Ping-pong. Pool. Foosball. Ms. Pac-Man & Galaga. Xbox. Wii. These are the ubiquitous games found in creative boutiques around the world. In our industry, conversations at networking events go something like this: “Hey, you work at XJM Creative? They have a cool office. I dig the foosball table.” “Oh, Salamander Design? I love how they use their ping-pong table as the conference table. So hip.”

I’ve heard it many times before: “You ad people are so lucky. Get to wear sneakers and play games all day.” Yep. That’s all we do. Wear shoes and play all day. Maybe having games in the office was atypical a few years ago—the fun stuff reserved for the wacky ones—but that paradigm has shifted.

Everybody plays.

I’ve been reading a stellar book, Reality is Broken, by game expert and researcher Jane McGonigal. (You should read it, even if you’ve never played a game in your life, which would be weird). McGonigal lays it out like this: hundreds of millions of people across the planet are opting out of reality everyday to play games, spending a collective 3 billion (3,000,000,000) hours a week playing games. We’re not just talking about hardcore World of Warcraft die-hards who sit captivated by their digital reality 40+ hours a week. We’re talking stay-at-home-moms, the elderly, full families, rich people, poor people—everyone is playing games and with more frequency than ever.

A quick game of Sudoku or Solitaire can help stimulate the brain. A pleasant watering of your pattypan squash in Farmville is refreshing after a draining meeting. About this positive effect, McGonigal writes: “A recent major survey of high-level executives, including chief executive officers, chief financial officers, and presidents, revealed that 70 percent of them regularly play casual computer games while working.” And over half of these same high-level executives said that playing games helped them feel more productive at work.

So I find it rather fitting that we make games here at Six Foot. All kinds. Mobile, iPad, Android, even PC and console games. And we love to play games. But our ping-pong table stays folded up. There’s no crack of little plastic men against the foosball. Our Wii is reserved for parties. We choose something more physically demanding. More civilized. We play Badminton.

The Court is in Session. (After lunch).

A few months ago, in typical Six Foot fashion, five well-educated and seasoned professionals took great care to execute a close-to-regulation Badminton court at our headquarters in Houston. No masking tape lines. No shoddy net. We’re talking thick, super-adhesive blue tape that won’t budge, and a fluorescent green net under which employees nonchalantly duck as they walk to and fro about the office. Throughout the day, especially at lunchtime and six-ish, the court erupts in friendly competition—oohs, aahs and laughter echoing down the hall.

Badminton offers us many benefits—the chance to get up and move around, a break from heavy brain-work—but the one benefit I find most appealing, of course, is the opportunity to trash talk colleagues and make fun of myself. In essence, to laugh with my friends. (Friends, not colleagues, being the operative word there.) I especially love to demean our friendly designer Darren Smith. He’s humble. He’s mediocre with the racket and the shuttlecock, and he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that McGonigal writes fondly of trash talk. “Teasing each other, recent scientific research has shown, is one of the fastest and most effective ways to intensify our positive feelings for each other.” She goes on to suggest that “we crave the distinctly rewarding feeling we get from a good game when we soundly beat, or are beaten, by people we really like.”

I wholeheartedly agree with McGonigal when she says that playful teasing is about trust: we tease people we trust and we allow people we trust to tease us. Tease, and be teased. That’s the way to play.

It Can Cause a Racket. (Sorry, I had to say it).

Now, don’t get me wrong, our Badminton court doesn’t trump everything. Sometimes when we take the court, office doors shut and headphones are donned. And sometimes, when we grab rackets and see the office hum with activity, we put them back in the bucket. We’ve dismantled the net for large meetings and working sessions, in-house photo shoots and live-action filming—but most of the time, the court stays up. Ready whenever we need it. Even clients who visit our Houston office have also joined us on the court from time to time.

I will concede that playing games at work can get out of hand (there’s always someone who screws it up for the rest of us) and has created an age-old battle between people like me and the naysayers out there who remind us that work is for work and we must remain focused during the hours of 9-6. But I think, along with many other researchers (much more rational and intelligent than I), that taking a break to play games helps people focus and feel happier about what they do and the place they do it for.

To sum it up: if you are playing games at work, with maturity and moderation of course, don’t stop. And if you aren’t playing games at work, then you should start.

Shall we play a game?

In promotion of the film, Be Kind, Rewind, the Alamo Drafthouse in Houston hosted a contest for the best Sweded film. Drafthouse provided each participant two film titles to choose from. After a rigorous evening of development, this is the entry that won Six Foot the first place prize of Alamo Drafthouse gift cards and a stack of classic VHS tapes. Woo hoo!