We were floored when we found out that our most famous Go Game alum and Gamification Guru, Jane McGonigal was going to be delivering the Keynote for TechEd! SAP is looking seriously at how game mechanics can be integrated into work, and who better to describe its virtues than Jane? And who better to build a game, and give attendees a hands-on tutorial in all things game-y than The Go Game? We’ve followed Jane’s career arc with great interest and enthusiasm over the years. She’s been a great flag-bearer for our industry and we like to think that we played a small part in her development as a game designer! It was so timely to have her encourage all the attendees to play Knowledge Quest the night before it kicked off. We’d spent the previous 2 months building a robust game engine that would host up to 5000 players at any given moment.

The design of the game was a slight departure for us. We included some of our fun scavenger-style and creative missions (wouldn’t really be a Go Game without them), but they took a backseat to the SAP-centric, content-driven challenges that made up a large part of the game. The attendees (few of whom knew one another) were there to learn about what’s new at SAP - and it’s a packed 3 days. We literally saw dudes with their heads on fire. 

After each session, players would log into the game (via latop, tablet, phone) and answer questions (written by the presenter) about what they’d just learned. Viola – points! And you’ve reinforced what you just absorbed. Additionally, the players could fill out a survey of each session as part of the game (for more points, of course). The feedback will make next years’ TechEd even more insightful.

We built an intake site for the Session Teachers and the Exhibit Hall Partners to enter their unique content into the game in the form of ‘missions.’ This isn’t the first time we’ve gamified a trade show, so we knew it was going to be fun. Part information-sharing, part networking, these missions are a perfect case for why ‘game-like’ interactions work so well in these instances. People want to network, and they want to talk about the products and services they use/sell, but approaching one another without the ‘grease’ of a game-layer can make the interactions feel forced or awkward. Nothing gets people out of their shells like fast, easy-to-complete challenges.