Gamification is Manipulative. Is It Ethical?
Gamification is Manipulative. Is It Ethical?
Gamification is Manipulative. Is It Ethical?
By Hal Conick
July 30, 2019
Summary
Thorpe and Stephen Roper, a professor at England's Warwick Business School, wrote a paper titled, "The Ethics of Gamification in a Marketing Context," in which they examine how businesses could manipulate people using gamification.
Gamification wants to engage you directly; advertisements and marketing are typically more passive.
As Gabe Zichermann writes in the book Gamification By Design, "Gamification is 75% psychology and 25% technology."
Although gamification is covert, it's most recognizable in external marketing, such as in apps, websites and contests.
Businesses know it: Analysis firm Prescient and Strategic Intelligence predicted in 2016 that the gamification market would reach $22.9 billion by 2022, a more than 2,000% increase from the 2014 gamification market.
Gamification is manipulative, writes Yu-kai Chou, known as a pioneer of gamification.
Gamification could also be unethical if the decision-maker loses sight of why their action is desirable, a process that Tae Wan Kim calls "Bullshitification." Kim, assistant professor of business ethics at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, writes in a paper that bullshitification often leads players to become enamored with points, badges and leaderboards, rather than the reasons why something is good to do, thereby putting their action at ethical risk.
There is a moment when gamification moves too far toward the manipulative end of the spectrum, Thorpe says, but that moment is hard to quantify.
The worst-case scenario, Thorpe says, is that gamification gets better and more powerfully manipulative but remains opaque to consumers.
The industry is at a crossroads right now, she says, and the marketing and business world must ensure gamification remains ethical.
Reference
Conick, H. (2019, July 30). Gamification is Manipulative. Is It Ethical? Retrieved February 10, 2020, from https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/gamification-is-manipulative-is-it-ethical/