World Builders,

Life is better when you play it like a game, but it won't fulfill you if you play it without any real stakes.

The Quantified Self

You may be familiar with the idea of the "Quantified Self," or the process of tracking and analyzing life and biometric data to make positive changes health and performance.

Usually, this involves wearable devices like the Apple Watch or Oura Ring plugged into a community of peers in a pseudo-competitive social network setting.

The Life RPG

The "Life RPG" genre of mostly digital products under the quantified self umbrella. In a life RPG, as you can imagine, you are the main character: everything you do gets tracked, recorded, and rewarded.

For example, the chart-topping Habitica is a to-do list on steroids. You earn XP (or experience points) and in-game currency for completing items which you then use to "level up" and spend on digital gear, items, and pets. You can join a "party" of friends and go on quests that involve "slaying" various cheeky productivity-killing "monsters" like the "Basi-List". These ideas will be familiar if you've played a roleplaying game of any variety over the past 50 years.

Good On Paper

While it sounds engaging at first, the truth is that these "games" suffer from a lot of the same problems as their entertainment-focused counterparts.

1. Zero Accountability - Rewards are addictive, but shallow. You get "credit" for completing tasks which reinforces the behavior of checking off tasks, not doing the tasks themselves.
2. It's a FOMO Loot Grind - The item/progress treadmill creates a grinding loop that exacerbates #1 above. You always want more digital crap. Forever.
3. You'll Pay For It Somehow - These apps are products: they have to turn a profit. They're use the grind to expose the users to real-money microtransactions.

I think there's a place for life RPG-style tools in the arsenal of someone looking to level-up their life, but it needs to come later after having established positive habits without a game-like aid.

Verdict: You can't game yourself to the next level that easily.

I'll discuss this in greater depth, including a detailed unboxing of an interesting analog (hint: cards) Life RPG product, on an upcoming stream-recording of the Infinite Levels podcast. More on that next week.

To future worlds,

Matt Ventre

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