Contextual Studies:working games

Just a quick subject I want to touch on which relates back to my previous post on edutainment. As pointed out Ian Bogost's book there is not just children that companies want to train , there is also a specialized type of game targets at workers, using games as a 'fun' way to train.

"The videogame Cold Stone Creamery: Stone City, Despite the relative novelty of a videogame with an ice cream viscosity model, the training outcomes described above return all benefits to the corporation, not to the worker.

Training videogames become educational when they stop enforcing a process as a set of arbitrary rules in the service of the organization and begin presenting a procedural rhetoric for the business model that the employee has been asked to work under.

Laurel Althusser points out that schools teach hierarchy and consumerism; schools are necessary in order to release parents into the working world, where they contribute to the gross domestic product while taking on greater and greater debt that perpetuates their need to conform in the role of complacent citizen.

It is starting to become clear to me that serious games and casual games alike can be potentially telling us that we must be a specific way in life to be considered successful. In this game you must not think of yourself but about the company and the customers needs constantly and that portion sizes of ice cream can result in the company losing/gaining money or a customer being happy/angry at you, in other words they want you to please everyone without any thoughts about yourself.

Sources: 
Persuasivegames.com, (2014). Persuasive Games -Stone City – Cold Stone Creamery, Inc.. [online] Available at: http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/game.aspx?game=coldstone [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].