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

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

By Adrian Hon

How games are being harnessed as instruments of exploitation--and what we can do about it Warehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving.

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Book Information

Publisher: Basic Books.
Publish Date: 09/20/2022
Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9781541600171
ISBN-10: 1541600177
Language: Eng

What We're Saying

December 14, 2022

When we take a look beyond our own front doors to learn from the world around us, we might find that the ideas that feel like mere pipe dreams now can—and in some places, already have—become our reality. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

November 17, 2022

“This terrific collection of books balances the innovative with the iterative, and champions doing the right things the right way to make our work and our future tangibly better, no matter the industry or the endeavor.” READ FULL DESCRIPTION

Full Description

How games are being harnessed as instruments of exploitation--and what we can do about it Warehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving. China scores its citizens so they behave well, and games with in-app purchases use achievements to empty your wallet. Points, badges, and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life. In You've Been Played, game designer Adrian Hon delivers a blistering takedown of how corporations, schools, and governments use games and gamification as tools for profit and coercion. These are games that we often have no choice but to play, where losing has heavy penalties. You've Been Played is a scathing indictment of a tech-driven world that wants to convince us that misery is fun, and a call to arms for anyone who hopes to preserve their dignity and autonomy.

About the Author

Adrian Hon is the CEO and founder of independent games developer Six to Start and the co-creator of Zombies, Run. He previously studied neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and the University of California, San Diego.

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