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Adrian Hon’s You’re Played: How Businesses, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All does something I like to do with books. It causes me to ask questions that are not covered in the text. I like it when I can go by mental interfaces; thinking about things and making connections that I might not otherwise make.
I grew up around the time when people like lawyer Jack Thompson were in the news, against video games. Thompson and his contemporaries argued that video games made gamers violent and blamed video games for school shootings.
Thompson himself, not yet disbarred, earned his early fame with a lawsuit on behalf of the parents of three victims of the Heath High School shooting. At the time, he didn’t just blame video games; he also hated violent music, movies, and porn.
But in the next decade, Thompson seemed to focus more on video games. The guy seemed to have it specific to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series, in particular.
Near the end of the case, after Thompson was disbarred. Throughout the years Thompson was active, always feeling like his actions and rhetoric did the opposite of what he intended. He claimed that video games made people violent and that they trained gamers to handle and use weapons.
What he wanted didn’t really matter because the industry turned against him. In fact, actual studies disproved his claims. The man was not wrong, he was demonstrably wrong. And in his mistake, we’ve all accepted that video games don’t make people violent.
But I wonder if we haven’t convinced ourselves otherwise; that video games have no impact at all on players. I wonder if our own hubris got us where we are.
Adrian Hon’s you’ve been played
Adrian Hon is many things. He is the founder and CEO of Six to Start. He is a game developer who worked on Zombies, Run!, a mobile motion game. He studied neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the University of California.
He is also an author. Hon’s latest work is You’re Played: How Businesses, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All. And, at least when I read it, he’s at least a little anti-capitalist and pro-union.
“The gamification of video games can make them more fun, but more often than not it introduces unwanted grind and compulsive behavior,” writes Hon. “The games industry records record revenues every year, but the manipulation continues because it can never have enough money. Should we be surprised? After all, that’s capitalism.”
Those feelings are only a small part of the whole. you’ve been played wanders through the history of gamification; how the earliest practices became what we have now. How it started out as a way to improve ourselves and the world around us, but turned into something bigger than that.
you’ve been played is just a fascinating glimpse into the gamification of the world. It shows in detail that we are not as immune to the effects of video games as we may think. Sure, it’s true that video games don’t turn us into violent sociopaths. But it is clear that we are not immune to other effects.
It not only focuses on the gaming industry side but shows how even modern politically motivated movements are affected by gamification. The book offers both damning indictments of current practices and possible solutions to make things friendlier and tastier.
It’s personal
you’ve been played reads like an interesting lecture from a favorite professor. A few pages in and Hon hooks you in by making it personal and holding those hooks the whole way. It’s not just bullet points on a research paper, it’s a perspective – to be perspective. It’s not just about the games industry, but the industry plays a prominent role in his musings. How could it not?
He warns the reader of the real, tangible dangers of where we are now. About what he sees happening and what could happen in the future. He tells how we can change things.
I just hope he’s not the Cassandra of our industry.
You’ve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments and Schools Use Games to Control Us All is now available on Amazon and other retailers. Basic Books has provided a copy of the book for this review.
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