Gaming may be thought of as a fun and frivolous hobby. The video game industry generates huge amounts of money, but does little to improve the world.
However, recent developments are changing this view. More and more organizations are using video games to address real-world issues such as energy reduction and water conservation. The United Nations has also developed an online game called Mission 1.5 to help tackle the climate crisis.
This approach is called “gamification.” Gamification aims to create the same sense of purpose and accomplishment that you feel while playing a video game, but it delivers a different kind of outcome, such as saving the planet. And it's also being used to influence the way people work.
Many companies have been trying for decades to make their workplaces more playful, such as by making table tennis and board games available in recreational areas. Some have invited staff to use Lego to hone their collaboration and communication skills.
But gamification is different. Rather than immersing employees in a standalone game, gamification imposes a digital “gaming layer” on specific jobs.
For example, when Amazon employees are playing the fantasy video game “Dragon Duel,” they are actually also doing regular jobs. In this case, you are picking items from the warehouse shelves and preparing them for delivery.
The idea is that gamification can make work less boring by adding a gaming layer to it. But beyond that, gamification promises to make work inherently rewarding. The aim is to turn work into an “autotelic activity”, something done for its own sake, entirely for its own reward.
This makes work more like a hobby, like dancing, rock climbing, or video games. Most people do these activities because they inherently enjoy them, rather than for external motivations such as money or status.
Psychological research has linked autotelic experiences to individual well-being. Simply put, we feel good when we're doing something we really want to do.
This is an idea that goes back to Aristotle. For Aristotle, happiness (or what he called “eudaimonia”) involves engaging in an activity that serves an end in itself. Aristotle considers philosophy to be the most self-indulgent activity because it involves reflection for its own sake.
More recently, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi made a similar point about play. For Csikszentmihalyi, play is the ultimate self-centered activity through which we can enter a rich, intense, and meaningful “new reality”—a realm of optimal experience. In this zone, Csikszentmihalyi said, we will be able to reach a state of deep enjoyment and full engagement.
This is where gamification comes into play. Gamification is an attempt to redesign work based on autotelic principles, which, according to theory, increases morale and engagement among staff. If work feels like playing a game, employees are more likely to feel that their work is intrinsically motivating. Gamification is expected to make the workplace happier and more humane.
ethical risk
However, gamification also has a dark side. Critics say they are often poorly designed and implemented.
For example, a business-oriented video game probably doesn't resemble the kind of sophisticated video games people are used to playing in their free time.
This is why some commentators go so far as to call gamification “bullshit.” Gamification fundamentally misunderstands the appeal of games in the first place.
But our recent research highlights deeper issues with gamification. Despite its playful nature, gamification can actually be used as a way to discipline and control workers. Games could be monitored and fine-tuned so that they could soon become a digitally enhanced version of “scientific management,” a system that aims to maximize efficiency through analysis and measurement.
Gamification is not a benign technology that induces happiness or eudaimonia. On the contrary, business strategy is often to optimize output while hiding true intentions behind a video game smokescreen.
The problem with gamification is that it makes employees feel like their work is more meaningful without actually making it so. Gamification is like a band-aid for low morale and engagement. It hides the problem but doesn't address the root cause.
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In fact, gamification can obscure (and further entrench) systemic problems such as low wages, intrusive surveillance, and unsafe working conditions. And it can prevent us from truly thinking critically about what meaningful work involves and how it is accomplished.
A happy workplace cannot be built with digital technologies like gamification. Research shows that work is meaningful when you're surrounded by colleagues who genuinely care about you as a person, not as a digital avatar or leaderboard competitor.
