Karl Kapp: You wrote a book titled, Got Game - How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever. That is a pretty bold title, what is the basic premise of your book?

John Beck: The basic premise is the group that grew up playing video games has a very different mindset, attitudes, and behaviors regarding business than those who didn't grow up playing video games. We call that group the "Gamer Generation." In a survey of 2,500 American professionals, a year or year-and-half ago, we found that those who reported playing more video games when they were youngsters reacted to business situations differently than those who didn't…that's the basic premise.

Karl Kapp: When you say video games are you talking about Pong or something like Halo? What kind of video games are you talking about?

John Beck: Well obviously the older responders would have played Pong, the younger ones, (our respondents went all the way down to the young 20s) would be playing games like Halo. Not Halo 2 because the survey was done before that came out. But you know Doom, Halo and similar video games were being played by people as they were growing up for the younger part of the sample. Whether they were older or younger, the response of gamers was more alike than that of older non-gamers and younger non-gamers. So there was a real split. An attitudinal divide between of those who video played games and those who did not.

Karl Kapp: What kind of divide or split did you see?

John Beck: We saw some things that you would just naturally expect. Like gamers are more competitive. They have a sense of risk and reward, they are more apt to take a risk, which is just good entrepreneurial practice, because the more risk, the greater the reward. But then we saw weird results, like gamers care more about their companies. Gamers end up being more sociable and work better in teams; they have a better natural sense of how to make leadership decisions. Gamers make decisions more by the textbook, how a MBA program would teach them to make a decision, that's the way they make decisions rather than non-gamers. So there were a lot of quirky correlations in the data set.

By the way my co-author, Mitchell Wade and I are baby boomers, so we weren't playing that many video games growing up, Pong was basically what there was to be played. When we set out to write this book, we knew it had to be a business book, because Harvard Business School Press is who we had the contract with. But we set out thinking there would be a more mixed bag of results, stories, and findings for this book. What we found was surprisingly positive; it definitely changed my attitude of how I deal with my kids and their video game habits.

Karl Kapp: You mentioned leadership; do you have any insight into why gamers tend to solve problems from a MBA textbook perspective?

John Beck: Well gamers develop leadership skills very early. Yes, that thought is a little counterintuitive perhaps, because when you think of video gamers you usually think of them sitting in a dark basement by themselves with the TV on. But playing video games is actually very social. When a bunch of kids are playing video games and one person is playing at a time with the others watching, the gamers will hand off the controller to whoever is good at particular part of whatever game they are playing. Others will be giving advice, and the one with the controller ultimately becomes the leader and makes the decisions, and they take into account the advice of the others. Also, decisions have to made quickly, or in certain games, you will die if you don't make decisions quickly.

Gamers also learn how to work in teams. When I was younger my experience of working in a team was Little League Baseball where you were told when to run, or hit, or bunt. You were constantly being told what to do. It was not a bunch of 5 or 6 year olds working together to solve a problem. You were directed by the coach. And now what's going on is that kids are leading other kids during the gameplay. With video games, the experiences create a much longer history of leadership and teamwork than those who don't play games. The Pong generation probably didn't get that much, but certainly gamers who participated in role-play games or first-person shooters did.

Karl Kapp: So gamers naturally form self directed teams, and work toward certain goals. Each person contributes toward that goal depending on what they do best?

John Beck: Yes, but remember they are a self directed team but there is a leader. The leader really is the one who has the controller. In a sibling group it's usually the oldest sibling. But if you get a group of friends together, it's obvious there is a leader, which is usually the best player, so there is natural respect built into it. The person who takes the controller at the most difficult times at the game, and is the one that says "Hey Jimmy, you're only six but you can get through this part" is the leader. The leader helps to build skills in the rest of the team.

Karl Kapp: It sounds like some delegation, skill building, and communications. All that stuff.

John Beck: Yeah, a lot of stuff going on. And I know when I was in third grade I didn't get all of that.

