While I understand the point Ian Bogost was trying to make in his piece 'gamification is bullshit', I think he was taking things a little too seriously and ignoring a large part of the industry. First of all, not every game needs to transcend the player–its ok to just play a game for fun, that doesn't mean youre a sellout or that you easily fall into traps set by large corporations. Bogost says that "gamification is easy. it offers simple, repeatable approaches in which benefit, honor, and aesthetics are less important than facility"– but I truly dont understand why it has to be interpreted like that. Its no secret that the video game industry is a large and possibly profitable one, so even if a game maker had a goal of making something educational like "Phone Story", that doesn't mean they were necessarily going to do it for free. Just because you are passionate about the work you are putting out into the world, does not mean you dont want some kind of reward for it.
It is not a crime for someone to want to make money off of their lives work. So I think its probably safe to assume that people developing games want to be paid for their work just like everyone else. And on some level that means trying to market your game to the widest audience possible. When it comes to things like video games, art, or other media, worth can very much be linked to the audiences reaction which in turn becomes money. A song can have all the meaning in the world, but if it reaches no one then in some sense it has failed. A game can have deep meaning and as many around messages as you want and not be played by a single person, while a game purely meant for fun can be enjoyed by millions. Obviously you could have any degree of combination of the both but I just felt that Bogost's standards were unnecessarily high and didn't really apply to how the world actually works.
The tone of his piece was simply too judgmental for me to really even want to finish reading the entire thing, but I thought his ending note that "mediocrity's lips are seductive because they are willing" was very much blaming consumers and judging them for sometimes choosing to enjoy a mindlessly fun game over one that is meant to make them think about the world. I accept that this is how the author sees things, but honestly I think he is underestimating how important 'bullshitting' is for the entire game industry
I wish you would have finished the article or at least googled gamification because you are running off to left field. Bogost isn't addressing games at all; gamification refers to using principles of game design in other fields - like running a business. His criticism addresses gamification as a means of manipulation.
Most of what you have exists only as a tangential straw-man. Bogost is addressing leaders, not blaming consumers. He is targeting corporate practices and structures that have nothing to do with the games industry, video games, or what you like to play.
I also want to challenge you on this bit :