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Designing A Corporate Game Room? 86

douglawson writes "We're designing a virtual PC team game room for the corporation I spend my days at. The idea here is to create an internal space for team gaming, both for recreational and executive team-building events. If you could dream, what would be in your ideal space? What games, what seating, what sound system, what else?"
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Designing A Corporate Game Room?

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  • by 74Carlton ( 129842 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:39PM (#6785583)
    I'm going to short your stock.
  • by Strike ( 220532 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:40PM (#6785588)
    What corporation is this? Are they hiring?
  • and a water dispenser
  • What Do You Mean? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wzm ( 644503 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:45PM (#6785624) Homepage

    What's meant by "Team Gaming"? I'd focus on turn based strategy games, and maybe puzzle games, even if you can just find single player ones (get a couple people to play them at once). Think about also buying board games, war games, etc., just sitting around playing Quake and other FPS (team based or otherwise) doesn't seem like it would build camaraderie to me.

    As an aside do places like your work really still exist? I thought that sort of thing had gone out of style with the dot-coms.

    • Actually, just the opposite. We played Quake3 together a bunch where I work. (Only past tense because we have moved on to other games). Those were some of the best times because of the extremely simple gameplay, very large possible player limit and short amount of time required to play.

      Also consider Enemy Territory. I really promotes teamwork, and, best of all, its free. Outside of an FPS, when are you going to be able to feed your boss a rocket then have a good laugh about it later? Just remember, d
      • Battlefield 1942 [eagames.com] is another game that's great for team building because of it's AI. Jump into a co-op game and let the staff be the Allies. Let the bots be the Axis. No gunning down your coworkers that way, and if you do the game penalizes you.

        To win a BF1942 match with the odds stacked against you (Axis to Allies ratio of 2:1 or better) takes teamwork and coordinated attacks. Like counterstrike, each a player can choose between different roles (engineer, scout, etc.). One of the best matches I ever pla


    • Tribes 2, for example, where one side can win when they're all playing lone cowboys, but a side playing as a team will completely crush them, even if the team is outnumbered. The obvious examples: some of the weapons aren't really effective unless you have a teammate with a targeting laser. Most of the vehicles require multiple people on board to be anything other than a way to get from A to B.

  • Er. Types of games? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Violet Null ( 452694 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:47PM (#6785636)
    My first thought upon reading this was team based games, mostly FPS or RTS -- Tribes2 and Starcraft popped into my head immediately.

    But upon rereading it, I can't imagine why you'd bother, from a corporate perspective. Unless you're planning on pitting department against department or project team against project team.

    (I totally get it from a recreational point of view; but I can't imagine a corporation shelling money or space for this unless they've just got too much to burn.)

    If you're deadset on the competitive game play, I'd split it into two or more rooms, of course, so that teammates could talk to eachother without having the "enemy" overhear. And, you'd want, whatever game you picked, some method so that people could store their profile, so that no matter which computer they sat at, they'd have it set up to their liking. Windows on a domain can do this with roaming profiles, or if you have a small number of games, you can simply see how they store their config files and write a small app to fetch someone's specific files from a repository and overwrite them on a computer.
    • My first thought upon reading this was team based games, mostly FPS or RTS

      I imagine you have to be very careful with bad losers if you go team vs. team - people can be very touchy about this, especially when they lose publically. A better option could be teamplay vs. the computer. Totally depends on the people you are playing with.

      This is surely a good way to get a raise...
  • EQ? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tempermental ( 700662 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:47PM (#6785641)
    If they set up a room and let them all play Everquest they may never want to leave work...

    They could use that as an incentive to finish projects quicker... or...

    PHB: This project is truly shoddy. Smithers, delete his character...

    Employee: Noooooooo.... I'll do overtime! I promise! For free!