Karl Kapp: So game playing is not as solitary as we tend to think?

John Beck: We have a real notion that it's very solitary. And I do think as you get older there is a lot more time spent alone trying to get good at a game, so when you go to play with your friends you're not humiliated. We certainly see that with adults playing Madden Football, so when they go to the party with their friends they look OK. Even with the older kids you get that. But really when friends come over to play, they sit right in front of the video game and play together, it's very social.

Karl Kapp: Do you think that playing video games have made them more gadget oriented as well?

John Beck: There is no doubt about that. Gamers are more gadget-oriented. They think about them, they care about them; they are trained from a very young age to know when the next release of a game will be, or when a new controller comes out or when the next version of the game station is coming out. So they certainly have become avid consumers of electronic goods.

Karl Kapp: I see that in my eight year old son. Last Christmas he said "Dad, I only want three things for Christmas," and I said great only three things what are they. He said "I want a big screen TV for my room, a cell phone, and a laptop computer." (laughs)

John Beck: (Laughs)

Karl Kapp: I said how about a GameBoy, so I definitely can see an inclination towards gadgets. Can we just take a step back for a moment and talk about the research process, and how you found your subjects.

John Beck: It was a large internet-based survey, and since we were looking at business professionals that gave us a pretty good sample. We were working with a population that was already in place, so we sent out the survey and monitored who took it and then we did a little bit of collaboration on the back end to make sure we were getting a pretty representative sample. But we didn't have to do a lot; we had a pretty good mix of men and women. And on that there was a moment in the middle of this when I sat up in bed one night and thought "gender." I never controlled for gender. And everything in here is completely explainable by gender. I got up and went right to my computer that night and started pounding away and crunching numbers. When we did control for gender there weren't any differences, which was surprising. Let me just regress from your question for a second here, since I got on this topic, I'll talk about this.

Karl Kapp: Sure

John Beck: Our explanation for no gender difference is…we think that what is happening, the reason for the different way of thinking in the gamer generation and the different beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors is that the neuron pathways of these gamers are actually being changed by the game playing. The way you think, they way you learn, the way you solve problems, are all being influenced by solving problems and thinking through complex situations when you are young.

Scientists who study the brain tell us that the neuron pathways are pretty much developed by the age of 14. That's why when learning a language, before the age of 14 you can learn the language just by being around it. For example, dog in Japanese is "Inu," and you don't have to make that connection. You just kind of know, "Oh, Inu is dog." So up to the age of about 14 is when the neuron pathways are being formed, which is interesting because that is the age about when male and female video game playing diverges. Up to that age, boys and girls play the same game and actually play together. After that boys play a lot more violent game, and girls play a lot less violent games.

Karl Kapp: Yeah, girls are now playing Dance, Dance Revolution. The point about changing neurons is fascinating and helps to explain why there is little gender difference between male and female gamers.

John Beck: Yeah, some guys play Dance, Dance Revolution also. Actually some of the best ones I've seen in those games are boys. They jump higher; it's definitely an athletic pursuit for some of them. That's the reason why I think there is not a huge amount of difference in the questions we are asking, because those neuron pathways are formed in certain ways before there is a gender divergence in the way games are being played.

Karl Kapp: You found a lot of interesting things and some, as you mentioned, are counter intuitive. Are you meeting with any resistance or Doubting Thomases?

John Beck: Very little, it's been surprising how positive the response has been to this. We expected that the mothers against video game violence would be after us, and we haven't even gotten negative responses from them. And from corporations we find that people who are managers of the gamer generation, people in early their forties to mid-forties get what we are saying completely. They know that there is a bit of a disconnect, they know that the generation they have grown up with doesn't understand this younger generation.

When we get to older executives, they don't even understand that there is an issue. When I give a talk to a company or group of senior executives they look at me mystified, thinking…"I didn't even know there was a difference." But when you get to the executives in their forties or late thirties, they totally understand there is a disconnect and this is a helpful explanation for them and a way of helping them to think of ways they might be able to make their teams more effective.

