We have done a series of studies demonstrating that when people play violent games (or sport games) cooperatively, they will cooperate after game play using a modified prisoners dilemma task.  We even did this with students who believed they were playing cooperatively with a student who was a fan of a rival school.  Likewise, we find that people help each other more when playing cooperatively.  Whether this translates into a "useful activity" is unclear, but I believe it would.

Thanks for your answer. My stepfather plays a video game in which you have to drive a truck through Europe, some travels take a couple of hours in real time. For me it looks very boring (is quite realistic) but I've heard the game is actually successful. Do you think we might be able to design jobs that look like games to make people happy of doing them in spite of their tediousness?

Hi,

There's quite the buzz right now in producing videogames for many different purposes (social networking, e-Learning, etc.). Personally I think It's something worth the effort and I'm developing those tools myself.

For your particular case you are probably not looking for a videogame "per se" but for a system of achievements (at lack of better expression) very common in games (that in turn may require some kind of electronic interface). Recently I've read some articles of a fellow scientist here on research gate named Benedikt Fecher who has some essays about using some of these techniques to stimulate data sharing in academic community. You should take a look at it:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272740799_A_Reputation_Economy_Results_from_an_Empirical_Survey_on_Academic_Data_Sharing

Article A Reputation Economy: Results from an Empirical Survey on Ac...

The short answer is: SURE. But it depends a lot on the sort of work. If you search for Human Computation or for Games with a Purpose (e.g. any of the games by Luis von Ahn), you'll find loads of examples that gather little) contributions of (many) players to approach and eventually solve complex problems.

Using techniques and methods from game design (like leaderboards, scores and achievements) to improve user engagement in real-world tasks is called "gamification". A nice book and a TED talk on that topic is by Jane McGonigal: "Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world".

If you're interested in how gamification can be applied to production (i.e. very concrete work situations) you can take a look at my recent papers.

Note that very little work has been done to examine how and to what extent educational/occupational games can induce goal adoption among players. Sure, it's possible to design engaging games (with engagement measured by either biometric feedback or survey tools), but unless the game objectives and learning/real world skill objectives are isomorphic, you likely won't see a transfer of either skills or interest/engagement from the game world to the real world. After all, if you want to use games to get people interested in a real world job, you need to consider:

1. Is the game a veridical match to the real world job (i.e., is playing the game an accurate representation of what that job entails)?

2. Does the game offer a richly authentic context for learning about the real world job?

3. Do the player's intentions match those of the game's designer (i.e., someone who wants to induce goal adoption related to working the job in the real world)?

Regarding the third question, specifically, whether or not something is "fun" (which is what I think you mean when you say "without external rewards") is entirely dependent on how the player, game, and environment interact in-context. A highly successful game like World of Warcraft can be said to have engaging/fun properties given its player base and the amount of time individuals spend playing, but we can't assume the same would be true if play was forced on someone who 1) didn't want to play the game in the first place, or 2) is playing to fulfill some orthogonal goal, not the intended one.

I've attached two publications that might help you think more about this topic. The first is a meta-review my colleagues and I published via Review of Educational Research in 2012, and the second is my dissertation (which goes into detail about intentionality, transfer, and player-game-context interaction in Chapter 2).

I realize this answer is probably a bit discouraging, but these are important elements of gameplay we need to understand before we can tackle instruction for work or scholarship. Too often, researchers and educators assume games are a magic bullet because of their relationship with recreation (i.e., people enjoy games, so if we make work a game, they'll enjoy that too). However, humans and human thinking/learning are complex systems, and the way we individually perceive and act is deeply rooted in our respective life-worlds, not simply fun-ness or not-fun-ness.

Article Our Princess Is in Another Castle A Review of Trends in Seri...

Thesis Project TECHNOLOGIA: A Game-Based Approach to Understanding ...

Yes. It can, because game is one factor to make people fun.

Hey Armando,

just to add some examples for "gaming for science", where people do tedious work packaged in a game...

Greetings, David

http://fold.it/portal/

http://eyewire.org/explore

I have exploited Game based approach to engage people on productive activity and had phenomenal success.

For example, used a Virtual Treasure Hunt for rapid adoption of new knowledge management platform,

OR 

A blindfold game for learning about Success Factors impacting a Project Management or

Group reading game for relevance of Thought Leadership to IT service delivery professional

Book IT Through Experiential Learning

Of course. Just explore the area of Serious Games and the multiple possibilities that the use of games can offer for different "serious" purposes.