Dr Matiur Rahman

In the twenty-first century, gamification has quietly embedded itself into the fabric of everyday life. Once confined to video games and competitive sports, the mechanics of points, scores, levels, streaks, and rewards have diffused into many platforms and services, from language-learning apps like Duolingo to ride-sharing platforms such as Uber, and health-tracking devices like Fitbit. These systems do more than entertain or motivate. They shape behaviour, mould desires, and produce new norms of self-regulation. Through the theoretical lenses of Michel Foucault’s disciplinary power, behaviourist sociology, and contemporary nudging theory, gamification becomes a subtle but pervasive instrument of social control that channels individuals toward goals aligned with capitalist productivity, efficiency, and competition.

Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power provides a powerful framework for analysing this transformation. For Foucault, modern power does not merely repress but works by producing “docile bodies”—individuals who monitor, regulate, and correct themselves according to prescribed norms. In the gamified society, disciplinary mechanisms are outsourced to interfaces, devices, and apps that gently coerce users into particular actions. Fitbit users track their steps obsessively to reach a target number. Duolingo learners are driven to maintain their streaks, often engaging more with the app out of fear of losing their score than a genuine love of language. Uber drivers are rated by passengers, influencing their visibility and income. In each case, behaviour is normalised and controlled not through direct coercion but by a digital architecture that encourages continuous self-assessment, comparison, and optimisation.

Behaviourist sociology complements this view by emphasising how external reinforcements—rewards, punishments, and stimuli—shape behaviour. Classical behaviourist theorists like B.F. Skinner argued that positive reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated. Gamification relies heavily on this logic. Users are rewarded for small actions with badges, emojis, points, or rankings. Even the illusion of progress—visible in leaderboards or daily performance graphs—acts as a reinforcer, nudging individuals toward specific, repetitive actions. This instrumental approach to human motivation has been absorbed wholesale by platform capitalism, where engagement, data generation, and labour are monetised through behaviourally optimised digital experiences.

Nudging, a recent theoretical development, offers a softer version of this logic. Popularised by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, the nudging theory suggests that individuals can be subtly steered toward desirable behaviours without removing their freedom of choice. In the gamified society, nudges are embedded in interface design. After achieving a goal, the red notification bubble, the streak tracker, and the congratulatory message all serve to direct attention and choices without overt pressure. A behavioural economy emerges where micro-incentives supplant rational choice, and gamification is not a game but a behavioural script that individuals follow, often unconsciously.

Bangladesh offers a compelling example of how this global trend unfolds in a developing country context. In urban centres like Dhaka and Chattogram, ride-sharing platforms such as Uber and Pathao have gamified drivers' labour through reward systems based on customer ratings, ride completions, and punctuality. These systems are ostensibly meant to ensure quality service, but they also discipline drivers into high responsiveness and long working hours without direct managerial oversight. Gig workers, attracted by the promise of flexible income, become locked into cycles of continuous optimisation—checking scores, meeting quotas, and managing their visibility on the app. Here, gamification acts as decentralised management that maximises productivity while minimising employer responsibility.

Similarly, educational apps used by students in Bangladesh, including language-learning platforms and exam preparation tools, employ gamified models that reward consistency, speed, and correctness. While these platforms can democratise access to learning, they also risk reducing education to a series of correct answers and quantifiable achievements. The student becomes less a seeker of knowledge and more a player chasing points, certifications, or competitive rankings. This can reinforce neoliberal ideals of education as a means of marketability rather than critical thinking or civic engagement.

Bangladesh’s growing middle class in the health sector increasingly embraces fitness apps and devices like Fitbit or Xiaomi Mi Bands. These tools reward users for daily exercise, track heart rates, and send push notifications when activity levels drop. Such metrics-oriented approaches to health echo Foucault’s concept of the “bio-power”, where the state governs bodies through norms of health and productivity. However, in this case, it is not the state but algorithms and tech corporations that set the standards. The fit, active, self-regulating individual is valorised, while the sedentary or unproductive body becomes a site of quiet shame or anxiety. In a country where healthcare access is deeply unequal, such gamified health regimes may empower some while further marginalising those who cannot participate in this digital discipline.

The logic of gamification also shapes consumer behaviour. E-commerce platforms in Bangladesh like Daraz and Chaldal integrate reward points, discount badges, and loyalty scores into their apps. These systems condition customers to equate consumption with achievement, transforming shopping into a competitive sport of deal-hunting and coupon-chasing. Behavioural design elements such as countdown timers or "X people bought this in the last hour" notifications further manipulate decision-making, nudging users toward impulsive actions under the guise of rational choice.

At a deeper level, gamification trains individuals to internalise capitalist values under the illusion of play. Play, in its original sense, is voluntary, creative, and open-ended. But gamified systems turn play into structured labour, where every action has a goal, every choice is evaluated, and every behaviour is scored. This transformation is especially insidious because it is pleasurable. The dopamine hits from a completed streak or a glowing notification do not feel like coercion, yet they mould behaviour with remarkable efficacy. In this way, gamification extends the reach of capitalist discipline beyond the workplace and into leisure, health, education, and even social interaction.

In Bangladesh, this transformation is occurring alongside the digitisation of governance. As the government explores digital identity, biometric data systems, and mobile-based citizen services, it is plausible that gamification will enter public administration. Imagine a scenario where tax compliance, utility bill payments, or civic engagement are incentivised through point systems, digital badges, or rankings. While this may improve efficiency, it also risks reducing citizenship to a performance metric, eroding the complexity of civic duty into quantifiable acts of compliance.

Critics might argue that gamification increases motivation, boosts productivity, or democratises service access. Indeed, gamification can act as a catalyst for positive change in contexts of limited resources or institutional inefficiency. However, the danger lies in its uncritical adoption and invisible encroachment into all aspects of life. Social worth becomes algorithmically assigned when individuals value themselves and others based on scores, ranks, or badges. The complexity of human behaviour, identity, and motivation is flattened into data points serving corporations' interests, platforms, and surveillance systems.

The gamified society thus does not liberate but subtly disciplines. It operates at the intersection of Foucault’s power/knowledge regimes, behaviourist reinforcement loops, and nudging’s soft paternalism. It invites us to perform, compete, and improve—not out of necessity but out of habituated desire. In Bangladesh and beyond, this transformation deserves closer scrutiny, not because gamification is inherently oppressive, but because its control mechanisms are so well-disguised as fun, convenience, and empowerment.

Ultimately, the question is not whether gamification works—it does—but what kind of society it helps build. When life becomes a scoreboard, we must ask who writes the rules, who awards the points, and who profits from the game. In the rush to level up, there is a risk of losing sight of what it means to live meaningfully, beyond metrics, ranks, and the game.

The writer is a researcher and development worker.He can reached at email matiurrahman588@gmail.com