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alex_hev's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
sad
medium-paced
3.75
Didn't realize how much gamification had infiltrated our lives. I think the author stretched a couple examples a little but it seems gamifying everything has become extremely commonplace. A little of it good, but mostly bad. Doesn't seem like something we can put back in the bottle, if people would even want to.
glecharles's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Insightful overview of gamification in various forms — some familiar, some new (to me) — that's ultimately quite depressing. I don't generally believe in the inevitability of anything related to technology other than the likelihood that we'll find and prioritize the worst use cases first, and consider them innovative, required, and infinite y scalable.
omikun's review against another edition
4.0
Hon points out different ways our lives have been gamified, from work to school to love and also games. How the variable rewards and leaderboards that inspires competition goads us on even when we don’t enjoy it. There are a few thoughtful gems in the book, like how using gamification is like treating ourselves as an object to be manipulated or how it deprives us of intrinsic motivation. By and large it’s rather repetitive and I found myself getting bored. Maybe I should go for a run instead?
However, there are little gems here that make the book worth its weight in gold:
"Using rewards and punishments to motivate yourself eventually feels dirty because you’re not treating yourself as a human—as an end in yourself—but as a thing to be manipulated."
However, there are little gems here that make the book worth its weight in gold:
"Using rewards and punishments to motivate yourself eventually feels dirty because you’re not treating yourself as a human—as an end in yourself—but as a thing to be manipulated."
bootman's review against another edition
5.0
What an awesome book. I thought this was just going to be another book saying “technology bad” and explain how social media is just trying to get us hooked in various ways. Adrian Hon killed it with this book by diving deep into a ton of different areas where gamification is being used in different ways for both good and bad. He has a background in creating games, so it was really interesting learning about the thought process that goes into them, but this book was surprisingly philosophical as well by discussing the ethics behind different organizations using gamification.
I really liked how he discussed how workplaces use gamification to get more out of employees while not giving anything back to them and better ways of doing this. I definitely recommend this book and hope it gets the attention it deserves.
I really liked how he discussed how workplaces use gamification to get more out of employees while not giving anything back to them and better ways of doing this. I definitely recommend this book and hope it gets the attention it deserves.