Of all the demos at this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt, Scoutible’s mobile game for replacing the job interview grabbed my attention. Some of the surrounding demos seemed like awesome tech solutions in search of a problem to solve, but, come on, what doesn’t suck about job interviews? Who wouldn’t rather play a game?
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I love applied games and I’m also a sucker for personality analysis, so I was excited to try the free game. In Scoutible, players have mysteriously landed on a desert island, which is probably my favorite type of game…. Monkey Island, Sims: Castaway, MyTribe, Stranded Without A Phone, even Next Island (I’ve spent a fairly significant chunk of time pretending to be stuck on a deserted island). I had really high hopes for Scoutible, I was already imagining a Ready Player One future, where we’d all unlock insights into our personalities and career skills through playing a survival game.
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When I was interacting with Scoutible’s few NPCs, I was given the sort of black-and-white options we always try to avoid in game development. One NPC failed to do what the boss NPC asked him for — do you scold him, or do the task yourself? Then do you complain about his laziness or make excuses for him? I was disappointed by the lack of nuance in any interpersonal interactions. These felt like generic job interview questions with a thin veneer of gameplay over it.
Also, I didn’t realize it until I was sourcing images for this article, but the contrast between the polished website images and the screenshots from the beta couldn’t possible be stronger, could it?
Source: “Scoutible,” a Game That Hopes To Replace Job Interviews (Sort Of) | (The) Absolute