Karl Kapp: What would you say to someone who said "This is a typical generation gap? One generation never seems to understand the next?" Is this really that different?

John Beck: I am saying this is a big generation gap. There are always differences between generations. You can go back to the writings of Plato and see there was a generation gap. But the term "generation gap" didn't emerge until the baby boomers came about. And that term emerged not only because there were generational differences but because there was a technology driving the thinking of the world: the technology being television. The baby boomers that grew up with television had a very different look at the world than their parents who did not grow up with television.

Karl Kapp: They could see more of the world and it opened up to them?

John Beck: It did. It opened the world up to them, it wasn't just their community. There was this whole world out there that they were getting from a young age. They were put in front of the television to see Howdy Doody when they were three years old. So that technology drove a lot of attitude.

But one thing about that was that at least the parents knew what was going on with the television. There was one television, and there were only three channels, and usually the family came together to watch the shows. So the metaphors and the topics of conversations that kids engaged in… the parents basically knew about. They knew about Bewitched or Gilligan's Island even if they didn't sit and watch the entire show. They knew what the kids were talking about.

This generation gap, we would argue, is a bigger gap than the last one. Technology is changing the attitudes of the younger generation, but that technology is one that parents don't know about. Gaming is done in the basement, parents walk through and see a screen shot, but they don't get the arc of the story from simply walking by or watching part of the game. They don't know how to use the controllers, and they are afraid to engage with their children because they just don't know how to do it. With television you could sit down passively and just watch. With the games you get pretty bored if you're not involved in playing. So parents really don't get it, the non-gamer generation really doesn't understand the technology that is changing the kids.

Karl Kapp: So there is a different language, different expectations, different skill sets, and the parents just aren't involved with that, typically.

John Beck: Yeah not at all, so I think it's bigger than the usual generation gap.

Karl Kapp: Yeah I have seen that with my son, and I think we have talked about this before, the use of cheat codes. I know a lot of boomers get upset with cheat codes. I tell my son "That's not playing the game using cheat codes." But he says Dad they wouldn't make it available it they didn't want me to use it. To me that seems like a different mind set, a cheat code is cheating to me, but to my eleven year old son that's just part of the game.

John Beck: Yeah, we often have drawn the distinction about how important strategy guides are; you can call them cheat codes if you want. I think the term that the publishing community would like us to use is "Strategy Guides." The use of strategy guides in games is extremely important. But it is interesting to watch people's different uses of them.

I was talking to an editor of Wired Magazine a while ago and he said for his games he keeps his computer on the first floor and all the strategy guides are on the second floor of his house. And he doesn't look at them until he gets stuck, and then he goes upstairs, but he doesn't bring them down. He has to memorize the information he wants and what he is going to do and then comes back down and plays the game. So except for the youngest players, the fun goes out of the game if you just sit there and read the strategy guides. But when you talk to parents, it's interesting, because they say, "My child is learning how to read and is interested in reading because of strategy guides."

Karl Kapp: So video games are driving gamers towards reading which they might not be interested in otherwise.

John Beck: Yes, it is kind of strange. The other thing we say about strategy guides…that we advocate with managers…is to think of themselves as strategy guides. Somebody to go to when things get tough, someone who has the answer or can help them find the answer. We draw the distinction between strategy guides and level boss's. The only time video games use the word "boss" is in the pejorative. A level boss is the monster or the bad guy that you need to get rid of to get to the next level.

Karl Kapp: Someone you have to defeat.

John Beck: Yeah, the one you have to defeat, so you don't want be the boss as a manager, because by definition the boss is bad, and the kids have grown up thinking the boss is bad. As a manager, you want to position yourself as a strategy guide saying "here is the task; here is something that you can do…and you will be a hero," because on all video games the player is always the hero even if they are doing bad things. So here is the task, you can be heroic, its going to be hard, you're going to fail, but I am here to help you out and I have faith that you can get through it but I want you to go and do it. So if you manage people that way, they are very comfortable with that process because they have been dealing with that since were young.

