It’s Coming – A Video Game-Like Future For Work

Video game-like future? A dream once imagined is now becoming a reality with each passing day.

As the world of work changes, so does the nature of work, and the pandemic played a part in today’s workplace. COVID-19 made it necessary to move to a remote work model. 

This change not only affected how we do business but also how we bond as a team. With 71% of businesses working from home partially, compared with 58% who say hybrid work environments will remain, there was a need for new ways to transform workplace culture.

In the face of a future that is so hard to predict, what measures can organizations take to plan a positive workplace culture? And it’s apparent that the human race is slowly moving towards a video game-like future for work.

Positive work culture refers to a variety of things, many of which can be summed up as the attitudes, actions, and connections among employees. Through bonding exercises and retreats, along with break-room conversations, that spirit is preserved.

In the age of digital dispersals, how can staff members stay connected?

Following a discussion with Jackbox Games CEO “ Mike Bilder”, it became evident that video games continue to provide a solution to that problem — particularly party games like Jackbox. 

Now it’s different!

During the past few years, humankind has witnessed unprecedented advancements in digital technology, revolutionizing workplaces and working methods. Adapting to the future’s demands is a necessary practice for businesses now.  

Despite its revolutionary nature, this shift is still in its infancy. 

Artificial intelligence, deep learning, cognitive robots, and robots are rapidly replacing many jobs on which people have built their lives, which is why you’ll be left behind if you don’t keep up with the flow. 

Change is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be feared. 

Just imagine – you walk your video game character into your office’s conference room filled with your other coworkers seated with scattered documents in front of them. A number of startups are now combining the best parts of ’90s-era video games with today’s productivity tools to build platforms exactly like this. It’s all because the idea has the potential to make work more equitable, profitable, and sustainable.

A Play-based Approach To Connectivity

“Today, most games are designed with the idea of being played within a single room. You can consider these kinds of products to be digital board games. In lieu of playing Life or Monopoly, Bilder claims, the concept is to create a space where people can play party games together. 

“Digital is one reason, but it’s not the only one. Fortunately, they also work remotely. 

With your new PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, you can now get a glimpse of the future of work. We’re going to look at how the future of work will look like a video game. Let’s get started. 

#1 – You will be responsible to customize day-to-day activities and responsibilities

Despite the shared world and rules of a game, players are capable of acting independently, with flexibility, and using their free will. From the moment you begin playing the game, you are a creative artist by default. You will get to design: 

1. What you’re wearing
2. Your automobile
3. House

You will even be able to customize your day-to-day activities and manage your responsibilities in one place. Though you’re guided by a specific objective, every step of the way you have a choice — how, when, and with whom you engage. 

Choose to stay on course with the main quest, or go off on a tangent. 

Also, you do not have to limit yourself to one character — for instance, killing innocents on the way is possible if you want, or you can play the role of a sympathetic guy whatever suits your fancy.

Future work will follow a similar pattern.

In response to the pandemic, many took concrete actions toward this goal, and employers are becoming increasingly open to the concept of providing employees with the flexibility to work on the basis of employees preferences and schedules. 

The same is true for workers, who can come and go as they please.

Hubspot brought this to life

With a view to bringing this concept to life – HubSpot has stepped up to provide employees with 3 opportunities, including:

1. Office-First 
2. Flex  
3. Home first. 

As with any option, each has its own rewards, and each is equally supported by the company. 

To accommodate business trends such as long-term remote work and emerging technologies, virtual worlds will be required to facilitate remote collaboration. Doesn’t matter if it’s a video-game-like future for work.  

Owlchemy Labs also contributed to this initiative

A few years ago, Owlchemy Labs, a software company based in Austin, Texas announced the release of a computer game known as Job Simulator. 

Premise-wise, it was straightforward. As a player in the game, you will find yourself in a futuristic world, which is around 30 years away from now, where all jobs have been taken over by robots.

Now that they are no longer required to work, people spend their time wearing VR headsets reliving their glory days and experiencing the life of an office worker, professional cook, or store owner. A virtual cooking experience, virtual newspaper sales experience, and simulated photocopying are all part of the gameplay.

#2 – You will get to enjoy an unbreakable sharing culture

Online video games foster a sense of community, a culture of sharing that is irreversible. Despite being able to make your own decisions, what you do will have an impact on other players. As soon as you choose to collaborate, it becomes second nature for you to act. 

Using a variety of digital tools is no longer a challenge. The information you face, the tools you use, and the way you interact with other players are all the same whenever you take part in a video game.

No matter where you work, whether remotely, virtually, or on-site, virtual worlds are the future, eliminating silos. Virtual world tools will make all the difference. 

Our tools today are dominated by collaboration tools that were added after the fact. Collaborative technology is basically screen sharing with voice added – according to many, but it doesn’t really qualify as collaboration. In essence, this is merely a temporary exchange of personal information via video call. 

Creating virtual worlds is easy with Sinespace.

A key feature of Sinespace is that it can be used to create virtual worlds that can be played by multiple players. Creating and customizing 3D worlds and content is possible, along with vehicles, interactive games, attire, facial expressions, etc. All of which can also be sold to real-life customers.

Collaborative-first tools will also perform better in a world where shared tasks are prioritized over individual productivity, similar to cloud-native apps. 

As more cloud-based solutions are developed, this is playing out as teammates are finding and sharing information easier. Elastic, for instance, provides a wide range of search tools for teammates to find relevant content across a range of tools. 

As information becomes more accessible and sharing becomes easier, the world is becoming more like a video game that lets people collaborate and share information as easily as dragging and dropping. Taking advantage of Minecraft’s remote and hybrid learning capabilities is also not surprising.

#3 – You will get to experience remote human-to-human communication in arbitrary chain-of-command scenarios

Think about it: if you’re good at Grand Theft Auto, you’re good at anything. You are only as good as what you have accomplished for yourself, not what others think. In the digital world, you are responsible for the actions you take, for example, the tasks you accomplish, the money you save, or your creations. 

While collaboration is often necessary to accomplish tasks, you are encouraged to be proactive when it comes to achieving real results.

Work will begin to move away from a hierarchical world as we think about the future. The pandemic has already provided us with a taste of remote human interaction, as we have mainly been communicating via video calls since the outbreak began. 

You can also express your ideas easily, thanks to a chat box that will let you convey your ideas regardless of what others think. 

The core mission of working in that kind of environment should be to enhance the human understanding of information, allowing seamless coordination of decisions and actions between colleagues regardless of location and time, and allowing the contribution of everyone to be as valuable as possible. 

Today, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate setting for such a thing to happen if it doesn’t happen within the virtual world embedded within video games. To put it another way, the next time your partner criticizes you for spending hours glued to a screen holding a console, let them know you are getting ready for the video-game-like future of work.

A Look Toward The Future

There was a great deal of interest during the review of the Oculus Quest 2 in October 2020. Spatial, which specializes in mixed reality work transformation, was contacted as part of the coverage for that device. 

Can its tech deliver on its promise? Work in a virtual environment. There are three types of accounts offered by the organization: a free account, a pro account which includes unlimited storage and live speech recognition, and an enterprise account for businesses. 

A VR headset lets you meet with virtual colleagues, chat with them, browse a huge web browser, watch videos, view images, manipulate objects, record conversations, or even talk to other VR headset users! From where we are standing, it’s clear that we are near to a video game-like future for work.