You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781541600171)

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.

Author: Adrian Hon
ISBN-10: 1541600177
ISBN-13: 9781541600171
Publisher: Basic Books
Language: English
Published: 09/20/2022
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.30w x 1.40d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/30/2022
Library Journal 07/01/2022 pg. 77
Booklist 09/01/2022 pg. 15
Choice 08/01/2023