    PHB: Agreed. This time. Next time it's the Newbie Hunting Ground for you!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:48PM (#6785644)
    The company I used to work for got it into its head that it should provide this kind of "game room" for its employees, and I can tell you what happened as a result: Productivity dropped faster than Howard Dean's approval ratings. Folks, I realize that this might be a shocker, but (get ready for it) you are at work to perform work, not play games. If you believe that employees will limit themselves to "15 minute" game breaks, you're being totally naive. It was not unusual for people to spend an entire afternoon in the game room (charging it all to the company, of course.)

    After a month, we realized that the game room was a rediculous failure and dismantled it.

    The bottom line is this: We live in a capitalistic society, and the creation of wealth is the cornerstone that keeps this country on top of the world. Paying employees somebody else's money so they can sit around and play video games is not capitalism. In fact, it is very close to capitalism's opposite, whose name I dare not say (might trip the corporate Internet filter and invite some unwanted attention.) Keep the games for before 7:00 AM and after 5:00 PM. The work day should be spent (gasp!) working and being a productive member of our society.
    • How much time do you spend on /. while at work? :)
    • n fact, it is very close to capitalism's opposite

      Laziness? Unproductivity? Thats not commumism. Commumism (generally believed to be capitalism's opposite) is basically slavery, where you are forced (upon an unspecified threat, exile at best) to work for the benefit of society. Work harder, smarter, longer or faster, and you dont get any benefit.

      No, somewhere where you dont do any productive work, and spend you days lounging arround, is called college.
    • by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @01:11PM (#6785891) Journal
      Sorry boss. Here in California we are required to take something called "lunch" and are also entitled to little things called "breaks". We found that it actually was more productive to have leisure activities available on our campus. The employees were less likely to go elsewhere during this time, and were thus more likely to be back from break on time. Its really win/win. Happier people who are at work more.
    • Your views on game rooms are as false as your assertions about Dean's approval ratings:
      http://www.gallup.com/subscription/?m=f & c_id=13764

      In no workplace I have been where there was a game room was there ever any noticible negative impact on productivity. The bottom line is this: happy workers are more productive. A game room is a small investment, and in some places it will pay off in increased productivity. If people hang out in the game room all day rather than doing working, you have much more
    • We don't have a corporate room for gaming, but a bunch of us at work get together about once every 2 to 3 months for a LAN session (out of hours), and we have a all-day on-site LAN game which is corporatly approved (well, they provide the overhead projector for the day). This is something we all talk about, look forward to, and has become one of the highlights of our team. Additionally, it's an event which has brought us a little closer together than NOT doing it. We've done the wine tours, hiring a boat
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Paying employees somebody else's money so they can sit around and play video games is not capitalism.

      well, as a game tester at a respectable company, i would have to disagree with ya there.. maybe you should just find a job that lets you play games all day too!

    • ...so that is one way of looking at it. Here's another:

      * We learn through games
      * We do build connections with others when we share common games
      * Just like the Internet, gamerooms by themselves do not damage productivitity. Poor management does.

      I cannot believe all of the resistance to this idea. I'm excited and inspired by it. One of the things that corporations do poorly is promote constant education among employees. Training is often an intermittent and uncertain activity.

      A Gameroom wo
    • There is so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start.

      But I'll try. here goes:

      I don't know what you do at work all day, but I am a programmer. I write PERL code. Lots of PERL code.

      I can sit at my machine, some days, for 5 or 6 hours straight just blasting out the code like a machine.

      Other days, come the hour mark, I'm ready to gouge out my eyes. What do I do? I go kill a few minutes, sometimes even 10 or 15 of them. Then I try to go back to it. Frequently, I find that I am once again
    • Sounds like you just hired some really bad employees. Yes, we live in a capitalistic society but any employee that gets hired should have a level of knowledge that allows him to acknowledge that he is gonna get fired or his company is going to go bankrupt if he does that.

      Blaim it on the people who chose who to hire.

  • It's not 1999 anymore!