Karl Kapp: So the manager should basically be the guide and guide them along, then that is a good way to manage gamers.

John Beck: Yeah in your terminology you help them with the cheat code. You tell them "here is a way to get through this problem, what you are dealing with is not a problem with the customer, but with the organization. I can help you by putting you in touch with the right people in the organization." Or as a manager you can say "I have seen this before and this is the way you handle it" and send them back to play the "game" some more.

Karl Kapp: Now that would also then provide information to them a little bit at a time, to me that sounds better with this gamer generation than saying you need to do A, B, C, and D.

John Beck: Yeah, you want to give general perimeters and perimeters that can't be broken. If you go back to the analogy of video games versus baseball; baseball has a lot of rules, because basically you are on an open field where you can theoretically do anything you want. So you have to have a bunch of rules that define what is part of the game and what is not. So everyone can play together cooperatively.

In the video game the programmer has created a world that has very, very clear boundaries. There is no getting outside those boundaries unless you manage to find a great hack to ruin the game. Basically the boundaries are set and your goal is to do absolutely anything within those boundaries. If you are walking down a hall, you have to walk all the way down the hall because there might be a secret entrance in the wall. And that is a very different mindset than playing baseball. So you want to set up a team where the rules of what you can't do are clear and distinct and everyone understands them, but give the gamer generation enough leeway so they can be completely creative within those boundaries. They will then be more innovative, more creative and gain more satisfaction with their job. In that type of environment, the gamers will do things that will surprise you as a manger.

Karl Kapp: So if I were a manager, for example a forty year old manager…is it too late for me to sit down and play games and get those lessons?

John Beck: No, not at all. You ought to be doing it. Get a GameBoy yourself. We advocate in the book that you should hand out GameBoys to your board members so they can get involved with what's going on with the younger generation. Talk to the gamer generation about how they would approach a problem and listen for those things that are significantly different from how you would approach a problem. Because a lot of the gamer generation attitudes are reflected in that.

Karl Kapp: A lot of the readers of this interview are learning and development professionals, so what would be the implications for them? Do I need to develop full simulation games like Halo2, or what do I need to do?

John Beck: No, but do use games. I have been using war games as strategy training for 15 years. This is a completely non-computerized game. You can use very simple video games all the way up to full sound, 3-D, great acting video games to get the point across. All of those are out there to a very small degree in the marketplace right now. They are usually highly individualized, and I would argue that they should be in order to get the training point across.

The current technology is just not prohibitive at all to do a simple game to get the point across. Even if you're doing a live training session, sending people off to do a game for a while, and then having them come back and debriefing them is a great way to really talk about the subject. It is certainly much more interesting than the talking heads out there, even though there are some really good talking heads.

I tell people in audiences all the time that I have never met a kid with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) that can't sit in front of a screen and play a video game for 3 or 4 hours. They are bored at school, and they don't pay attention, but that is because they are bored. Games for the gamer generation would not be boring. A well designed game that is designed to get educational value across can be an unbelievable resource and extremely effective.

Karl Kapp: That makes sense. But let me give you an example of what happens in corporations with games. When windows first came out and it was put into corporations, the first thing that the IT department did was take off solitaire because they didn't want employees playing games. And then they had training class after training class designed to teach employees how to double click and drag and drop, when they could have learned all of that if they just kept the solitaire on the machine.

John Beck: (laughs) That is a perfect example, and it is so true. I mentioned before that I do war games. It is usually the very top management of the company that hires me. Ten years ago I had trouble with them when I tried to sell them war games because they didn't like the term "war." That changed recently I can now say "war" with that group all I want, but I still can't say the word "game." They have this kind of thought that "we are executives we don't play games" I remember calling war games "strategic simulations" or "competitive simulations" for the longest time because no one could get past the war game thing. I still find I have to use words like "simulations" or something to make some people happy.

