A fascinating take on social games and “gamification” through a look at the surprising appeal of a deliberately stupid Facebook game.

Tosome industry stalwarts, the gamification craze looks a lot like Cow Clicker—mindlessly deploying gaming’s most superficial and addictive features,such as leaderboards and badges, without providing the underlying experience that gives them meaning.Bogost himself made this argument at a gamification conference, during a talk called Gamification Is Bullshit,in which he suggestedan alternate term, exploitationware.That,he said, represents the true mission of gamifiers: to use game mechanics to cynically ensnare their customers, much as Cow Clicker had unwittingly hookedits prey—including,as it turnedout, Bogost himself.

Source: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_cowclicker/all/1