    The dot-bombs are all out of business!
  • Assuming that you either have 10 or more people regularly, and/or plan on having internet access. Enemy Territory [enemy-territory.com] is a blast. Moreover, it relies on teamplay, if all you have is a bunch of people running around, playing death-match or Lewis and Clark the videogame, your team tends to lose, fast. And, best of all, its completely free, you don't even have to pirate it. Though, it does require a good bit of horsepower. Nothing under a P4 (not Celeron, never Celeron), and at least the GeForce 4 Ti4800 or bett
    • I play on a Duron 900MHz, with a GeForce 2 MX.

      And it's just fine. I can't imagine you'd be able to buy a machine now that wouldn't be able to run ET passably (for non-hardcore players).

      Disclaimer: make sure the machines are reasonably similar.
    • AND: I scooped this out from QuakeCon, looks like somebody is trying to make a gaming chair: www.thegamedeck.com Mix this up with EnemyTerritory and you'll spend a many "late night at work, honey", and the best thing is, you're not even lying to your wife....
  • Games like Natural Selection (naturalselection.org I think) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein are both excellent team oriented FPS that are team oriented (as opposed to say, a normal FPS where even if you have a Red vs Blue team, its not really "team work" that wins).

    RTS games like SC or WC3 are good, although perhaps going with single player "adventure" games (with puzzles and such) and havng the team work as a group to solve the puzzles, with the winning team being the one to beat the game (or a set numbe
  • In my opinion, this should be an Ask Slashdot story, and that as such, you should ask google. Ironically, I really mean, you should read up on the environment that Google has setup. I know that it's part of their corporate culture to have a pretty relaxed environment, with a lot of perks. My guess is that they have a very good gaming/recreactional computer room in their offices.

    Oh, and also look for stories about the height of the dot.com.

    My personal opinion, is that it should be as relaxed a room as

  • Jeez - the Slashdot story submission queue is really broken! This story must have been sitting there for four to five years.

    A game room? The economy is tanking and corporations are considering a game room? That's management for you.

    • Just remember, not everyone's economy is tanking. Yes, we think of the US economy as a whole, but usually it is in a state of yin/yang.

      Maybe this is one of those companies that dismantles and auctions off failed companies.

      Or, they are lawyers that specialize in wrongful termination suits.

      Or, maybe they publish Harry Potter books.

      Maybe they invested wisely in the Beanie Baby market.

      Believe it or not, a lot of people are still making money- the tech sector may blow (oh yeah..maybe they are Columbian dru
  • I was tech support @ an isp for a couple years. My job was essentially to play quake 2, UT, and whatever else I could bring in on our support machines.

    Despite the distraction of playing video games ALL day (8-10 hours depending) I was still one of the highest rated tech support people there. It was really a very good idea to be able to frag others online while dealing with the user (four letter word) on the other end of that phone.

    The only thing that would have made it better would have been a 2nd compu
  • As far as I can tell, a 'virtual PC' is one of those cardboard faux computers they put on the display desks at office supply stores.

    Maybe I'm incorrect. Are there simulated PCs in some of the games I haven't played? Now that I think about it, there's a computer in one room in 'Day of the Tentacle' that you can walk up to and play Maniac Mansion on.

    Is that the sort of thing you're talking about?
  • by xTown ( 94562 )
    Why have a separate room? Why not just play in your offices, say over the lunch hour, and save a few minutes to talk about it afterwards?
    • Oh, I missed the 'executive team-building' the first time around. Still, the point stands.

      Of course, it depends on what kinds of executives you've got, but if they're like ours, they want nothing to do with gaming and would rather make out-of-shape desk jockeys go rock climbing for "team-building".


  • Let's see.... I think a big solid wood table, surrounded by plush leather executive seats.... and a set of buttons by my chair so I can drop random people into the firey pit!

    Oh, and a big tank filled with killer sea bass with frikkin lasers on their heads.

    And I'd need a really massive plasma screen... no, make that a holo-projector built into the table... so I can hook into the corporation's satellite network, and spy on random people... just because I can.

