| Title | Playing at Work: Finding and Designing Play into Virtual Meetings |
| Presenter(s) | Maxwell Foxman, Alex P. Leith, Adam Sulzdorf-Liszkiewicz, David Beyea, Brian Klebig, Luis Graciano, Dalton Bouzek and Rabindra Ratan |
| Session | Conference Reception, Game Exhibition, and Poster Session |
| Time | Wednesday, October 12, 7:00p-9:30p |
| Location | MSU Union Ballroom |
| Format | Poster Presentation |
| Description | The COVID-19 pandemic flooded the landscape of virtual meetings and videoconference with business (e.g., Teams; Zoom), game-like, and social applications (e.g., Gather). However, accompanying this deluge are organizational, social, and psychological stresses ranging from "Zoom Fatigue" to exacerbating problems like unequal talking time and overemphasizing appearance. Our research aims to remedy these issues by exploring and evaluating how meaningful play can impact virtual meetings and platforms. The poster will review the complicated relationship between games and play in organizational settings, where "gamified" systems may afford mixed results even while "play" is useful for work and workers. Secondly, results from a multimethod study of play in virtual meetings will be presented, consisting of an analysis of Twitter messaging of these subjects during the pandemic, interviews with game developers, and a platform analysis of the game Walkabout Mini Golf, which is used for team building and business meetings. |
