Gamification, Manipulation, and Domination

Gamification, Manipulation, and Domination

Gamification, Manipulation, and Domination

By Moti Gorin

Abstract

“In this chapter, I will argue that a family of accounts of manipulation, though differing in their details, can explain why gamification is a form of interpersonal manipulation. The accounts I will describe are what I call norm-based accounts, as they all take the violation or misuse of norms to be central to manipulation. The normativity at issue is not or need not be moral normativity, though the moral status of manipulation ultimately will be determined by the way in which, and the purpose for which, the norms in question are violated or misused. Gamification will turn out to be a method of embedding game rules and the motivations generated by these rules within larger practices that are normatively independent of the game rules embedded within them. By embedding game rules within these larger normativestructures and practices, gamifers leave their players detached from the considerations that ought to govern their behavior within the larger practices.This is not always wrong, and though I cannot offer a comprehensive theoryof the wrongness of manipulation, I will suggest that sometimes the arbitrariness of the relation between game rules and the wider norms that govern the practices within which these rules are embedded make gamification a form of domination. If this is correct, then the wrongness of gamification manipulation may be accounted for in terms of the unfreedom it promotes.”

Reference

Gorin, M. (2022). Gamification, manipulation, and Domination. Retrieved July 5, 2022, from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003205425-12/gamification-manipulation-domination-1-moti-gorin

Keyword

Gamification, game rules, manipulation, domination, productivity ,research