Karl Kapp: That was my question how do you get over that block? It seems that may change over time as these gamers become executives and managers and work their way up the system.

John Beck: It already has, with particular HR executives that grew up playing video games, they think it is the greatest thing ever, and they light up when we talk about it. But that is a minority still, so use words like "simulation" that tends to make people happy.

Karl Kapp: Yeah, slip some euphemisms in there. (laughs) I find competition in games, tends to bring the best out of a lot of people, and they tend to lose track of time. In training sessions you are always looking at the clock and games seem to speed up time.

John Beck: It speeds up time and everything that we are seeing…and we have started to develop a couple of games in my North Star Leadership group…everything we are seeing in the games we are developing is that they are much more effective than any other type of training. It just lodges information in peoples' heads. Information that just doesn't get in their otherwise.

We have a very simple game that we created basically for me, I have a book coming out next month and it is on the topic of Japan. It's a survey book and I would like to be sure of some of the statistics when I go to talk to people about the book. So we created a simple game for me to remember what these different survey numbers are, and it's so effective. I could sit and look at that piece of paper for days and not remember those numbers and get them wrong or invert them. After I play this game for a while, I'm like "Oh, yeah this is 85 percent and this is 80 percent."

Karl Kapp: Very interesting.

John Beck: So as a memorization tool alone it's been helpful, and when you get to conceptual issues like "do I approach the market this way or that way" games are extremely effective. When you have played the game 15 times you think "Oh if I approach it this way it's just dangerous." You will remember those lessons forever because you died 15 times and nothing is better at getting your attention than death.

Karl Kapp: (Laughs) Right, so it's not such a bad thing for a player to die in a game, they just learn a lesson of what not to do.

John Beck: Yeah that's just part of the whole learning and playing experience.

Karl Kapp: I noticed my son will say "If you go that way you are going to die," when he is playing a game but he says "I just want to see what happens if I do this," sort of checking things out.

John Beck: Yeah, and wow what a great entrepreneurial trait to have. For example, nobody else makes all white MP3 players (iPods) that have white cords going into your ears. That's just not done and no one will want that all white device. But someone decided to "check it out" and make it all white, and they made a ton of money doing it.

Karl Kapp: Yeah it flies in the face of all the black and silver stuff that is out there.

John Beck: Yeah, but I'm sure the conventional wisdom before that was, "Oh how stupid that is no one will want those white things they are just too obvious" You just make it a fashion accessory and it is suddenly "cool."

Karl Kapp: What can we expect some day when the gamers become the Chief Executive Officers of organizations?

John Beck: Well I hope when gamers get to that point that they keep a lot of their gamer attitudes. Because in the future, the world will be looking for innovations and a model of leadership that is being learned by these gamers today. They will all have same leadership style. So a lot of efficiency with a lot of innovations occurring and a lot of great thinking. It will be exciting

Karl Kapp: Do you think that game interfaces are going to impact other applications? For example if you go to musicplasma.com, there is a database of circles and the size and color of the circle tells you how popular a song is and the relationship between one artist and the other. Do you see video games influencing regular computer applications?

John Beck: I think they already do to an extent, but potentially, I think you will see more of that. I think that the design models, and good design principals will actually find their way into games. So I think it is fluid in both directions.

Karl Kapp: I heard the other day that EA, the large game company, has about 4,400 employees worldwide. Do you think there will be more gaming companies, since growing up with games is going to help in a lot of ways? Do you think there will be more companies positioning themselves to provide games and educational games in particular?

John Beck: I think the educational world will come to the realization that games are a great way of teaching to the test. Every high school basically now requires a test to get your diploma. So teachers now are basically helping people get through the test. What would be great is if there was a set of games that could help people get the basic knowledge they need, then teaching could be much more about ideas and sharing information and much more human. If our educational system can get to that point and that realization, we will see a boom in game companies, because they will be doing games more than just for entertainment. The game industry already is larger than Hollywood in terms of sales, so it is a huge industry but it will become bigger as it takes on training and education.

