Games like Pokémon Go serve as experimental prototypes for broad behavioral modification infrastructure

Evidence

In the end we recognize that the probe was designed to explore the next frontier: the means of behavioral modification. The game about the game is, in fact, an experimental facsimile of surveillance capitalism’s design for our future. It follows the prediction imperative to its logical conclusion, in which data about us in scale and scope combine with actuation mechanisms that align our behavior with a new market cosmos. All the flows of surplus from all the spaces, all the things, all the bodies, all the laughter, and all the tears are finally aimed at this triumph of certain outcomes and the revenue that it can unleash. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1002

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘behavioral modification as tested commodity’ — examining how consumer ‘playfulness’ labs quietly prototype control infrastructure through entertainment.
• XREF: connects to: Augmented-reality games physically claim private space through GPS coordinates — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 971; Pokémon Go pioneered automated mass conditioning of behavior into prediction markets — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 979; Surveillance-based mapping technology directly spawned the mobile game industry — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 976 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Behavioral surplus extraction extends from virtual spaces into physical life #expands (0.88) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 623