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Deloitte Hopes To Make Training As Fun As Call of Duty

If you're anything like me, sometimes after a long day of slaving away for the man, your first thought is to pop a beer, kick off your shoes and cap some mofos in your favorite violent video game. I mean the whole reason some of us grow up is to be able to play the MA games, right?

As my esteemed colleague briefly mentioned in the ANR earlier this week, Deloitte is hoping its recently-launched "gamification" training might get both staff and clients all cracked out on training like 35 year old single guys living in their mom's basements:

"Training is a funny thing," James Sanders, Manager of Innovation at Deloitte Consulting, told me recently. "No matter how easy you make it to access, or how brilliant the learning programs are, training is simply not the first thing people think of doing when they have some free time. Let's face it, for most people, on a typical Sunday morning, if given the choice between 'Am I gonna watch ESPN, or am I gonna do some training?' training will not win out."

And yet, by using gamification principles, Deloitte has seen use of its Deloitte Leadership Academy (DLA) training program increase. Participants, who are spending increased amounts of time on the site and completing programs in increasing numbers, show almost addictive behavior. Since the integration of gamification in to Deloitte Leadership Academy, there has been a 37 percent increase in the number of users returning to the site each week.

"Almost addictive behavior" huh? Can someone who has had the joy of cappin' fools in DLA confirm this?

According to the article, DLA found that by "embedding missions, badges, and leaderboards into a user-friendly platform alongside video lectures, in-depth courses, tests and quizzes, users have become engaged and more likely to complete the online training programs." I guess it beats being the mayor of "The Cube To Which I Am Chained" on foursquare.

BTW, the iOS download of DLA's "game" has a whopping one and a half star rating. Having been addicted to a few real iOS games in my day, I have some doubts as to how "addicted" users really are, no matter how bad Deloitte wants us to believe otherwise.

I think I'd rather stick to being called names by 10 year olds better at taking me out with a single headshot on Counter Strike, thank you very much.