[milfot]

Particularly bad.. incentivisation schemes create proxies for success and inevitably get gamed. Why bother with all the hard stuff when you can shortcut your way to success?

Good incentives are life really.. look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I believe most people work because they have to, but most people who work hard, work hard because they want to. The pay off is growth, progress, self-actualisation.

As an aside, this is why I question the whole gamification thing. The best games life-ify the game. Why would you want to remove meaning and complexity from work?