    Yeah. That would be a good entertainment room.
  • just buy couple of used arcade games, preferably with not just one type of games.. but like, one sega rally(2)(or few linked), some fighting game, some puzzle bobble type of game and if possible some classic game from '80s. heck, add a shooter to that too.

    if it weren't a company i'd recommend building a mame cabinet and loading it up with all the games, but it could end up quite bitchy, right?

    generally you wouldn't have people standing in front of them for all day long but the games would still be fun onc
    • Another idea is to make the machines take company "tokens" that each employee gets a set number of (per week/month). That could cut out excessive gaming.
  • I think that anyone who has replied that you shouldn't have a game room in the first place is bitter. We have one in my office w/ an Xbox, Ps2, Gamecube, and Dreamcast. Nobody really uses it much, but I think that is only because it is not comfortable. It is just an empty office with a tv and two seats. A game room needs to be inviting. A sofa would be the biggest improvement we could make.
  • by pudge_lightyear ( 313465 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @01:33PM (#6786106) Homepage
    That you WILL work late and unreasonable hours (and weekends).

    This is pretty much just a heads-up to anyone who owns or runs a development company.

    I went to interview at a company in New Orleans several years ago. They were very proud to show me their beautiful gameroom with ping-pong, pool, several card games and a couple of arcade games. Right when I walked into the room I knew for a fact that I would be turning that job down.

    A company that feels the need to boost moral by installing a game room or something similar is a company that expects you to be there night and day, day and night. They realize that your being there all of the time with nothing to take agression, etc out with will be bad for moral and make you constantly consider quitting.

    Take these two situations. Two companies expect you to work 60 - 80 hours a week. One has a game room, one does not. The one with the gameroom typically also has a looser environment and lighter dress code. Their employees are much happier than those at the company with no game options... but, they are still OVERWORKED!

    No thanks... I took company number three that expects you to put in 40 hours (+- 5) per week. They're out there... they're all over the place as a matter of fact. And... none of them have game rooms. Their employees are happier because they have time outside of work to fulfill themselves... not because they can play the latest shoot 'em up on their 5th break of the day at 9 at night.
  • Buildout (Score:3, Informative)

    by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @01:36PM (#6786126) Homepage
    Ok, if you're serious about doing this kind of thing (and others have more than adequately covered the reasons why or why not to), then have you considered buying a Xbox or PS2 instead of PCs? They'll need less maintainance and are styled more toward same room playing than PCs. You'll need one or more consoles, and some large TVs. This'll be a lot cheaper than PCs too -- even with a large (50") TV, you can skimp on the TV -- you don't need high def, and large SDTV sets are dirt cheap now - under $1k. Heck, one TV and console per seat would probably still be cheaper than a high end gaming PC.

    If you are going with PCs, don't even buy speakers for them. Buy decent quality headphones instead, but ones where you can still hear the rest of the room. Nothing's worse than a half dozen PCs playing sound through speakers for the same game -- since the sound is invariably oriented toward the individual player on the PC.

    Consider how you're going to divide the room up -- if you have competitive games, then you'll need to provide some dividers to ensure you can't "cheat" by looking at a competitor's screen, or by overhearing shouted instructions/information. Doing minimal soundproofing that's configurable will be a hell of a challenge if you want to do this right.

    Chairs? Buy what ever is the office standard. For God's sake don't buy better chairs for the gaming room than the rest of the office. That'll just piss people off and you'll either end up with the gaming room chairs disappearing (and regular chairs appearing if you're lucky) or people spending more time than you expect in the gaming area just because the chairs are more comfy.

    Games? Consider co-op vs computer oriented games heavily. That's pretty key for team building. For after hours playing, employees are more likely to want competitive games though. I'd actually suggest UT2003 here for both -- the Invasion mode (in one of the free expansions) is a decent co-op mode, while every other mode is obviously competitive. There are damn few co-op modes out there now, at least if you want decent computer oponents (UT2k3 doesn't have decent computer opponents... it merely relies upon tons of enemies which get tougher and tougher).

    If you go with PCs, you'll probably want some way of displaying the action from any one PC on a large screen for observers. Just get PCs with svideo output, a switchbox (either with remote control or accessible by observers), and an aforementioned large screen TV. Consider that you'll want one screen per "area", with the ability to easily block off viewing a competitor's screen.

