How Metrics and Gamification Shape Our Values: C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Scoring Systems, and Personal Agency

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Understanding Games and Human Agency

C. Thi Nguyen, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah and author of Games: Agency as Art and The Score, explores how games function as an art form centered on human agency and the critical distinction between genuine games and gamified systems.

The Balance Between Enjoyment and Efficiency

Nguyen argues that the enjoyment of activities should not be sacrificed for efficiency or higher scores. This tension is fundamental: efficiency often conflicts with the intrinsic enjoyment of recreational pursuits. When we prioritize scoring over experience, we risk losing the original purpose of an activity. “What is the goddamn point?” he asks, highlighting how efficiency-driven approaches may strip meaning from activities we once found fulfilling. Understanding this balance is key to maintaining motivation and satisfaction in both games and life.

Defining Games: Voluntarily Taking On Obstacles

Nguyen defines games as activities involving “voluntarily taking on unnecessary obstacles to create the possibility of struggle.” This definition is crucial because not all life activities can be framed as games. Games are distinct from practical activities based on their underlying motivations and goals.

Practical activities focus on efficiency and goal achievement—you have a desired outcome and pursue it as efficiently as possible. Game activities, by contrast, emphasize enjoyment and challenge. The mountain climber who rejects a helicopter ride exemplifies intrinsic motivation: the process itself matters more than the outcome. This distinction helps us understand why shortcuts undermine the satisfaction of genuine achievement.

The Problem with Gamification

While social media operates with game-like mechanics through scoring systems (likes, shares, followers), Nguyen emphasizes that this is “not a game in a really profound way but superficially game-like.” True games involve voluntary participation with understood rules; social media gamification influences behavior without being genuine games, often misrepresenting what constitutes real engagement.

Scoring systems in authentic games provide objective performance measures that eliminate ambiguity in competition. However, these same systems can misrepresent the complexity of human communication and creative expression. Quantitative metrics often lack the context needed for proper understanding and can replace nuanced comprehension with oversimplified measures.

The Danger of Outsourcing Values

When we outsource our values to external scoring systems, we risk losing personal understanding of what truly matters. As Nguyen notes, “You’re not developing a sense of what matters to you.” External value systems shape individual identity and priorities in ways we may not fully recognize.

Societal metrics have deep impacts on our behavior and decision-making. The scoring systems we engage with can either control us or serve as tools for our own pursuits. Recognizing this influence is crucial for maintaining personal agency in metrics-driven environments.

Playfulness as Resistance

Playfulness offers a way to distance ourselves from societal scoring systems. It’s “a habit that can help you regularly distance yourself” from the pressure to optimize every aspect of life. By maintaining a playful mindset, we can preserve flexibility in rule interpretation and engagement, allowing creativity and satisfaction to flourish despite the metrics-driven world around us.

The key insight: understanding the difference between genuine games and gamified systems empowers us to make conscious choices about which scoring systems deserve our attention and which ones we should resist.