Ethics in Serious Games, so be on the look out for it.

Recommended books
Reality is Broken
Ender’s Game – by Orson Scott Card
Persuasive Games – by Ian Bogost and from wired magazine Cow Clicker
The Eight – by Katherine Neville
On Fairy Stories – by J.R.R. Tolkien

Episode 12 – We’re going Old School

MichaelRowe — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:20:08 +0000

We are kicking it Old School with a visit to Code School! After a reading a few tweets and emails we have an exciting developer focus episode this week. We talk about how you can Level-Up your skills, how you can leverage your guild over at stack overflow, and then wrap it up with a pretty picture of how gaming address your desire for hard but fun activities. So sit back, pour yourself a large red-eye and get ready to code!

Show Links:
Andy Piper – Game Visualization
Tweet from James Governor at RedMonk
Mobile Development Class
Envy Labs
Gaming Developer Support
Khan Academy

Episode 11 – Mowing the Lawn

MichaelRowe — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 23:28:50 +0000

Michael M. has a phrase that when someone nags them it is like reminding someone to mow the lawn, over and over again. Well with all the social games that many of us are playing, we are getting social pressure to clear all of our notifications and reminders. We also give the guys over at Zynga a few ideas on how they can make the big bucks!

Show links:
The Hard work of keeping up with social games by Jason Snell
Inbox zero by Merlin Mann

Games we are playing:
DrawSomething
Fruit Ninja!
Chuck Darwin’s ExSquad

e10 – d20 for critical insight – repost

MichaelRowe — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 21:44:48 +0000

We got our first listener tweet from @billsweeney on the gamification of hiring, and we ask can a game really help you get a job? Maybe not, but they can help employers learn a better understanding how well you fit with the culture of the company. We also look at how the social app Highlight can help recruiters and recruits connect up better. Can you gamify programming? We think so! So fire up your podcatcher – and come list to this episode.

Games we talk about this week – Not work related:
Hexen II
Diablo 2
Diablo 3
You Don’t Know Jack

Don’t forget about all the ways to reach out to us:
Forums
Facebook
Google+

Episode 9 – Reality is Broken

MichaelRowe — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 15:50:05 +0000

Michael and Michael get back together for another exciting episode. This episode we start our periodic review and analysis of the book “Reality is Broken” by Jane McGonigal, PhD. We focus on the first three chapters this episode in order to get us all a good foundation of why we play games, and what value you can get out of them.

We learn that most senior executives are actually playing games at work almost every day! Check it out –

Tell your boss you are emulating your Senior Executives

We also talk about two really cool examples of music, learning and fun:
Bobby McFerrin – World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale
Ben Zander – “Ode to Joy”

Episode 8 – GameStorming

MichaelRowe — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 01:29:22 +0000

Michael and Andy talk with James Macanufo – one of the authors of the book “Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers” (along with Dave Gray and Sunni Brown). They guys take the conversation from games, to vodka, to the “new” iPad, and finally to remote collaboration techniques. A must listen to show!

Links:
Vodka
Go-Gamestorm Site
Doodler, unite!
Earth destroyed?

Follow James at @macgeo
and don’t forget to tweet with the hashtag #gamestorming

Episode 0007 – “Companification”

MichaelRowe — Sun, 27 May 2012 01:23:23 +0000

Michael and Michael do a quick show on Siri and how digital companions are changing the way we work and play. We think thru leveling up your digital assistant so that it can be more helpful. Michael M also goes off on tangent talking about Hog Days. While Michael R. racks his brain trying to remember a recent game that included a dog companion – Fable II

Wow has it been 4 years since it’s release? We also talk about the mobile App – Highlight.

Episode 0006 – Hazardous Times Ahead

MichaelRowe — Sat, 19 May 2012 19:22:39 +0000

The guys are all back together for an incredible interview with Chris Hazard from Hazardous Software. We look into our crystal ball to manipulate time and space in games, being careful not to kill our grandparents at the same time. Chris helps us all understand the behavior of gamers and how to make our own games more engaging. We also check out a bit of ikaruga games too.