    I'd honestly consider ditching running competitive games, since that's where most of the difficulty comes in if you want to do it "right". That or do it and tell people not to cheat by the obvious methods, or to deal with it occurring.

    If you have any local LAN parties or gaming cafes, go to them and see how they do things. They're in this for the competition/money and certainly know more about this than I do.
    • Excellent idea-

      Xboxes can be linked, you can have up to 16 people playing together.

      NBA Street, with 4 'real' players would be awesome, and is much more team oriented than an FPS.

      Since you would have dough (Xboxes being less than PC's) you could use the linking more than split-screen, it would just cost more for the TV's.

      Also, you can use Xbox live- which might de-complicate things.

      I know that I have far more social interaction when playing on my Xbox, than my PC- even when I am playing an FPS with my o
  • IMO a really good turn based strategy game like Worms II would be an excellent choice. It will run on practically any hardware, and the characters are both amusing and cute (like lemmings almost). People I know who hate computer games loved this one. Plus it doesn't take that long to learn, and after 4 years it's the one game I still play on a regular basis. Team 17 did an excellent job constructing that game.

    On the other hand, I think game-playing in the office is going to have a lot of pitfalls. Wh

  • Better idea... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @01:54PM (#6786292) Homepage
    A pinball table. Pinball lends itself to short gaming sessions and friendly competition. It'll also appeal to a wider cross-section of staff.
    • Only if it's soundproof.

      I've got a pinball machine in my office (Triple Action by Williams [pipex.com]). It's fun, but it's loud. Just make sure nobody's gonna get annoyed by the sounds.
      • For the pinball machine in our office (The Simpsons Pinball Party) we bought some Dynamat soundproofing material and soundproofed the bottom of the cabinet, then we put foam flipflops under the legs. It makes a big difference in the sound that can be heard outside the room. We were also going to put some foam baffles inside, but the flipflops and Dynamat were enough for our purposes. I'd say that it's about 50% quieter. You might want to try it out, Dynamat is pretty easy to find online and Target has f
    • Re:Better idea... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Bluetrust25 ( 647829 )
      We bought The Simpsons Pinball Party for the office here last spring. Most people (even the girls) play it daily. We're all pretty good at it. I think the game is a positive thing for the company. It helps contribute to the relaxed, informal atmosphere here.

      I wouldn't recommend a pinball machine for most workplaces though. It would be too much of a distraction in a cubicle farm/concrete hive.

      It works for us because we're really more like a think tank. We're inventors. A quick pinball game is a good
  • Let the employees build it from older (perhaps donated) machines. No no no not Commodore 64s (though I recall some fun games from back then) but early PIIIs at best.

    There are some great team-building games AND competitive games from that time. Some games were cross-overs (could be either).

    Think about games that have become classics. They were meant to run on the older machines. Titles such as Star Craft, or even better Command and Conquer: Red Alert provide either head to head, team vs. team, or tea

  • by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Monday August 25, 2003 @02:00PM (#6786358) Homepage Journal
    First, you need a time machine. Set it for... 1998 or so. Shouldn't you people be working?

    BTW, nice to take those HR enforced 'team building excercises' and turn it into a round of 'frag the phb'. That's thinking outside the box.
  • by truffle ( 37924 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @02:18PM (#6786519) Homepage

    I would recommend going with consoles over PCs. They are more personable. The games are easier, and more suited to short gaming breaks. They're also more personable, everyone can see what you're playing. As a bonus, it is unlikely anyone will surf for porn on your 36" TVs.

    Make sure you have at least one big-ass TV. After that you can put in somewhat smaller TVs.

    For chairs - go with couches and lounge chairs. Think comfee. At the same time make it clear this is not a junk room.

    For game management, buy a few CD binders, have a physical sign out list. This will stop the games from walking.

    Set an initial game purchasing budget of how many dollars, then have a monthly budget for continual purchasing of new games. Allow interested employees to submit requests to whomever is in charge of game purchasing.

