ABSTRACT
Games often walk a fine line between work and play. We engage in repetitive tasks, follow someone else’s rules and strive to stay one step ahead of our colleagues — all to accomplish small goals that, if we weren’t being paid for playing a game, we would never bother with. Sure, some games feature tasks we naturally enjoy, like hitting plastic moles on the head. But many games ask us to perform tasks that at first glance seem barely more diverting than playing with an Excel spreadsheet. And nowhere is this more true than in strategy and management games-from time management to resource management. These games force players to keep track of multiple elements while furiously clicking around the screen trying to keep everything on track. As if this didn’t feel enough like work, the games often take a workplace as their setting, like an office or a diner. And then there’s that name for the mechanic harkening us back to the office: managing. It’s a wonder anyone would want to play these games.