Chris also talks about his upcoming session at the East Coast Gamers Conference… Check it out here!

Episode 000005 – Draw Some Money

MichaelRowe — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:09:15 +0000

In a bit of an out of sequence episode Michael and Michael talk about the investment made by Zynga in OMGPop the makers of Draw Something and what the game of it all may be. Andy is off traveling the world, and hopefully enjoying a much needed rest from technology (as if). We continue to ask for your feedback on the format of the show, and future topics. How about an episode on Mobility and gaming? Or board games?

Links:

Zynga Buys OMGPop

Is Google Being Evil?

Episode 00004 – WTF?

MichaelRowe — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:16:44 +0000

Where’s the FUN?!?!? – That’s the question that Michael and Michael ask this week, while Andy is out and about. We focus on a few game examples including the new Matching game called InstaMatch. We also look at fun and interesting progress systems, and some not so fun… Spinning beach ball we’re talking to you!

Next episode we are looking forward to talking to one of the Authors of the book “GameStorming”

Bonus Links:

Nest thermostat

ePredator’s thermostat stats

Episode 00003 – Where’s the Work in it?

MichaelRowe — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:54:47 +0000

This week we provide some games and talk about the underlying work related benefit. Andy and Michael R, hold down the show while Michael M is off this week. We talk about Google’s now defunct image match and how Google wanted to drive better search on their Image search. That became part of the metadata for the images. We also discuss Michael’s addiction to Tiny Tower and recent news regarding Zynga’s copy cat game.Andy proves Leo Laporte wrong, in that there are many good podcasts for developers including:
The ChangeLog - podcast
This Developer’s Life - Podcast
The Web Ahead - Podcast
FLOSS Weekly - Podcast

Interesting Links we talked about -
History of Image Labeler
Tiny Tower vs. Zynga
Amee
Hacking Carbon Emissions in Minecraft
Opa
Coffee Siphon
“Even Better Than a Holodeck”
Upcoming event: Makathon

Episode 00002 – Would. You. Like. To. Play. A. Game?

MichaelRowe — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:02:45 +0000

Welcome back (since this is the 2nd episode) to Games@Work.biz and we’ve decided to make a game of our podcast. We spend this episode trying to figure out where the game is within some basic business activities. Ideation, Brainstorming, Online Banking, and Microsoft adds badges to Visual Studio. We even come up with a game idea for GIT and reputation management.We would love to get your ideas on how to improve the game of inventory. While Michael Rowe remembers the wrong people in a great Saturday Night Live Skit – “What the Hell is that?”

Hopefully we will have one of the authors of - Gamestorming on an upcoming episode.

Exposing Games:
HTML5 Capabilities

Bonus links:

Andy’s Lego
Shopping Fun
Nanoblocks

Episode 1 – Wouldn’t You Like to be a Mayor Too?

MichaelRowe — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:31:27 +0000

Your friendly neighborhood podcasters are swinging back into action again with a new podcast for a new year — games at work. The inaugural episode 00001 (both in binary and base 10!) kicks off with your trio of hosts, Michael Martine, Andy Piper and Michael Rowe consider several games, from Foursquare to Waze to Oink to Square, and how the social interaction and competition among friends helps to keep the gamers coming back for more.

Games at Work goes back to the early roots of what brought your hosts together in the first place — a love of games and how the intersection with business and social technologies make them more than simple pastimes. The podcast will explore where games are being used for business results today and how existing games may be adapted to new ways of creating social, economic and other values.

We’d like to thank Zebes System for their awesome version of the MoonPatrol theme.

Your hosts are eager to interact with you via multiple paths — you can use 140 characters on Twitter, send an email or even a gamecenter friend request! Check us out at twitter.com/gamesatwork_biz .