    Online play is certainly possible but I don't see any need for it, this is for your employees playing together and having fun. I'm pretty sure you can netowork X-boxes and have massive Halo tournements without going online.

    In terms of what platform, I would recommend you choose either PS2 or X-Box. There isn't really a need for multiple platforms. This isn't supposed to be the room where people get to play specific titles for specific platforms, this is the games room. The X-Box for example has lots of great games, it should be fine if you go with all X-boxes. Because of Halo, I think this may be the best choice.
    • The Xbox has lots of great games? Hmmm, I count Halo and Knights of the Old Republic, though I doubt anyone at work has time to play the latter and it can take a while to get good at the former. Any other good game for Xbox can be bought on the PS2 or the Gamecube.

      PS2 has easily the largest selection of games. I am not aware of very many that are easy to sit down and play multiplayer quickly(other than sports titles of course), though I am sure they must have them.

      PS2 and Xbox both have the DVD features,
      • I'm actually a PS2 gamecube owner, not a fan of the x box!

        For a corporate environment, I think gamecube is really not a good idea, it is after all a wimpy kids console. Are the games kick ass and fun? Hot damn yes. But, that's how it's perceived.

        I do think the PS2 has overall better games than the X-Box but I think the X-box has enough good games to keep a corporate game room well stocked. I think that Halo is in itself a good enough reason to make it the official console of your corporate game room. X-b
  • by Hell O'World ( 88678 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @02:44PM (#6786720)
    Auggh! 90s flashback! It's a good thing "That 80s Show" was a flop, or somebody would be already creating a hilarious situation comedy about a code shop in San Fransico, with "internal space for team gaming."
  • Don't overlook board games. There are many good board games that provide a greater level of human interaction than computer games, which is useful for the stated object of team building.

    Check out boardgamegeek.com [boardgamegeek.com] for a comprehensive database of board and card games.

    Ones that I would recommend include:

    • Carcassonne/Carcassonne Hunters & Gatherers
    • Puerto Rico
    • Through the Desert
    • Ricochet Robot
    • Set
    • Apples to Apples
    • Nicht die Bohne

    Tastes differ, however, so a decent selection would be a good idea (a

    • Don't forget the greatest boardgame ever concieved: Junta!

      A great game of intrigues and backstabbing in the south american republic of Los Bananas.
      Enormously entertaining and fun for all. The trick is that no player can win it on their own steam, you have to intrique and play the others against eachother to profit, but don't be to obvious about it, or they'll gang up and overthrow you.

      Beware of whoever wins constantly at this game. That person is likely a sneaky, manipulative bastard you should better
  • Monopoly, Stratego, Hungry Hungry Hippos and Twister.

    Plus a single Apple with Number Munchers and Oregon Trail.

    That should satisfy your needs.

  • Ever had your office next to one of the game rooms? Major distraction. Even when I worked at a game company, we had a rule that no one used the arcade games, LAN or pool tables until after 5pm. It was just too loud.

    Personally, I think the money is better spent giving it back to the employees in forms of bonuses, gifts or what have you. Try giving your employees a PS2 or XBox instead.

  • put a real game in there: a pinball machine
  • I'd heavily suggest a ping pong table, a pool table or an ice hockey table. Or perhaps foosball. :P For computer games, a nice FPS like Quake, Doom or Half Life for the quick, "gotta kill something" for stress relief. Any of the Sim games (not the Sims, but Sim Ant, Sim Tower, Sim City, etc...) for management and organizational skills. And then for team competitions, perhaps a game like Age of Empires/Empire Earth/WarCraft, etc, any nice RTS game really that you can have teams...
  • Of course, it depends on your company very much (number of employees, organisational structure, type of work, etc.), but I would suggest you first start with the computers you already have and experiment. You might want to limit this initially to mid-day and after-work W3 matches or something (the games depend very much on the tastes of the workers).

    But if/when you are ready to move to a dedicated game-room, I have the following suggestions:
    1) for recreation: if you want people to spend short gamebreaks pl

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