On the Media The Danger of Keeping Score
6 snips
Apr 1, 2026 
C. Thi Nguyen, philosopher of games and author of The Score, explores how metrics and gamification reshape what we value. He discusses how scoring systems steer attention, migrate into everyday life, and compress complex values into rankings. Short, provocative takes probe when scores help play and when they hijack meaning.
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Scoring Systems Shape Player Values
- Scoring systems in games tell players what to care about and set their desires.
- Game designer Reiner Knizia calls scoring his most important tool because it directs player attention and changes behavior.
How Academic Metrics Turned Career Into A Game
- C. Thi Nguyen describes becoming professionalized in academia and adopting status-ranked goals like top journals and departments.
- He says his career became a game where publishing in high-ranked venues and prestige metrics defined success.
Rankings Outsource Collective Values
- Rankings compress plural values into a single metric and outsource judgment to an external system.
- Using U.S. News rankings as an example, Nguyen shows how everyone orients to measured inputs like LSAT and employment, eroding independent deliberation.
