Introduction
Journey to the Heart of the Gamification of Work

The precursor to what we today call "gamification" within work organizations, the first so-called "business" game (game of competitive simulation), began in Switzerland in 1926, in what was called the "house of fictional commerce" of Galliker. What we will later call business games developed in the 1950s. According to Kaufmann et al. [KAU 76, p. 17], the first business games, designed to train senior managers, actually appeared in 1956-1957, "from the efforts of the American Management Association (AMA) and of the Mac Kinsey Co.". Little by little other forms of game emerged, whose field expanded from purely commercial simulations to include team building, management training, recruitment and evaluation of staff or their emulation.

But one of the (surprising) avant-gardes of management games and the gamification of work was Soviet Russia. The American researcher Mark J. Nelson [NEL 12] reports Lenin's valorization of "socialist competition", a principle which Stalin would take up under the term "socialist emulation" (Nelson indicates that this lexical change signaled the wish to not put the workers in competition but to push them to do their best). With this principle, performance was encouraged in mills and factories with the aid of points and medals (for example the Order of the Red Banner of Labor). These competitions did not allow or award bonuses or material gains (considered too reminiscent of capitalist principles) but to displays "of encouragement and recognition". Nelson reports that in Soviet Russia, the aim of the game was not to encourage productivity alone, but that also sometimes, games might be organized around "the elevation of the cultural level of the worker" or sporting contests. He finally stresses the "mandatory" dimension of such games whose goal was to stimulate productivity and whose participants, although coerced, were supposed to "voluntarily" achieve "ever higher production quotas" [NEL 12, p. 26].

Turning toward serious games and in a direction which we might call more "mechanistic", of transferring game activities into work activities in the form of games that are no longer directly social but mediated by machines, again the process has relatively ancient roots if we consider the genesis of "Learning Machines" reported by Bordeleau [BOR 99]. The first patent for one of these machines - which were not, he explains, originally games - was filed in 1809 in the United States by H. Chard for a mode of teaching reading involving two rolling strips of paper. There followed an attempt by Edison at a Home Teaching Machine based on the phonograph. In the 1920s, an American psychology professor named Pressey proposed a Drum Tutor (1924). This machine was presented as an automated quiz that functioned by the validation of successive stages. The following decades saw educational schemes using radio, television and subsequently computer programming. Bordeleau identifies the formulation of a ludic principle linked to these machines as early as the 1950s with the cybernetician Gordon Pask, who argued that "a sort of dialogue must be established, a sort of cooperative game between the student and the machine, which must adapt to the student's answers and not the reverse. The machine must take account equally of the student's poor responses and their good responses, of the type of error made and of the response time; it must vary the difficulty of the questions based on these data" [BOR 99, p. 13]. It was finally in the 1970s that the first conceptualization of the serious game appeared in its current use and definition [ABT 70]. In effect, Abt proposed designing simulation games for teaching purposes, initially not exclusively in computing, although he had himself, as Alvarez reports, "worked on the design of TEMPER, a computer simulation game used for Cold War training" [ALV 12, p. 94]. For Abt, all kinds of games can be included among serious games, whether company role-playing games or even outdoor games [ALV 12]. Their primary goal is not amusement, as he explains in the introduction to his work, but education: "We are concerned with serious games in the sense that these games have an explicit and carefully thought-out educational purpose and are not intended to be played primarily for amusement" [ABT 70, p. 9].

I.1. Ludification and managerial practices in the "fun work environment"

Concerning the increase in the use of games in enterprises, it seems to coincide in France with the new modes of management appearing in the last quarter of the 20th Century; a phenomenon linked to the democratization of higher education and gradually individualized demands for more freedom, creativity and authenticity in work relations [BOL 99]. Demands for emancipation, pleasure in work, and creativity in ways of performing one's own work were raised by more and more qualified individuals, and could now be mediated by games and the dimensions of pleasure in play. These uses of games would lead to what would be called the "ludification" of the universe of work, ensuring a festive, convivial environment within which games would have their place. By ludification we do not intend what would be a French translation of "gamification", but a wider meaning as suggested by Bonenfant and Genvo [BON 14] and Picard [PIC 08] referring to the increasing importance of the ludic (incorporating celebration, leisure, games, media, etc.) in society. Ludification leads to the "more general trend where games (not only video games, which are certainly a factor, but games in general, the ludic) take a more and more important place in today's society" ([PIC 09] cited by [GEN 14]). The traditional concept of a game which must take place in a space and time separated from those of work has been gradually supplanted by a thought where the distinction between the two categories play/work is no longer so clear, and according to which a ludic, festive dimension may be useful to work, as permitting knowledge-sharing, relaxation, and motivation. The time and space of work have become ludified. If communication within some organizations has led to the development of areas or times for play in order to relax employees (flipper tables, ping pong, go-kart racing, network games within the company, etc.), we thus speak of ludification.

The main objective of ludification in the immediate context of work is "fun" or amusement, which prevails here over the question of learning. These initiatives would be observed in the United States, then in France, as early as the 1990s, beginning with the so-called "new economy" sector (digital start-ups, Internet, video games) and in entertainment1. What North American human resources departments define as a "fun work environment" would consist of: "a fun work environment intentionally encourages, initiates and supports a variety of enjoyable and pleasurable activities that positively impact the attitude and productivity of individuals and groups (.) a fun work setting is created through actions, including funny, humorous or playful activities, that publicly communicate management's belief to the employee that the personal and the professional accomplishment he or she has achieved are valued by the organization" [FOR 03, pp. 22-23]. Nelson speaks of "funsultants", meaning management consultants who promote ludification: that is, working toward the development of a work environment that combines celebrations, games and relaxation. The breakdown of the traditional work/leisure distinction, underlined by Boltanski and Chiapello [BOL 99], will thus take place in a professional universe that has become compatible with personal fulfillment, amusement and relaxation among employees, in the aim of efficiency at work.

Keeping employees amused at work by providing them with space for games or sport, or time for celebration, is therefore part of this ludification, and its direct objective is team bonding and supposed "well-being at work", which is argued to foster the creativity and confidence conducive to taking initiative [SAV 03]. Indirectly, it promotes longer hours spent at work [BAL 09], a good internal as well as external image for management, and in particular attracting new employees [FOR 03] or even a reduction in absenteeism and turnover2. The issues for "funsultants" are motivational, and aim to act on the context of work - to build emotional ties between the employee and their colleagues as partners in play and at their place of work, to leave no room for boredom, to channel stress3 - rather than to act on their skills as such as, for example, serious games attempt to do. There is however a secondary goal to this motivational goal: the possibility of intervening in people's behavior at work and in particular, according to the oft-repeated formula, improving their "know-how-to-be": energy, smiling and "positive emotions" may also be spread within a business, but also to partners and customers [BAL 09, KIN 00, ALF 03, FOR 03]. Baldry and Hallier stress the insufficiency of previous managerial strategies to get workers committed, not to their work, but with respect to their organization: "(.) these efforts have failed to develop substantial levels of workforce commitment, but also employees generally have seen the contrasts...