[Malarkey73]

I don't think it is inane at all. Lots of games since Monopoly, Elite and running through Civilisation and SimCity have model economics, free trade, and free thinking ideas in-built into the game mechanics. And a lot of economics and free trade ideas seem to be justified by game theory and the naturalistic fallacy.

And a lot of chasing GDP or national wealth or Educational policy sometimes seem to be maximising some goal - like a game- rather than just running countries for the benefit of people.

I think its actually a very telling analogy if you think a little more deeply about it.

[davidw]

It's a totally made-up analogy with no supporting facts. What does it even mean that "the real America operates according to a video game logic"? Does France operate that way? How about Morocco or Mongolia? It's nonsense.

[popeshoe]

In America if you collect 100 coins you get an extra life.

In America if you get seriously hurt you get taken to hospital and lose some money

In America you can only carry 2 guns

In America if you try and run forward and sideways at once the two velocities are combined and you run twice as fast

I guess some of them work

[iopq]

you run sqrt(2) as fast

[TeMPOraL]

What does "gamification" means? I say answers to those two questions are very relevant to each other.