Taking the notion of institutionalised rewards maybe a little bit too far, Microsoft has begun awarding achievements to developers.
Earlier today the company unveiled a beta plug-in for the Microsoft’s Visual Studio development environment, which offers 32 achievements for developers based on how well they’re coding. There are even leaderboards, and the achievements can be linked to a Facebook page.
Visual Studio Achievements Program Brings Gamification to Development [Microsoft]
Milali
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 9:27 PMI love it!
Lanky Mikey
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 9:35 PMThe world needs more gamification
Philip B
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 9:37 PMhaha awesome!
Beerin
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 9:57 PMAchievement Unlocked: Programmed a Bullion
Chris B
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 11:58 PMI think you mean Boolean.
Digtrio
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 10:50 PMWhat’s the problem? Why can’t people have a bit of fun at work? Don’t think they’re honestly expecting it to make employees achievement whores or anything.
Aliasalpha
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 11:17 PMImagine the productivity if they did though
ba!
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 11:12 PMnah great idea. We’ve been doing them at work too.
Sar Selack
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 11:51 PM1,000,000 iterations of an infinite loop #achievementunlocked
Seegrey
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12:34 AMI dream of a day when everything is gamified.
What a sweet, sweet, ocd filled time that will be.
Jordaan Mylonas
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 9:01 AMThis is a brilliant move for MS, and a great way to encourage programmers, especially the younger crows, to test out all of the new frameworks they keep releasing. Make an achievement or two based on each feature of the new framework/SDK, and you create a massive incentive to experiment.
James Mac
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 9:43 AMPlus, it’ll make sure things get coded in the same manner… if everyone wants those cheevos they’ll write their code in such a way as to get them.