You’ve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All

Hon (A History of the Future in 100 Objects), CEO and founder of game developer Six to Start, warns in this convincing outing that gamification—using “ideas from game design to make difficult or dull activities more fun”—has “become the twenty-first century’s most advanced form of behavioural control.” Tools purportedly designed to motivate students or increase worker productivity actually have insidious psychological effects, he suggests, often resulting in covert wage decreases, as employees are pressured into working more for no increased pay. Myriad examples bolster his case: he describes classroom behavior-monitoring apps that function as an “on-ramp to Foucault’s panopticon,” games used at Amazon that incentivize “returning from break faster,” race-against-the-clock timers that gives McDonald’s managers leverage to “discipline and punish poor performers,” and the “veritable bonanza of quests and bonuses” at Uber, “all to entice drivers into working as long as they possibly can.” Hon ends with detailed, practical steps to combat this trend: designers ought to “act ethically” and accept responsibility when their games cause harm, and legislation should be passed to mandate transparency regarding business productivity quotas and to protect workers’ privacy. This passionate survey is a wake-up call for workers and political leaders alike. (Sept.)