The score : how to stop playing somebody else's game

Nguyen, C. Thi, author.

Book

New York : Penguin Press, 2026.

353 pages ; 25 cm

"A philosophy of games to help us win back control over what we value. [The author] takes us deep into the heart of games, and into the depths of bureaucracy, to see how scoring systems shape our desires. Games are the most important art form of our era. They embody the spirit of free play. They show us the subtle beauty of action everywhere in life in video games, sports, and boardgames--but also cooking, gardening, fly-fishing, and running. They remind us that it isn't always about outcomes, but about how glorious it feels to be doing the thing. And the scoring systems help get us there, by giving us new goals to try on. Scoring systems are also at the center of our corporations and bureaucracies--in the form of metrics and rankings. They tell us exactly how to measure our success. They encourage us to outsource our values to an external authority. And they push on us to value simple, countable things. Metrics don't capture what really matters; they only capture what's easy to measure. The price of that clarity is our independence. The Score asks us is this the game you really want to be playing?"-- Provided by publisher.

Games -- Psychological aspects.

Games -- Philosophy.

How to stop playing somebody else's game

Part 1: Opening moves. Is this the game you really want to be playing? -- Striving play -- Value capture -- Scoring systems create convergence -- Part 2: What scores do. The art of agency -- Transparency is surveillance -- The beauty of the process -- The limits of data -- The score shapes the struggle -- Part 3: Why use mechnaical scoring? Scoring systems change the subject -- Mechanical values -- Flexibility through restriction -- The secret heart of mechanization -- Choice of difficulty -- Reflective control -- Part 4: Standarized values. Values hidden in the machine -- Whose interest does standardization serve? -- Who cuts up the world? -- Islands of meaning -- Centralizing values -- Technologies of work, technologies of play -- Part 5: What do we do? There is too much world -- Objectivity laundering -- The seductions of clarity -- The triumph of universal language -- Play for its own sake -- Art is a game -- Infrastructures of play -- Some endings.

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