C. Thi Nguyen

As a long-time fan of games, I was delighted to find a philosophical look at how we make choices in life. If you love gaming, this is the best book on the topic you’ll ever find

I do not care about games. Or at least, I didn’t think that I did. But I was riveted from start to finish by THE SCORE, which made me rethink my relationship with my health, my bank account, and even my writing, in this moment of increasing gamification via substack. Such is the power and scope of this brilliant and timely book

There are certain concepts that, once they’re explained to you, you start to see everywhere. Thi Nguyen’s notion of value capture is exactly this kind of idea—it’s deceptively simple but profoundly insightful. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. This book beautifully encapsulates Nguyen’s thinking on the relationship between our values, our goals, and the metrics by which we measure ourselves and others. Nguyen is one of the rare academics who can render a complex theory accessible and engaging without dumbing it down. The net result is an outstanding piece of philosophy that experts and non-experts can both enjoy. But consider yourself warned: you might not be able to stop thinking about it either

Elizabeth Barnes, author of Health Problems

The Score isn’t an instruction manual for life; it’s something deeper. It teaches you to rewrite the rules, so you can live the way that suits you. Thi Nguyen is a mad genius, sharing the secret sauce to his cool

Scott Hershovitz, author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short

Almost everything you do at work, at home, and in even in your relationships, has been turned into a game with scores that supposedly show how well you’re doing it. And yet, you probably feel punished rather than rewarded by all those measures. The Score explains why and how you can wrest yourself free of the bad games that have captured you.

Ian Bogost, Professor of Film & Media Studies and Computer Science & Engineering at Washington University

This is a book about the quantitative vs. the qualitative: what happens to our sense of humanity when we submit to institutional demands that reduce the world to a set of rules? The Score is a call to reconnect with play—in our leisure time, in our experience of art, and in how we interact with friends and loved ones. And that sounds like fun to me

Eric Zimmerman, founding faculty and Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center

How to Stop Playing Someone Else’s Game

‘Games offer me the joys of complete absorption in a precise, well-defined world… and within those strictures, I find freedom.’ 
 
Scoring systems are everywhere. They underpin our daily lives – from social media to education and health – they have become pervasive and increasingly dangerous, warping our desires and outsourcing our values to external institutions. Scores are instructional manuals for behaviour. Instead of encouraging us to be more playful, to take pleasure in the journey of striving towards a goal, institutions weaponize scoring to impose their own interests. 
 
In The Score, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen shows us how games and their scoring systems, such as likes on social media or university rankings, have fundamentally changed our value systems, prioritising what can be measured and monetized over what is truly meaningful to us. 
 
In this love-letter to the immersive and profound power of games, Nguyen charts a way we might be able to break free from these constraints to lead more creative and joyful lives. To start playing our own game.

C. Thi Nguyen

Praise for The Score

As a long-time fan of games, I was delighted to find a philosophical look at how we make choices in life. If you love gaming, this is the best book on the topic you’ll ever find

I do not care about games. Or at least, I didn’t think that I did. But I was riveted from start to finish by THE SCORE, which made me rethink my relationship with my health, my bank account, and even my writi ...

There are certain concepts that, once they’re explained to you, you start to see everywhere. Thi Nguyen’s notion of value capture is exactly this kind of idea—it’s deceptively simple but profoundly ...

As a long-time fan of games, I was delighted to find a philosophical look at how we make choices in life. If you love gaming, this is the best book on the topic you’ll ever find

I do not care about games. Or at least, I didn’t think that I did. But I was riveted from start to finish by THE SCORE, which made me rethink my relationship with my health, my bank account, and even my writi ...

There are certain concepts that, once they’re explained to you, you start to see everywhere. Thi Nguyen’s notion of value capture is exactly this kind of idea—it’s deceptively simple but profoundly ...

As a long-time fan of games, I was delighted to find a philosophical look at how we make choices in life. If you love gaming, this is the best book on the topic you’ll ever find

I do not care about games. Or at least, I didn’t think that I did. But I was riveted from start to finish by THE SCORE, which made me rethink my relationship with my health, my bank account, and even my writi ...

There are certain concepts that, once they’re explained to you, you start to see everywhere. Thi Nguyen’s notion of value capture is exactly this kind of idea—it’s deceptively simple but profoundly ...

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