By Joel Loynds
Copyright escapistmagazine
A laundry company, Maruwa, in Japan that specialises in hospital and hotel sheets and towels, has integrated an idle game into its factory line. The “game”, Real Focus Synergy, is an idle game with city-building mechanics. It’s developed by Nissho Denki Seigyo, which isn’t a games developer. It usually operates within the industrial machine space, with its site promoting its control panels at the top.
It’s not the only game available, though. On Nissho’s website, there’s also a competitive game, just called Real Focus. Synergy is a team-based game, encouraging, well, teamwork.
Reported and translated by Automaton, Shohei Shinto of Nissho had to approach Epic Games, the developers of Unreal and Fortnite, for cooperation. According to Shinto, the Jazz the Jackrabbit company was more than happy to oblige with the gamification of washing laundry at an industrial scale.
The result, Real Focus Synergy, has managed to improve performance amongst the Maruwa employees. According to Shinto, Maruwa has seen between 8% and 18% gains in getting the job done:
“As it is getting more socially acceptable to ‘have fun’ working on the production line, I feel video games intended for use in manufacturing could potentially advance even further.”
Epic is everywhere now
Epic has, outside of the gaming industry, branched further and further into various other sectors. Outside of helping gamify the workspace, it’s notably become a go-to for new techniques employed on sets. For instance, parts of Disney’s Star Wars show, The Mandalorian, are shot using Unreal Engine as an elaborate matte painting.
The game itself, as mentioned above, is an idle city builder. As laundry is deposited to be washed, it kicks off a timer that will let the characters move on screen. To keep up with the building aspect, just work harder. Just push the thoughts of how you’re being manipulated to the back of the brain. That’s it, capitalism has you, and you’ve got rent to pay. Now watch these little guys build a village off the back of your hard, real-life work. What are you going to do? Not keep up?
