The Score

How to Stop Playing Someone Else’s Game

By: C. Thi Nguyen

Narrated by: C. Thi Nguyen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Is this the game you want to be playing?
Scoring systems are everywhere. Underpinning our daily lives – whether it’s the fit bits on our wrists, likes on social media, and even school rankings – they have become pervasive and increasingly dangerous, warping our desires and outsourcing our values to external institutions. Instead of encouraging us to be more playful, to take pleasure in the journey of striving towards a goal, institutions, corporations and bureaucracies weaponize scoring systems to impose their own interests. No matter what, we always seem to be playing by someone else’s rules.

In The Score, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen shows us how this newly ‘gamified’ world has fundamentally captured our value systems, turning what might be moral or personal life choices into numerical data, and forcing us to prioritise what can be measured and monetized over what is truly meaningful to us.

A life-long lover of online and board games himself, Nguyen argues that we should not stop playing games but rather take a step back and become more aware of their immersive and profound power, so that we might chart a way towards more creative and joyful lives. To start playing our own game.

'This is the best book on the topic you’ll ever find' Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple
© C. Thi Nguyen 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critic reviews

Mind-expanding… so exuberant and readable that the depth and seriousness of its insights almost sneak up on you (Jennifer Szalai)

Nguyen is lucid, entertaining and precise, illustrating ideas with a mix of personal stories and real-world examples. He has a particular knack for conveying the specific, intrinsic pleasures of his many enthusiasms... The Score is a compelling read, urgent but never alarmist.... I came away enriched and uplifted (Tim Clare)

'[A] subtle and stimulating philosophical examination of the increasingly ubiquitous phenomenon of scoring systems... advocating a kind of playful rebellion against rules and metrics... I give this excellent book five stars (Stuart Jeffries)

Part polemic and part philosophical inquiry... profound … If we truly want to understand our civic plight – and not just tick off some talking points – then we should read The Score (Simon Ings)

Beautifully written and full of aphoristic wit... From time to time, a book comes along that causes the reader to reconsider just about everything... the results are extraordinary (Matthew d'Ancona)

Playful, fresh... Nguyen convincingly shows why choosing to abide by the rules in the artificial sandbox of games can help us explore, be open and get exposure to life's richness (Alex Wilkins)

Brilliant and wildly original … profound, rigorous and frequently beautiful book … socially attentive, historically literate and imbued with sensual glee (Becca Rothfeld)

Delightfully irreverent... An engaging look at the games we play and whatever freedom we might have as we do so

[A] trenchant philosophical investigation…. Illustrating his ideas with lucid philosophy and descriptions of his own innumerable hobbies (Tetris, bouldering, yo-yo), Nguyen skillfully explores the ways in which humans think about progress, creativity, and play. It makes for a captivating look at how imperfect measures of success shape society

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 (Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple)