Gamification is Bulls**t
My position statement at the Wharton Gamification Symposium — In his short treatise On Bulls**t, the moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt gives us a useful theory of bulls**t. We normally think of bulls**t as a synonym—albeit a somewhat vulgar one—for lies or deceit.
Context & Ripple Effects
Gamification did not appear out of nowhere by 2011: the New York Times' Prototype column had already documented offices restructuring work around game-like feedback loops back in May 2007 why work is looking more like a video game, and CNET was covering games built to subvert institutions as early as 2006 games that stick it to 'The Man'. What changed by August 2011 is that the practice graduated from novelty to industry — complete with its own academic convening, the Wharton Gamification Symposium.
Ian Bogost's position statement lands inside that legitimizing apparatus rather than outside it: he borrows Harry Frankfurt's philosophical account of bulls**t — speech indifferent to truth — to argue the gamification movement's discourse fits it. With no syndicated pickup or recorded discussion attached, the argument itself, delivered to the field's own showcase, is the story.
First-order effects
- Attendees at the Wharton Gamification Symposium are forced to defend the field's premise on new terms — not whether points and badges drive engagement, but whether the surrounding sales talk is made in good faith.
- Bogost converts a vague popular complaint into a citable philosophical framework, giving skeptics inside enterprise software and marketing a rigorous vocabulary they previously lacked.
Second-order effects
- Vendors selling gamification packages now carry the burden of proof in pitches, needing to show designed substance rather than an engagement-mechanics veneer bolted onto ordinary incentives.
- Academic and industry events on the topic face pressure over programming balance, since a showcase format can no longer assume the audience accepts the practice uncritically.
Third-order effects
- If the Frankfurt-style critique holds, the field likely bifurcates into shallow incentive-layering dismissed as empty discourse and serious game-design craft applied to non-game contexts — with the label 'gamification' itself increasingly toxic.
- The longer question raised by the 2007 workplace-gaming coverage — whether people actually want their labor structured as play — stays unresolved, and honesty-of-framing critiques like Bogost's sharpen it.
The trend: As game mechanics migrate into workplaces and marketing, the field's central battle is shifting from effectiveness metrics to whether the practice's claims are made honestly at all.