In this clip, rockstar/journalist Julian Dibbell interviews “gamification” researcher Sebastian Deterding on games and work, motivation, and design at the “For the Win” Symposium at the Wharton School.

Sebastian Deterding interview from For the Win on Vimeo.

You will note that there is a compelling parallel between the questions Dibbell and Deterding are asking and our own. Problematically, I think, the answers at which Deterding arrives (“Self-Determination Theory,” ftw) remain blissfully (if not dangerously) ignorant of centuries of relevant work in political philosophy on knowledge, culture, and power.

Self-Determination Theory is a useful fiction (especially for powerful elites and faceless corporations), but we are obliged to recognize that our selves are not always our own.