Karl Kapp: Yes it does seem to be a big industry and it seems to have an influence everywhere. I teach graduate students so they are on their early 20's, and most of them are gamers because it is a instructional technology program, so what kind of advice would you give to these gamers as they enter into the work force and clash against some boomers and the ideas that they might have?

John Beck: First of all just understanding the reason for the clash and different attitudes will help. Second, bring the non-gamers into your game world and into your way of thinking a little bit, there is a need to be a little bit explicit. Growing up as a gamer, you think that that everyone does it this way because everyone around you does do it that way, but that is not the case with boomers. So make what you are doing and why you are doing it explicit. If you boss can understand game metaphors, use them. I think the more that you can be explicit about your way of thinking, because it is a logical good way of thinking and the way business programs would teach you how to do things. Some times it just takes being explicit about the process.

Karl Kapp: Ok, so explain what you are doing so your boss or manager knows where you are coming from. I can see a lot of struggling between boomers and gamers, boomers have the expectation of no failure and everything has to be perfect, and gamers have the tendency to try things out and then if it doesn't work out they seem to adapt pretty quickly.

John Beck: Sometimes it's just a matter of making it very clear when you are talking to your boss, how many lives do I get on this task. Because if I get a several, I am going to try some wild things, and if I only get one or two I will be more conservative. I think just making those kinds of explicit expectations will make the process much smoother.

Karl Kapp: Yeah I'm finding with my son that he says, "Dad, is a level one difficulty, or a level two difficulty?"

John Beck: Yeah, there is a whole vocabulary that comes out of it, and it will be there for a long time to come.

Karl Kapp: And the term "reset." My son will say "reset" or "start over" when he wants to do something again. The other interesting thing that I noticed is that, he is in sixth grade now, and is going to start studying WWII , and he said "I already know the Axis powers" and I say how do you know that and he says "Age of the Empires" game.

John Beck: There are a lot of games that teach you a lot of history and if you are into those games you can learn a lot. I am fascinated by Neopets, a game on the web. It is like those Tamigatchi electronic pets, but it's on the web. You share pets and train them, and you have to find money and get neopoints. Interestingly, one thing they have is a stock exchange called Neodaq. And this is a site that is 70 percent girls probably from ages 5 to 13. But all these girls at this age are learning the principles of the stock market.

Karl Kapp: That is amazing.

John Beck: Isn't that so cool?

Karl Kapp: That is really cool. We did a workshop one time with Rollercoaster Tycoon for middle school kids. The game keeps track of how much you spend on marketing and how much you invest to build the roller coaster. It's very interesting that you mention about the rules of the game, because the kids worked the rules. For example in the Rollercoaster Tycoon game if you have disgruntled customers you lose points, so the kids would take the disgruntled customer and drown them in the pond.

John Beck: No wonder parents are worried about violence. (laughs)

Dr. Kapp: Yeah, so I guess I can look at that as violence or as working the system.

John Beck: Yes, it's playing the system; the rules allow it…so it is done. So one of the rules in your company should be, and make it explicit and that can't be broken, is that you cannot kill anyone. It will make your job as a manager much easier. (laughs)

Karl Kapp: (Laughs) Yes, corporations will need to create posters that say don't drown your customer.

John Beck: Yes this is true, that is a great story.

Dr. Kapp: The other thing the kids did with that game and, this stuff drives me crazy is that they check how much money the customers have before they come to your park, so right before the customer gets to the park they raise the price and takes all the customer's money. But then I say, "Hey, they can't spend any money, and the reply is…"I don't care I can build a bigger rollercoaster." It's an amazing kind of thought process.

John Beck: (laughs)

Karl Kapp: Well John this has been great, is there anything that you would like to add that you think that someone in the e-learning industry should know about gaming?

John Beck: No, just get out there and start playing video games because they are an invaluable tool.