This is not about the politics but the real games people play in the office like Ping pong, video games (Wii, PC), board games etc. My general observation is that people who started playing a new game and started improvising on it rapidly, showed the same kind of approach towards coding. Apart from the improvisation part, games also provided a platform for people to get together in an informal setting which is not very easily available in the offices other than the coffee table or water cooler. The gaming zones are the breeding ground for people identify like minded ones and also develop camaraderie.
In the last few years I have worked with teams which plays a team game regularly (twice or thrice a week). I noticed many positives after people started playing team games.
People got more comfortable with each other and were quick to share feedback about something not going on fine, those feedbacks were also well received and often in a jovial way.
The teams were anxious to play almost every day which meant the work on the day had to be finished on time, this made the entire team focussed on becoming very efficient to save time for the evening.
The post game retrospectives were so great for some of the strategy games that people made use of that data to plan for next games, which is similar to having iteration retrospectives and planning for the next week. Though the same kind of passion was not evident in the workplace retrospective, I have seen some people referring to a game’s retrospective and set the tone for the team at work.
Overall, games reduced the stress levels for individuals who had been pre-occupied with work the entire day.
Apart from games I have observed music, code jams, craft and arts also help people in similar ways mentioned above. which means
All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. Play games at workplace!
Two things :
1) Advocation of frivolity like gaming, spending time outside office for a couple of minutes, say in a cafe, will in some minds, reduce the credibility of other talk/points one makes.
“Serious people are taken seriously” – Always
2) It is very easy to analogize a business strategy to an instance of bad play and then your own confidence in the strategy will peter out. Does everyone understand the disparate nature of these two ideas? Nope.
Novi's 
Two things :
1) Advocation of frivolity like gaming, spending time outside office for a couple of minutes, say in a cafe, will in some minds, reduce the credibility of other talk/points one makes.
“Serious people are taken seriously” – Always
2) It is very easy to analogize a business strategy to an instance of bad play and then your own confidence in the strategy will peter out. Does everyone understand the disparate nature of these two ideas? Nope.
P.S. look who’s talking – I play all the time:)
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