[alanctgardner3]

I'm pretty sure this is a rephrasing of a much older, well known principle in psychology (they cover it in undergrad), that work satisfaction is a function of: autonomy, feedback and variety.

In other words: people want to control how they do work, and feel they have some flexibility. They want to recieve prompt feedback so they understand when they're doing well or badly. And they want to encounter a variety of challenges.

Gamification is just building a tight feedback loop and providing sufficient variety. Autonomy is much harder to automate, because it seems to be the opposite of building an 'on-rails' experience guaranteed to please someone.