Microsoft 365 adds four new games through new Teams app

Yahoo Finance Live's Seana Smith and Rachelle Akuffo discuss Microsoft's decision to incorporate gaming into their Teams app.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Could playing games make you more productive? Well, Microsoft thinks so, the software giant adding four games to Microsoft Teams. You heard that right. Now Microsoft citing a study by Brigham Young University, BYU, that says teams that play short video games together were 20% more productive than those who participated in more traditional team building activities.

Rachelle, the results of that study caught me a little bit by surprise. I guess the fact that they were 20% more productive, that's a pretty big jump there. It lets people-- it lets you go head to head with a coworker. To me, I just think it's distracting. But from the results of the study, maybe there is a point there.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, it's interesting. Even some of the games that they talk about-- Solitaire, Minesweeper, Wordament, and Microsoft Icebreakers-- those last two, I have no idea what they even are. But it's supposed to be about team building. And I guess if it helps with that, then that would translate into the productivity because otherwise, it does seem like just another distraction.

But I mean, they have these-- on the Microsoft blog, they say that these are quick interactive multiplayer games from between two to 250 players. I can't even imagine if we had, like, a 250-people game on Yahoo and all of us on there. It would just be pandemonium. But I mean, if the results show that it'll make you more productive as a team, you never know, right? You try something, you never know. Maybe it'll work.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, and I think it's also an example of these companies just trying everything they can to differentiate their products. We know competition in this space has become very fierce over the last several months, really since the start of the pandemic.

So maybe they're thinking that this is something that's going to separate themselves from the competitors out there. I don't know. It might be a tough sell to some of the businesses that their employees are, I guess, good use of their time, playing some of these games.