Work will still be an important part of our lives; however, the context will differ considerably from traditional employment. Our economic contributions are likely to take place in the radically new economic role of a gamer. We are used to considering games as something more of a recreational nature; in other words, games are basically for entertainment.
For most of us it seems somehow unnatural to consider the role of a gamer in the context of work. On the other hand, most of us will have already contributed to such Internet venues as Facebook or Instagram. In the world of a digital future, we should be paid for our contributions. The basic principle will be our participation in games.
New economy
We can boost our productivity through gamers; new online games can help improve the productivity of business organisations. Today’s online games have two things in common with businesses:
- A clear goal
- Actionable steps that need to be taken in order to achieve that goal
Games can be highly productive platforms for collaboration on mass scale. Even today, gamers spend more time than anyone else compiling collective intelligence. They are able to leverage the speed and intelligence of the crowd.
Games can help to solve complex problems
Back in 2009, the press obtained leaked documents concerning expense frauds in the British Parliament. In order for the Parliament to save face, newspapers were given an unsorted electronic data dump of more than a million expense forms.
In order to make sense of this giant pile of data, journalists crowdsourced the task. They developed a game and invited citizens to use it as a means of investigation. The result? More than 20,000 people quickly identified several guilty politicians.
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