C. Thi Nguyen, a philosopher who studies games and their effects on human values, argues that scoring systems shape our desires in ways we rarely recognize. Games, he contends, are among the most important art forms of our era, embodying the spirit of free play and revealing the beauty inherent in action itself. From video games and sports to cooking, gardening, and fly-fishing, games remind us that outcomes matter less than the joy of doing. Their scoring systems help by giving us temporary goals to try on. But the same scoring logic has colonized our corporations and bureaucracies in the form of metrics and rankings. Unlike games we can exit, these metrics tell us how to measure success in life, encouraging us to outsource our values to external authorities and to prize what's countable over what truly matters. Nguyen, author of 'Games: Agency as Art,' combines philosophy with enthusiastic celebration of games' inner workings. He draws on his expertise in both the philosophy of games and the philosophy of data to illuminate how metrics capture us, sacrifice our independence, and flatten our lives. The book asks a fundamental question: is this the game you really want to be playing? Readers will never look at points, rankings, or performance reviews the same way.