After seeing Jane McGonigal's TED lecture regarding the emerging influence of gaming and gamers - (http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html)
I thought it worth while to write a short post on how this relates to enterprise software and cloud. I firmly believe that the gaming community is becoming a real game changer for enterprise software as well as consumer software, and it is driving adoption of the cloud even faster. The hype term of "gamification" does not begin to do justice to this trend, as it tends to focus on attributes of the software, not on the consumption attributes of the emerging gaming community.
Think about its this way:
I thought it worth while to write a short post on how this relates to enterprise software and cloud. I firmly believe that the gaming community is becoming a real game changer for enterprise software as well as consumer software, and it is driving adoption of the cloud even faster. The hype term of "gamification" does not begin to do justice to this trend, as it tends to focus on attributes of the software, not on the consumption attributes of the emerging gaming community.
Think about its this way:
- Today, there are 500 million gamers out there playing more than one hour per day, mostly online and mostly networked with other gamers
- By 2020, there will be 1.5 billion gamers online (talk about a market segment)
- By reaching age 18, many of today's gaming kids will have spent 10000 hours or more online: Collaborating, solving complex problems, teaming up to achieve epic wins, etc.
(a new set of skills is forming here around real-time online collaboration) - The gamers' expectations on software, any software, consumer or enterprise, are rapidly and drastically changing (talk about instant gratification, dramatic simplification, etc.)
The enterprise software industry can only learn from this market in terms of:
- how to fully utilize online communities from the first idea to the final realization of the product
- how to make platforms that are easily extended by the people
- how to make things intuitive and fun to keep people loyal to the product
- how to use visualization to make complex things look easy
- how to tie together communications media and consumption models (chat, voice, video streaming, platform and component download, communities, updates, etc) into a seamless fabric focused on the gaming experience
- how to create a fan-driven ecosystem around the product and brand
This list could go on and on. There is a sea change under way in software, and its not just about games. Its about an online, global community of highly intelligent, collaborative, fun-oriented people of an increasingly diverse age group that will shape the face of software more than any software maker ever has in the past.
I am fortunate that I have an avid gamer in my family that is teaching me a lot about this business.
If you are in enterprise software, and if you are interested on what the cloud can become, talk to a gamer, and get ready to be surprised
I am fortunate that I have an avid gamer in my family that is teaching me a lot about this business.
If you are in enterprise software, and if you are interested on what the cloud can become, talk to a gamer, and get ready to be surprised
Walldorf, 10.09. 2011
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