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Ways to Game

I can't play a video game to save my life but love the looks of this cool hand-crank console. If Tetris married Lego and they had a child, it would probably look like Playdate. They claim the toy is a lot of fun. At the other end of the gaming spectrum is Amazon trying to gamify warehouse tasks.

 The company said it doesn’t monitor game results or penalize workers for not participating. However, warehouse workers are tracked carefully for speed, efficiency and other factors, and those who underperform can be fired or reassigned. If the games are helping to push workers to be more productive, it could make those who eschew them appear to be straggling.

 Sounds a lot like treating human beings like lab rats - trying to learn what mind games can be played on them to make Amazon more money. They can play along, earn their real and fake rewards or be "reassigned" for under-performance. For a low-skilled, low-wage worker those are not such great choices.

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