Normative Heuristic Microethic #3.

I’ll try not to say much here, because Sebastian Deterding says it better. Flip through the entire presentation; the first bit just sounds like gamification research (and does a pretty good job of explaining the whole “field”), but the payoff to your life and mine comes at the end.

When I was a kid, I had to mow the lawn every week. Not a game: not fun. Once I was feeling creative so I mowed everything but a happy face, leaving the design in the yard. I wouldn’t have admitted it, but it was kind of fun. Sometimes when I go back to my parents' house, I decide to mow the lawn, maybe to do something nice for them or get some fresh air. I decide it’s a game: it’s fun again.

What if I had a flexible enough mind that, whenever someone said “you must do X”, I would immediately transform that into “I’m going to play this game”? I’m not sure how this fits in with my other rules of life, but whenever I decide something’s a game, it usually turns out better.