You've Been Played
by Adrian Hon · first published 2022
6mentions
1recommended by
3HN commenters
2022–2026first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
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Cute, but the industry has vastly outpaced humans at gaming and abusing the brain’s chemistry. You’ve Been Played is a good book, as is anything by Jaron Lanier. For the majority, there is no healthy relationship with ‘technology’ — in the smartphone and modern web sense — until technology stops trying to make them…
on “Tired of AI, people are committing to the analog lifestyle in 2026” ↗Self-link: I wrote about this excellent study in my recent book critiquing gamification, You’ve Been Played: https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/adrian-hon/youve-been-play... Gamification is significantly more widespread and influential than commonly thought. We’re aware of it in our own corners of life and…
on “Gamification affects software developers: Cautionary evidence from GitHub” ↗Self-promo: If you're interested in the rise of gamification, how it works (and doesn't work), and how it's being used in workplaces, schools, governments, and social media, I published a book last year called You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adrian-hon/youve-be... I've been designing games for twenty years, and I'm CEO at Six…
on “Gamification, life, and the pursuit of a gold badge” ↗Self-promo: I recently wrote a book critiquing gamification of this kind, examining it across health and fitness and lifestyle apps, video games, workplaces, finance, and more. It’s called You’ve Been Played and you can find a bunch of excerpts and reviews and discussions here: https://www.metafilter.com/197065/Youve-Been-Played I think I have a unique perspective on the topic as CEO of a games company (Six…
on “The New Smoking (2021)” ↗You've Been Played https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/books/review/youve-been-p...
on “Carmack: “There’s a bunch that I’m grumpy about” in virtual reality” ↗…from our employers or in our schools and colleges, or built into devices and platforms like the Apple Watch and iOS. If you’re interested in this subject, I wrote a book critiquing gamification called “You’ve Been Played” - the NYT called it illuminating and persuasive!
on “Why everything is becoming a game” ↗