Gamification of Work

References for Theme: Gamification of Work

"Playing work, or gamification as stultification" (2018)
If we want a world where work could be more playful, we cannot begin by simply layering mandatory challenges upon an already demanding work situation. Instead, we must begin by challenging the culturaldominance of sport-like and task-like aesthetics for games and play, and endeavouring to overcome the underlying fears that prevent work from being played. Ranciére’s (2014) work suggests another possible name for the kind of workplace where such uncertainties could be embraced: democracy. This is not at all the system of government we already have (i.e., States of oligarchic law) but the very possibility of power being possessed by absolutely anybody at all. Gamification makes democracy impossible, although it is by no means the only barrier to this...

"Soviet and American precursors to the gamification of work" (2012)
Gamification of work presents itself as a new movement: game mechanics, the argument goes, have long motivated videogame players, but just now are we realizing that they can be also applied to motivate workers performing serious, productive work. Two precursor movements, however, have had quite similar goals. The Soviet Union’s extensive experiments with workplace-based “socialist competition” hoped to use the power of games and competition to replace capitalist competition with something that would be simultaneously more engaging and humane, yet would motivate high productivity. In a different country and era, the 1990s–2000s American management trend of “fun at work” proposed reimagining the workplace as a fun and playful locale rather than one of work and drudgery, recapturing some of...

"A Numbers Game: Quantification of Work, Auto-Gamification, and Worker Productivity" (2020)
We found that the very process of quantifying workers’ output lent itself to gamification. Workers could see their live production numbers and “current efficiency” on their RFID devices. This availability of RFID data seemed to inadvertently promote treating work as a game played individually and independently of management, aphenomenon we call auto-gamification. Workers described “slipping into a game without even realizingit” (W1), then getting “hooked to it” (W2) and “smashing [their] way” (W12) through tasks; we noticed they often talked about their production numbers with “delight on their faces” (fieldnotes). By gamifying work, they made time fly and “work became fun” (W2). (p. 584)

Games: Agency As Art (2020)
Gamification, as most people use the term, is the intentional application of various elements of game design to nongame life in order to alter motivational states. A typical use of gamification is to increase motivation in productive behaviour. For example, fitness trackers like FitBit and Strava introduce quantification, game-like achievements, rewards, and competition to fitness routines. Such fitness trackers offer quantified reports on, say, the number of steps you took in a day, as well as leader boards, where your daily steps are compared against the steps of other people. The car-hire apps Lyft and Uber offer their drives badges and achievements for driving more miles. Disney famously gamified its hospitality workforce. Disney introduced real-time worker productivity tracking...